Anti-Dictator


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A Theory of System Justification


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A leading psychologist explains why nearly all of us—including many of those who are persecuted and powerless—so often defend the social systems that cause misery and injustice. Why do we so often defend the very social systems that are responsible for injustice and exploitation? In A Theory of System Justification, John Jost argues that we are motivated to defend the status quo because doing so serves fundamental psychological needs for certainty, security, and social acceptance. We want to feel good not only about ourselves and the groups to which we belong, but also about the overarching social structure in which we live, even when it hurts others and ourselves. Jost lays out the wide range of evidence for his groundbreaking theory and examines its implications for our communities and our democracy. Drawing on twenty-five years of research, he provides an accessible account of system justification theory and its insights. System justification helps to explain deep contradictions, including the feeling among some women that they don’t deserve the same salaries as men and the tendency of some poor people to vote for policies that increase economic inequality. The theory illuminates the most pressing social and political issues of our time—why has it been so hard to combat anthropogenic climate change?—as well as some of the most intimate—why do some black children prefer white dolls to black ones and why do some people stay in bad relationships? Jost’s theory has far-reaching implications, and he offers numerous insights that political activists and social justice advocates can use to promote change.




A Humanist in Reformation Politics


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This book is the first contextual account of the political philosophy and natural law theory of the German reformer Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560). Mads Langballe Jensen presents Melanchthon as a significant political thinker in his own right and an engaged scholar drawing on the intellectual arsenal of renaissance humanism to develop a new Protestant political philosophy. As such, he also shows how and why natural law theories first became integral to Protestant political thought in response to the political and religious conflicts of the Reformation. This study offers new, contextual studies of a wide range of Melanchthon's works including his early humanist orations, commentaries on Aristotle's ethics and politics, Melanchthon's own textbooks on moral and political philosophy, and polemical works.




The Works of Tacitus


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The Law


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The Sweetness of Power


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The question of order inspired two of the greatest political thinkers of the Renaissance--Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, whose major works on the nature of government are linked in an authoritative new translation. Political adversaries but nonetheless friends, Machiavelli and Guicciardini both reflected on ancient Rome and refined their conceptions of government with an eye to the political turmoil of their own Florence. Based on the definitive Italian editions and including extensive explanatory notes, this new translation re-creates the fascinating conflict that helped to shape the history of political thought.




No Treason (Volume 1)


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Originally published in 1870, this essay by the American anarchist and political philosopher Lysander Spooner is here reproduced. Described by Murray Rothbard as "the greatest case for anarchist political philosophy ever written", Spooner's lengthy essay is still referenced by anarchists and philosophers today. In it, he argues that the American Civil War violated the US Constitution, thus rendering it null and void. An indispensable read for political historians both amateur and professional alike. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.




Discourse on Voluntary Servitude


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Discourse on Voluntary ServitudeDiscours sur la servitude volontaire�tienne de La Bo�tieLa Bo�tie's essay against dictators makes stirring reading. A clear analysis of how tyrants get power and maintain it, its simple assumption is that real power always lies in the hands of the people and that they can free themselves from a despot by an act of will unaccompanied by any gesture of violence. The astounding fact about this tract is that in 1948 it was four hundred years old. One would seek hard to find any writing of current times that strips the sham from dictators more vigorously. Better than many modern political thinkers, its author not only reveals the contemptible nature of dictatorships, but he goes on to show, as is aptly stated by the exiled Borgese, "that all servitude is voluntary and the slave is more despicable than the tyrant is hateful." No outraged cry from the past or present points the moral more clearly that Rome was worthy of her Nero, and by inference, Europe of her present little strutters and the agony in which they have engulfed their world. So appropriate to our day is this courageous essay that one's amazement is aroused by the fact that a youth of eighteen really wrote it four centuries ago, with such far-sighted wisdom that his words can resound today as an ever-echoing demand for what is still dearest to mankind.




Discourse on the Sciences and Arts


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Rousseau attacks the social and political effects of the dominant forms of scientific knowledge. Contains the entire First Discourse, contemporary attacks on it, Rousseau's replies to his critics, and his summary of the debate in his preface to Narcissus. A number of these texts have never before been available in English. The First Discourse and Polemics demonstrate the continued relevance of Rousseau's thought. Whereas his critics argue for correction of the excesses and corruptions of knowledge and the sciences as sufficient, Rousseau attacks the social and political effects of the dominant forms of scientific knowledge.




Anatomy of the State


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Murray Rothbard was known as the state's greatest living enemy, and this is his most succinct and powerful statement on the topic, an exhibit A in how he came to wear that designation proudly. He shows how the state wrecks freedom, destroys civilization, and threatens all lives and property and social well being. This gives a succinct account of Rothbard’s view of the state. Following Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock, Rothbard regards the state as a predatory entity. It does not produce anything but rather steals resources from those engaged in production. In applying this view to American history, Rothbard makes use of the work of John C. Calhoun How can an organization of this type sustain itself? It must engage in propaganda to induce popular support for its policies. Court intellectuals play a key role here, and Rothbard cites as an example of ideological mystification the work of the influential legal theorist Charles Black, Jr., on the way the Supreme Court has become a revered institution.