Title: The political theory of possessive individualism : Hobbes to Locke /
Authors: Macpherson, C. B. 1911-1987.; Cunningham, Frank, 1940-
Publisher: Oxford University Press,
Year: 2011
Subjects: Hobbes, Thomas,; Locke, John,; Harrington, James,; Hobbes, Thomas,; Locke, John,; Harrington, James,; Liberalisme.; Individualisme.; Individualism.; Levellers.; Individualisme.; Niveleurs (Mouvement politique)
Contents: Introduction. The roots of liberal-democratic theory -- Problems of interpretation -- Hobbe : the political obligation of the market. Philosophy and political theory -- Human nature and the state of nature -- Models of society -- Political obligation -- Penetration and limits of Hobbe's political theory -- The Levellers : franchise and freedom. The problem of franchise -- Types of franchise -- The record -- Theoretical implications -- Harrington : the opportunity state. Unexamined ambiguities -- The balance and the gentry -- The bourgeois society -- The equal commonwealth and the equal agrarian -- The self-cancelling balance principle -- Harrington's stature -- Locke : the political theory of appropriation. Interpretations -- The theory of property right -- Class differentials in natural rights and rationality -- The ambiguous state of nature -- The ambiguous civil society -- Unsettled problems reconsidered -- Possessive individualism and liberal democracy. The seventeenth-century foundations -- The twentieth-century dilemma -- Appendix : Social classes and franchise classes in England, circa 1648.