What Social Animals Owe to Each Other

by Sheldon Richman

These essays, written over the past 20 years, have a single underlying namely, that we human beings, as social animals, need individual freedom to fully flourish. The equation is individual freedom = social cooperation = individual and social flourishing. Many corollaries follow. To pick one, the freedom to choose with whom we will cooperate entails competition among those who wish to cooperate with any given individual. So the imagined conflict between cooperation and competition is a misjudgment. They are two sides of the same coin.

Genres: Philosophy

287 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 22, 2020

About the author

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute, senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society, and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies, former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest book is Coming to Palestine.

Reviews

[Jeff Russo · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, I feel a little unfair giving this book three stars. The material is good, but I must say, it does become repetitious, reading a book of essays so narrowly focused. And, don't just take my word for it, take the word of Mr Richman himself, who warns of this right in the introduction.

Thus I have to give the book the rating it merits as a book. Or, as voracious readers might put it, the book qua a book. Perhaps better to just find the occasional Richman essay elsewhere, in the course of your life, and enjoy them.

[Antonio Padilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightened

This book was great! It took a libertarian lens on many different perspectives! It made me rethink/reframe a lot of my prior beliefs. And, it also pushed me to apply my beliefs in many different aspects of life/politics