The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism

by Matthew McManus

McManus presents a comprehensive guide to the liberal socialist tradition, stretching from Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine through John Stuart Mill to Irving Howe, John Rawls and Charles Mills.

Providing a comprehensive critical genealogy of liberal socialism from a sympathetic but critical standpoint, McManus traces its core to the Revolutionary period that catalysed major divisions in liberal political theory to the French Revolution that saw the emergence of writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine who argued that liberal principles could only be inadequately instantiated in a society with high levels of material and social inequality to John Stuart Mill, the first major thinker who declared himself a liberal and a socialist and who made major contributions to both traditions through his efforts to synthesize and conciliate them. McManus argues for liberal socialism as a political theory which could truly secure equality and liberty for all.

An essential book on the tradition of liberal socialism for students, researchers and scholars of political science and humanities.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, History, Nonfiction

268 pages, Hardcover

Published November 22, 2024

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review forthcoming in _The Independent Review_

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liberal Socialism was something that didn't jar my ears but I learned it is considered an oxymoron by many, but I think it is natural to my thinking. McManus talks about this tradition a great deal and I am familiar with many of the Characters. Russell, Rawls, Keynes, Mill, Mary Woolstoncraft Shelley, James Baldwin, WEB Du Bois. MacPherson was new, but his critique of possessive liberalism as the kind of liberalism incompatible with human flourishing he explicitly marks what I always thought was a weakness of mainstream liberalism. I am surprised McManus didn't include Michael Harrington who was a founder of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America). Dude, you have written for Jacobin. I enjoyed the book and it was nice to see that Liberal socialism has a history going back to the early Enlightenment. I think Liberal Socialism still needs to wrestle more with Marx and McManus recognizes this but I think a synthesis is possible. I wish McManus dealt a little more with POC and other marginalized groups like LGBTQ people, but for a short work, it still holds a lot.

[the_english_parrot · Rating 5 out of 5]

My love for this book is coextensive with McManus’ sultry voice. McManus begins with an enlightening (I am variously uneducated) survey of two important early liberal thinkers—Hobbes and Locke. He then discusses all manner of fascinating figures, including C.B. Macpherson, who can be characterized as an immanent critic of liberalism. Macpherson disavows liberalism’s acquisitive, possessive-individualist parts and foregrounds its egalitarian and emancipatory potential.

The chapters on Paine, Stuart Mill, Rawls, among others, were very informative. Chantal Mouffe’s agonism—politicizing politics, centralizing the role of conflict in more emancipatory democracies—was very striking.

McManus does an excellent job of ‘retrieving’ past officiants of liberalism and socialism’s marriage, and I’m excited to read beyond the retrieval his future defence and exposition of the doctrine.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not agree that Marxism can fit into the liberal socialist tradition and some McManus tries to square a circle that can't really be squared, but McManus does show that there was a strain of socialistic thinking going back to classical liberalism and was developed in Keynesian and other contexts. A historically instructive text.

[John C. Duff · Rating 5 out of 5]

McManus remarkably extracts liberal elements from socialist thought throughout history, constructing a fundamental sketch of how liberal socialism could serve as the catalyst to reimagining an original liberal way of life: a necessary step in overcoming and transcending authoritarian populism.