I’ve been re-reading Philip Pettit’s book Republicanism after having recently read most of Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty. What is striking about Pettit’s book is the seemingly wilful neglect of Hayek’s conceptualization of liberty. In fact, in his republican critique of negative liberty, Pettit neglects to address either, The Constitution of Liberty or Law, Legislation … More Republicans against Hayek
There has been a long-standing tradition within political theory of characterizing Athenian democracy as a form of ‘positive’ or ‘ancient’ liberty in opposition to ‘modern’ conceptions of ‘negative’ liberty. This stems largely from Berlin’s critique of positive liberty and Constant’s critique of ancient liberty. The influence of these two thinkers has dominated much of the … More Athenian Democracy and Politial Theory
Eric MacGilvray’s book, The Invention of Market Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2011) presents a compelling and convincing narrative of the historical eclipse of the republican conception of freedom by the more familiar market conception of freedom in the context of the synthesis of liberal and republican thought in the late eighteenth century. The crux of the argument is that … More The Invention of Market Freedom
