Online Library of Liberty
A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets. A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
Political Thought
Selected Readings on Political Thought
Introduction
The following are a selection of chapters and extracts taken from books in the OLL collection. They have been chosen because of their special importance for understanding the principles of individual liberty, limited government, and the free market. Some of the extracts are from the books themselves and serve as a representative sample of that author’s ideas. Others are introductions written by the editors of the volume which contain important biographical information about the author and a discussion of their ideas. Links are provided to the book from which the extract was taken so the reader can pursue the subject in more depth if they are interested.
Other collections of material from the OLL which are useful places to begin exploring these ideas are the following:
- Quotations about Liberty and Power
- The Best of the OLL: An Anthology
- Forgotten Gems of Liberty
- Key Documents of Liberty
- Classics of Liberty
Further Reading
- Subject Area: Political Theory
- School of Thought: 18thC Commonwealthmen
- School of Thought: 19thC English Radical Individualists
- School of Thought: 19thC French Liberalism
- School of Thought: Abolitionists
- School of Thought: French Enlightenment
- School of Thought: German Liberalism
- School of Thought: Idéologues
- School of Thought: Jeffersonian Republicans
- School of Thought: Levellers
- School of Thought: Philosophical Radicals
- School of Thought: Public Choice
- School of Thought: Scottish Enlightenment
- Group: Socialism
- Group: Women on Liberty
- Collection: Works of J.S. Mill
- Collection: Intellectual Portrait Series [audio]
- Collection: Works of Lysander Spooner??
- Collection: Political Writings of James Mill??
- Collection: Works by the Founding Fathers
- Collection: Collected Works of Key Authors
- Anthology: Key Documents of Liberty
- Historical Debate: Cato and Caesar
- Historical Debate: Divine Right of Kings
- Historical Debate: Fabian Socialism
- Historical Debate: Freedom of the Seas
- Historical Debate: Hobbes on Obligation
- Historical Debate: Liberty and Equality
- Historical Debate: Utopias
Selected Chapters and Introductions from the Collection
- Althusius and the Federal Commonwealth
- Althusius’s Political Thought
- Aristotle’s Politics
- Bryce on America
- Burckhardt’s Pessimistic Conservatism
- Calhoun on Union & Liberty
- Chodorov’s Political Thought
- Chodorov, Socialism via Taxation (1946)
- Cicero’s Commonwealth
- Classics of Political Thought
- Cobden’s Political Thought
- Condorcet, 10th Epoch. Future Progress of Man (1796)
- Constant and Modernity
- Constant’s Political Thought
- Constant, The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns (1819)
- Dante on Monarchy
- De Lolme and the English Constitution
- Eighteenth-century middle-class English radicalism
- Emerson on Anti-slavery
- Étienne de la Boétie, Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (1576)
- French Declaration of Rights
- Friedman on a Volunteer Army
- Friedman on Stability of Freedom
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) and the Fabian Society
- Guizot and Representative Government
- Guizot on the rise of the Free Cities
- Herbert & State Compulsion
- Hobbes: Oakeshott’s Introduction to Leviathan
- Hume on the Origin of Government
- Hume’s Essays
- Julian, George Washington (1817-1899)
- Kant’s Political Philosophy
- Kant’s Political Philosophy II
- Karl Marx and the Liberal Critique of Socialism
- Lecky and Democracy
- Leggett and the Doctrine of Equal Rights
- Leoni on Voting and the Market
- Macaulay, Southey’s Colloquies (1830)
- Machan, Spencer A Century Later
- Mackay on the Socialist Dystopia
- Marcus Aurelius and the Scottish Enightenment
- Marxism as Farrago: A Dialog betwen H.B Acton & a Reader
- Milton and Freedom of Speech
- Milton on the Ideal Republic
- Milton on the Right to Depose a Tyrant King
- Milton’s Political Writings
- Minogue on Freedom
- Montesquieu and the Separation of Powers
- Montesquieu’s Mes Pensées: Editor’s Introduction
- Oakeshott and Hobbes
- Paul, The Liberty and Property Defence League
- Penn’s Life and Political Thought
- Personal Rights Association
- Plato’s The Laws - Jowett’s analysis
- Plato’s The Republic - Jowett’s analysis
- Read, To Abdicate or Not
- Richter’s Socialist Dystopia
- Rothbard on the Black Revolution
- Rothbard’s Review of Leoni, Freedom and the Law
- Rousseau as Political Philosopher
- Rousseau’s Political Thought
- Spencer & the State
- Spencer on Education
- Spencer on the Tyranny of Fashion (1854)
- Spencer, Proper Sphere of Government (1843)
- Spencer, The Right to Ignore the State (1851)
- Spinoza’s Political Theory
- Tacitus and Tyranny
- Taylor and American tyranny
- The Earl of Shaftesbury on Liberty and Harmony
Last modified April 13, 2016