Charles R. McCann - Individualism and the Social Order: The Social Element in Liberal Thought

Individualism and the Social Order

Liberalism is typically misconceived as a philosophy of individualism, which cannot accept that man exists in society and that mans values are shaped by that society.

This book attempts to identify the role of community and society in the political and social thought of leading liberal social philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and Friedrich A. von Hayek.

While differing as to the nature of man and society, each thinker examined holds the basic premise that man is not an isolated creature whose life is nasty, brutish and short but, rather, that his motivations are dependent upon his place in a social order.

Charles R. McCann, Jr. is Research Associate at the University of Pittsburgh. He has produced an interesting work that mixes communitarianism and economics and will surprise and intrigue in equal measure. Students and academics involved in the history of economic thought, philosophy and libertarianism will find this book to be a useful addition to their reading list.

Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy

1 Equilibrium Versus Understanding

Towards the rehumanization of economics within social theory

Mark Addleson

2 Evolution, Order and Complexity

Edited by Elias L. Khalil and Kenneth E. Boulding

3 Interactions in Political Economy

Malvern after ten years

Edited by Steven Pressman

4 The End of Economics

Michael Perelman

5 Probability in Economics

Omar F. Hamouda and Robin Rowley

6 Capital Controversy, Post Keynesian Economics and the History of Economics

Essays in honour of Geoff Harcourt, volume one

Edited by Philip Arestis, Gabriel Palma and Malcolm Sawyer

7 Markets, Unemployment and Economic Policy

Essays in honour of Geoff Harcourt, volume two

Edited by Philip Arestis, Gabriel Palma and Malcolm Sawyer

8 Social Economy

The logic of capitalist development

Clark Everling

9 New Keynesian Economics/Post Keynesian Alternatives

Edited by Roy J. Rotheim

10 The Representative Agent in Macroeconomics

James E. Hartley

11 Borderlands of Economics

Essays in honour of Daniel R. Fusfeld

Edited by Nahid Aslanbeigui and Young Back Choi

12 Value, Distribution and Capital

Essays in honour of Pierangelo Garegnani

Edited by Gary Mongiovi and Fabio Petri

13 The Economics of Science

Methodology and epistemology as if economics really mattered

James R. Wible

14 Competitiveness, Localised Learning and Regional Development

Specialisation and prosperity in small open economies

Peter Maskell, Heikki Eskelinen, Ingjaldur Hannibalsson, Anders Malmberg and Eirik Vatne

15 Labour Market Theory

A constructive reassessment

Ben J. Fine

16 Women and European Employment

Jill Rubery, Mark Smith, Colette Fagan and Damian Grimshaw

17 Explorations in Economic Methodology

From Lakatos to empirical philosophy of science

Roger Backhouse

18 Subjectivity in Political Economy

Essays on wanting and choosing

David P. Levine

19 The Political Economy of Middle East Peace

The impact of competing trade agendas

Edited by J.W. Wright, Jnr

20 The Active Consumer

Novelty and surprise in consumer choice

Edited by Marina Bianchi

21 Subjectivism and Economic Analysis

Essays in memory of Ludwig Lachmann

Edited by Roger Koppl and Gary Mongiovi

22 Themes in Post-Keynesian Economics

Essays in honour of Geoff Harcourt, volume three

Edited by Peter Kriesler and Claudio Sardoni

23 The Dynamics of Technological Knowledge

Cristiano Antonelli

24 The Political Economy of Diet, Health and Food Policy

Ben J. Fine

25 The End of Finance

Capital market inflation, financial derivatives and pension fund capitalism

Jan Toporowski

26 Political Economy and the New Capitalism

Edited by Jan Toporowski

27 Growth Theory

A philosophical perspective

Patricia Northover

28 The Political Economy of the Small Firm

Edited by Charlie Dannreuther

29 Hahn and Economic Methodology

Edited by Thomas Boylan and Paschal F. OGorman

30 Gender, Growth and Trade

The miracle economies of the postwar years

David Kucera

31 Normative Political Economy

Subjective freedom, the market and the state

David Levine

32 Economist with a Public Purpose

Essays in honour of John Kenneth Galbraith

Edited by Michael Keaney

33 Involuntary Unemployment

The Elusive Quest for a Theory

Michel De Vroey

34 The Fundamental Institutions of Capitalism

Ernesto Screpanti

35 Transcending Transaction

The search for self-generating markets

Alan Shipman

36 Power in Business and the State

An historical analysis of its concentration

Frank Bealey

37 Editing Economics

Essays in honour of Mark Perlman

Hank Lim, Ungsuh K. Park and Geoff Harcourt

38 Money, Macroeconomics and Keynes

Essays in honour of Victoria Chick, Volume 1

Philip Arestis, Meghnad Desai and Sheila Dow

39 Methodology, Microeconomics and Keynes

Essays in honour of Victoria Chick, Volume 2

Philip Arestis, Meghnad Desai and Sheila Dow

40 Market Drive & Governance

Reexamining the rules for economic & commercial contest

Ralf Boscheck

41 The Value of Marx

Political economy for contemporary capitalism

Alfredo Saad-Filho

42 Issues in Positive Political Economy

S. Mansoob Murshed

43 The Enigma of Globalisation

A journey to a new stage of capitalism

Robert Went

44 The Market

Equilibrium, stability, mythology

S. N. Afriat

45 The Political Economy of Rule Evasion and Policy Reform

Jim Leitzel

46 Unpaid Work and the Economy

Edited by Antonella Picchio

47 Distributional Justice

Theory and measurement

Hilde Bojer

48 Cognitive Developments in Economics

Edited by Salvatore Rizzello

49 Social Foundations of Markets, Money and Credit

Costas Lapavitsas

50 Rethinking Capitalist Development

Essays on the economics of Josef Steindl

Edited by Tracy Mott and Nina Shapiro

51 An Evolutionary Approach to Social Welfare

Christian Sartorius

52 Kaleckis Economics Today

Edited by Zdzislaw L. Sadowski and Adam Szeworski

53 Fiscal Policy from Reagan to Blair

The left veers right

Ravi K. Roy and Arthur T. Denzau

54 The Cognitive Mechanics of Economic Development and Institutional Change

Bertin Martens

55 Individualism and the Social Order

The Social Element in Liberal Thought

Charles R. McCann Jr.

56 Affirmative Action in the United States and India