Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order

by Anthony de Jasay

Is the state a necessity, a convenience, or neither? It enforces collective choices in which some override the preferences and dispose of the resources of others. Moreover, collective choice serves as its own source of authority and preempts the space it wishes to occupy. The morality and efficacy of the result are perennial questions central to political philosophy.
In Against Politics Jasay takes a closely reasoned stand, based on modern rational choice arguments, for rejecting much of mainstream thought about these matters. In the first part of the book, Excuses , he assesses the standard justification of government based consent, the power of constitutions to achieve limited government, and ideas for reforming politics. In the second part, Emergent Solutions , he explores the force of first principles to secure liberties and rights and some of the potential of spontaneous conventions for generating ordered anarchy.
Written with clarity and simplicity, this powerful volume represents the central part of Jasay's recent work. Fully accessible to the general reader, it should stimulate the specialist reader to fresh thought.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Philosophy

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 27, 1997

Reviews

[Zachary Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strong collection of essays in the market anarchy tradition. I was particularly intrigued by the distinction De Jasay draws between rights and liberties in which he defines a rights as agreement based privileges always carrying a corresponding obligation and liberties as simply the ability to take any feasible action based on the legal presumption that anything that has not been forbidden by the law is permitted by the law. If accepted, this casts the notion of rights in an entirely new light and challenges my long-held support of natural rights theory. A book certain to provoke thought in the careful reader.

[Craig Bolton]

"Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought, 7) by Anthon De Jasay (1997)"