Summary
In the book, Losurdo characterises the dominant narrative regarding liberalism as hagiography, representing a gradual process of the expansion of liberty to all people. Rather, Losurdo investigates not only "the conceptual developments, but also and primarily the political and social relations it found expression in" which made itself known through various contradictions. [1] Not only is the process contradictory, but it is also marked by episodes where a group that is given rights can have those rights taken away. One such example is when Black Americans lost many of their newfound rights as the end of the Reconstruction Era gave way to the rise of Jim Crow laws.
According to Losurdo, liberalism lent itself to the foundation of Herrenvolk democracy, where one ethnic group had rights over other disenfranchised and exploited groups. Losurdo finds the early United States, a racial state with a clear difference in the rights afforded between whites and even free Blacks, to have been one such master-race democracy. [2] Additionally, influential liberal conservative Edmund Burke is credited with penning "the first organic theory of revolution as a Jewish conspiracy", an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was essential in fueling the genocidal aspects of Nazi ideology. [3]
According to Losurdo, the white supremacy that was typical of liberal thinkers of the time had a formative influence on fascism while also taking the dehumanization of those it considered inferior to extremes. For instance, Losurdo observes that the one-drop rule found in the American South was more stringent than the Nuremberg Laws (citizenship is not given if found 3⁄4 Jewish) implemented by Nazi Germany. [4]
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, economic freedom, political freedom and freedom of speech. Classical liberalism, contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism, looks more negatively on social policies, taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals, and it advocates deregulation.
John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American Revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Internationally, Locke's political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law.
Antonio Francesco Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926, where he remained until shortly before his death in 1937.
Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights.
Self-ownership, also known as sovereignty of the individual or individual sovereignty, is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to have bodily integrity and be the exclusive controller of one's own body and life. Self-ownership is a central idea in several political philosophies that emphasize individualism, such as libertarianism, liberalism, and anarchism.
Eugene Dominic Genovese was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He was noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and slaves in the South. His book Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made won the Bancroft Prize. He later abandoned the left and Marxism and embraced traditionalist conservatism. He wrote during the Cold War and his political beliefs were viewed by some as highly controversial at the time.
Equality before the law, also known as equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, legal equality, or legal egalitarianism, is the principle that all people must be equally protected by the law. The principle requires a systematic rule of law that observes due process to provide equal justice, and requires equal protection ensuring that no individual nor group of individuals be privileged over others by the law. Also called the principle of isonomy, it arises from various philosophical questions concerning equality, fairness and justice. Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of some definitions of liberalism. It is incompatible with legal slavery.
Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World is a book by Mike Davis about the connection between political economy and global climate patterns, particularly the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism during the El Niño–Southern Oscillation related famines of 1876–1878, 1896–1897, and 1899–1902 across multiple continents. The book's main conclusion is that the deaths of 30–60 million people killed in famines all over the world during the later part of the 19th century were caused by the laissez-faire and Malthusian economic ideology of the colonial governments.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung and said that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers that he respected, dedicating to him his essay Schopenhauer als Erzieher, published in 1874 as one of his Untimely Meditations.
Crawford Brough Macpherson was an influential Canadian political scientist who taught political theory at the University of Toronto.
Vincenzo Cuoco was an Italian writer. He is mainly remembered for his Saggio Storico sulla Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799. He is considered as one of the precursors of the realist school and Italian liberalism. Cuoco adapted the critique of political rationalism of Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre for liberal ends, and has been described as a better historian than either of them. He influenced many subsequent Italian intellectuals, from Ugo Foscolo and Alessandro Manzoni to Bertrando and Silvio Spaventa to Benedetto Croce and Antonio Gramsci.
Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published five times per year by Wiley-Blackwell and produced by The Antipode Foundation. Its coverage centers on critical human geography and it seeks to encourage radical spatial theorizations based on Marxist, socialist, anarchist, anti-racist, anticolonial, feminist, queer, trans*, green, and postcolonial thought. Originally inspired by the social justice movements of the 1960s, the journal supports progressive causes through the work of the Antipode Foundation, a UK registered charity. Antipode is also known for its online "Interventions", its book series, and its diverse workshops and lectures. The chief co-editors are Sharad Chari, Tariq Jazeel, Katherine McKittrick, Jenny Pickerill and Nik Theodore.
Domenico Losurdo was an Italian historian, essayist, Marxist philosopher, and communist politician.
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights, liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.
Brian Kelly is an American historian and a lecturer in US history, teaching at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. His work is concerned mainly with labor and race in the American South, although much of his most recent scholarship focuses on the formative struggles around slave emancipation during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed.
The Prison Notebooks are a series of essays written by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci was imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926. The notebooks were written between 1929 and 1935, when Gramsci was released from prison to a medical center on grounds of ill-health. His friend, Piero Sraffa, had supplied the writing implements and notebooks. Gramsci died in April 1937.
Bertrando Spaventa was a leading Italian philosopher of the 19th century whose ideas had an important influence on the changes that took place during the unification of Italy and on philosophical thought in the 20th century.
The Indian Ideology is a 2012 book by the British Marxist historian Perry Anderson, published by Three Essays Collective. A near-polemical critique of the modern Indian nation-building project, the book consists of three essays originally published in the London Review of Books (LRB) in July–August 2012.
Age of Anger: A History of the Present is a 2017 nonfiction book by Indian author Pankaj Mishra. Mishra accounts for the resurgence of reactionary and right-wing political movements in the late 2010s. He argues that nationalist, isolationist, and chauvinist movements, ranging from terror groups such as ISIS to political movements such as Brexit, have emerged in response to the globalization and normalization of Western ideals such as individualism, capitalism, and secularism.
