Democratic Theory

Description

This important work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson explores the implications of the ideas about democracy that he offered in such previous books as The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Macpherson establishes both the need and possibility of a theory of democracy that gets clear of the disabling central defect of current liberal-democratic theory - the refusal to acknowledge the importance of the idea of the transfer of power - while holding on to, or recovering, the humanistic values that liberal democracy has always claimed.

• Foundational work. One of the key pieces of writing on twentieth-century political philosophy.
• Back in print. This long out-of-print book is now available in an affordable new edition.
• New Introduction. Frank Cunningham of the University of Toronto puts the work in a twenty-first-century context in his new Introduction.

About the Author(s)

C.B. Macpherson, Late Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto

C.B. Macpherson (1911-1987) was professor of political science at the University of Toronto. Widely regarded as Canada's pre-eminent political theorist of the twentieth century, he was the author of numerous books, including The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy and The Real World of Democracy, and was named to the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honour.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Wynford Edition
PART ONE: DEMOCRACY AND PROPERTY: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND AFTER
I. The Maximization of Democracy
II. Democratic Theory: Ontology and Technology
1. THE RACE BETWEEN ONTOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY
2. WESTERN DEMOCRATIC ONTOLOGY: (1) THE INDIVIDUALIST BASE
3. WESTERN DEMOCRATIC ONTOLOGY: (2) THE EGALITARIAN COMPLEMENT
4. TECHNOLOGY, SCARCITY, AND DEMOCRACY
III. Problems of a Non-Market Theory Of Democracy
1. TWO CONCEPTS OF POWER: EXTRACTIVE AND DEVELOPMENTAL
2. POWER AND CAPACITIES
3. THE MEASUREMENT OF POWERS
4. IMPEDIMENTS AND THEIR MEASUREMENT
5. THE MAXIMIZATION OF AGGREGATE POWERS
IV. Revisionist Liberalism
1. THE LESSON OF EMPIRICISM
2. CHAPMAN'S REVISIONIST LIBERALISM
3. RAWLS'S DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
V. Berlin's Division of Liberty
1. NEGATIVE LIBERTY
2. POSITIVE LIBERTY
3. AN ALTERNATIVE DIVISION OF LIBERTY
VI. A Political Theory of Property
1. MODERN PROPERTY A PRODUCT OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY
2. MID-TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHANGES IN THE CONCEPT OF PROPERTY
3. AN IMPENDING CHANGE IN THE CONCEPT OF PROPERTY
4. BEYOND PROPERTY AS ACCESS TO THE MEANS OF LABOUR
PART TWO: RELATED PAPERS ON THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY PREDICAMENT
VII. Elegant Tombstones: A Note on Friedman's Freedom
VIII. Revolution and Ideology in the Late Twentieth Century
IX. Post-Liberal-Democracy?
X. Market Concepts in Political Theory
XI. The Deceptive Task of Political Theory
PART THREE: SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ROOTS OF THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY PREDICAMENT
XII. Servants and Labourers in Seventeenth-Century England
1. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY USAGE RE-EXAMINED
2. THE GENERAL RULE AND SPECIAL CASES
XIII. Natural Rights In Hobbes And Locke
1. INTRODUCTION
2. NATURAL RIGHTS IN HOBBES
3. NATURAL RIGHTS IN LOCKE
4. HOBBES, LOCKE, AND HUMAN RIGHTS
5. THE NEAR FUTURE OF NATURAL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
XIV. Hobbes's Bourgeois Man
Index