The Liberal Socialist Canon
A liberal vision with a long tradition.
Matthew McManus
Matt McManus is the author of "The Rise of Postmodern Conservatism" amongst other books and a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan.
A Fundamentally Anti-Democratic Tradition: Zack Beauchamp's "The Reactionary Spirit"
Where conservatives may seek to conserve their democratic systems, reactionaries by their nature seek to weaken or abolish them.
C. B. Macpherson on Retrieving Liberal Radicalism
The 20th century political theorist has much to offer for the contemporary left liberal.
The Successes and Failures of the Nordic Model: Kjell Ostberg on Swedish Social Democracy
Can we still draw hope from the past successes of Swedish social democracy?
Reintroducing Ronald Dworkin
A leftist alternative to originalism is needed now more than ever
Work Against the Poor
On Elizabeth Anderson's Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic Against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back
Samuel Moyn on the Abandonment of Revolutionary Liberalism
Samuel Moyn argues that Cold War liberals abandoned liberalism's revolutionary promise.
Nietzsche's Critique of Liberalism
Liberal institutions straightway cease from being liberal, the moment they are soundly established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions! One knows, of course, what they bring about: they undermine the Will to Power, they are the levelling of mountain
The Details of a Rawlsian Society: Daniel Chandler’s Free and Equal
…We may reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if
Understanding Liberalism in Moral Terms: Michael Walzer's "The Struggle for Decent Politics"
For friends of liberalism, to be liberal-minded means possessing a broad curiosity about all things unbridled by prejudice or contempt. As the Roman playwright Terence once put it: “I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me.” For critics of liberalism this self-ascribed broadmindedness is either or
Revisiting Tony Smith's "Beyond Liberal Egalitarianism"
Recent decades have been kind to liberal and Marxist attempts at dialogue. But old animosities are like Henry Kissinger; they die slowly. Of course there are still considerable disagreements between liberals and Marxists on a wide variety of issues. This is especially true of classical liberals and libertarians, who still
Convictions Freely Chosen: Galen Watts' The Spiritual Turn
But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs its support no longer. The rosy blush of its laughing heir, the Enlightenment, seems also to be irretrievably fading, and the idea of duty in one’s calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead religious beliefs.