High Liberalism
High Liberalism
This chapter discusses high liberalism, starting with its conception of equality based on an equal sharing of material goods. Compared to the classical liberal ideal pursued by Americans, the European vision of liberal equality saw property rights not as guardians of equality but obstacles to its realization. This notion of property rights extends back at least to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The chapter first considers the high liberalist views on property and equality, focusing on the arguments advanced by Rousseau, Karl Marx, and John Stuart Mill, before discussing the rise of social justice and the decline of economic liberty. It then examines John Rawls' idea of justice as fairness and the emergence of libertarianism as the leading philosophical alternative to high liberalism. It also explores the fundamental ideas of high liberals with regard to economic liberty and the role of the state in regulating economic affairs in pursuit of the distributional requirements of social justice.
Keywords: high liberalism, equality, property rights, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, social justice, economic liberty, John Rawls, justice as fairness, libertarianism
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
