The Myth of Liberal Individualism [Paperback]

This powerful and interesting study challenges the traditional 'individualist' definition of liberal political ideas.In this study Colin Bird mounts a powerful and original challenge to the traditional view that the ideas associated with the liberal political tradition--the meaning of political freedom, the notion of inviolable human rights, the idea of privacy--cohere around an 'individualist' conception of the relation between individuals, society and the state. He argues that by taking this conception for granted, theorists have exaggerated the unity and integrity of liberal political ideals, and limited our perception of the issues they raise.In this study Colin Bird mounts a powerful and original challenge to the traditional view that the ideas associated with the liberal political tradition--the meaning of political freedom, the notion of inviolable human rights, the idea of privacy--cohere around an 'individualist' conception of the relation between individuals, society and the state. He argues that by taking this conception for granted, theorists have exaggerated the unity and integrity of liberal political ideals, and limited our perception of the issues they raise.Colin Bird mounts a powerful and original challenge to the traditional view that the ideas associated with the liberal political tradition--the meaning of political freedom, the notion of inviolable human rights, the idea of privacy--cohere around an individualist conception of the relation among individuals, society and the state. He argues that by taking this conception for granted, theorists have exaggerated the unity and integrity of liberal political ideals, and limited our perception of the issues they raise.Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Individualism as a political ideal; 2. Individualism as a theory; 3. Public agency and conceptions of collectivity; 4. Individualist distributions of liberty; 5. Self-ownership and individual inviolability; 6. The myth of liberal individualism; Biblilc0