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Freedom and Power
This List Is By:
Liberty Fund Staff
Liberty Fund, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
This is the reading list for the first ever Liberty Fund Socratic Seminar held at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana on December 28-30, 1962. The purpose of this conference is to explore the central issues involved in the relationship between individual liberty and political power.
- What is the basis of legitimate authority?
- What are the appropriate functions and limitations of the state?
- What is the character of the morality and ethics needed for a free economy?
- What are the institutional arrangements needed for the protection of liberty?
The conference begins by considering two biblical examples of the corrupting influence of political power: the circumstances surrounding King David marriage to Bathsheba, and Jezebel’s plotting to kill Naboth and his sons as to enable King Ahab to take possession of Naboth’s vineyard. Locke’s Second Treatise of Government is then read in its entirety. Locke’s treatise provides a moral justification for a system of limited government. The readings by Lord Acton, Wilhelm Roepke, and Sir William Blackstone that follow are intended to serve as the basis for discussing the institutional and cultural conditions under which a system of limited government is best maintained.
- What are the dangers of democracy?
- What is the proper understanding of the doctrine of the division of power?
- How important are religious belief in setting limits on the scope of governmental power?
- What are the individual moral codes best suited for a regimen of private enterprise?
- What are the properties of a legal system that aim at fostering liberty?
Original Reading List:
- The Bible. II Samuel, Chapters 11 and 12
- The Bible: I Kings, Chapter 21
- John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government
- Lord Acton, “The History of Freedom in Antiquity”
- Lord Acton, “The History of Freedom in Christianity”
- Lord Acton, “Acton-Creighton Correspondence”
- Wilhelm Röpke, A Humane Economy (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1960), Chapter 3: “The Conditions and Limits of the Market” (not available online)
- Sir William Blackstone, “The Nature of Laws in General”
Additional Resources:
- An Introduction to the Political Thought of John Locke
- A Timeline of the Life and Work of John Lock
- A Chronology of the Life of Lord Acton
- More on Locke, Acton, and Blackstone in the OLL
- See the entries for Locke and Blackstone at the Goodrich Seminar Room
Freedom and Power in the Old Testament I: The Second Book of Samuel
Read especially Chapters 11 and 12.
Old Testament (Various Authors), The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). The Second Book of Samuel.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2022 on 2008-11-14
The text is in the public domain.
Freedom and Power in the Old Testament II: The First Book of Kings
Read especially Chapter 21.
Old Testament (Various Authors), The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). The First Book of Kings.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2020 on 2008-11-14
The text is in the public domain.
Freedom and Power in the Thought of John Locke: The Second Treatise of Government
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Thomas Hollis (London: A. Millar et al., 1764). Chapter: OF CIVIL-GOVERNMENT: BOOK II
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/222/16239 on 2008-11-14
The text is in the public domain.
Freedom and Power in Antiquity: Lord Acton I
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays, ed. John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence (London: Macmillan, 1907). Chapter: I: THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM IN ANTIQUITY1
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/75/42894 on 2008-11-14
The text is in the public domain.
Freedom and Power in Christianity: Lord Acton II
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays, ed. John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence (London: Macmillan, 1907). Chapter: II: THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM IN CHRISTIANITY1
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/75/42896 on 2008-11-14
The text is in the public domain.
Acton on the Corrupting influence of Power
In the first letter to Creighton written in 1887 Acton makes his famous statement that kings must be judged according to the same rules as ordinary men and hanged if necessary for the crimes they commit. He also states the famous dictum that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”:
I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science.
Source: Add. Mss. 6871.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1354&Itemid=262 on 2009/7/4
Freedom and Power in English Law: William Blackstone
Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books. Notes selected from the editions of Archibold, Christian, Coleridge, Chitty, Stewart, Kerr, and others, Barron Field’s Analysis, and Additional Notes, and a Life of the Author by George Sharswood. In Two Volumes. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1893). Vol. 1 - Books I & II. Chapter: SECTION II.: OF THE NATURE OF LAWS IN GENERAL.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2140/198645 on 2008-11-14
The text is in the public domain.