To a great extent, the Marxian designation of religion as the “opium of the people” has lost currency among the Eurocommunists. When Eurocommunists do make rare mention of religion, they describe it as a humanist commitment to a better world, one which the Eurocommunists see as currently unrealizable. Marxism-Leninism as a worldview has also lost currency. It is true that the West European Communists are still devoted to Marx, Engels, Lenin—as well as the “classical” Gramsci and Togliatti; but this ideology is no longer seen by them as a uniform, dogmatic view of man, nature and history. Rather, it is conceived as an instrument for analysis of political and social relations, as a “methodology for historic initiatives.”

Much has been written about Locke's Second Treatise, but still, I believe, the book's main line of argument has been left unclear. Some concepts need more prominence — the duty to preserve mankind, the right of war, and private judgment; others need less — consent, majority rule, and property. Locke's aim was not to show that political obligation rests upon consent: that is assumed without argument. What he set out to prove is that there are certain limits to political obligation which not even consent could set aside.

Hegel's philosophy of history is conventionally regarded as a part of his mature “system of science.” And so it is. What is less frequently understood, however, is that this philosophy grew out of or can at least be understood as an attempt to come to terms with a crisis in the tradition of modern natural right.

One reason the political theory of Plato's Republic is widely misunderstood is that its precise relationship to the political content of the early dialogues is not generally recognized. That the political views of the Republic are frequently misconstrued seems apparent. In recent years many scholars have argued that the ideal state put forward in the work is completely “utopian.” This word is used in different senses, but the sense I will concentrate on in this paper is its bearing upon questions of political reform. As I use the term, a “utopian” political theory contains proposals that are not intended to be taken seriously in terms of political reform. When I say that the ideal state discussed in the Republic is not “utopian” as these scholars maintain, I mean that Plato designed it with political reform in mind, and that he thought seriously about how to bring it into existence. This does not, however, imply that the ideal state is likely to be realized, or that Plato ever thought it was, but only that Plato wished to bring it into existence and thought this was possible, should extraordinary good fortune bring the necessary conditions into existence.

This essay seeks to explain the contribution that Indian tradition can make to development theory and to assess the possibility of evolving a “new” development in India based on some of the basic values of this tradition.

Perhaps the most basic and enduring theme in political philosophy is that which concerns the inherent tension between individual values and social values. Indeed, the task of reconciling, in thought, the individual and social is virtually a definition of political philosophy. Of course, in much secondary work, and some primary work as well, this basic task often gets lost in a maze of more particular considerations, including the analysis of moral principles and the elaboration of special institutional arrangements or particular causal patterns. Nonetheless, major theorists, virtually without exception, have recognized that the basic individual values (e.g., freedom, privacy, personal morality) may well be politically undesirable and, similarly, that the requirements of political life (e.g., order, obedience, ethical behavior) may significantly compromise individual goals.

Karl Marx's master plan, as originally laid down in the Communist Manifesto, saw the world, led by Europe, moving away from feudal particularism through bourgeois nationalism toward proletarian internationalism. The failure of the Revolution of 1848 meant a flaw in practice, not theory, and Marx saw no need to change the plan. He was waiting for the world to continue in its materially determined direction when events made possible the founding of the First International in 1864. Three years later he wrote Friedrich Engels: “In the next revolution, which is perhaps nearer than it seems, we (i.e., you and I), have this powerful machinery in our hands.”

Considerable controversy in recent decades has centered on the question of why the philosopher in Plato's Republic would condescend to participate in politics. The traditional view is that philosophers rule from a general obligation to the city in which they live, a specific duty to the kallipolis which educated them or an acknowledgement of “the rule of reason as the primary and natural imperative.” However, if the ultimate happiness of the philosopher consists in a contemplative life divorced from politics, then the justice of the city which demands that philosophers rule conflicts with the psychic harmony of the individual philosopher. The analogy between justice in the state and in the individual soul breaks down as justice in the state demands functions of the philosopher for which he has no inclination or expertise. The just rule of reason is possible for individuals but impossible for states, unless philosophers can be required to meet their obligation to rule.

This essay is meant to help prepare a confrontation with the philosopher who is the most penetrating and thoroughgoing opponent of liberal democratic civilization. Nietzsche characterizes the modern democratic spirit, in all its forms, as “decadence.” This decadence he understands, however, as the final, catastrophic emergence into broad daylight of a previously hidden historical process which has been unfolding in all Western history: the “nihilism” of Athens and Jerusalem, of scientific rationalism and Judeo-Christian monotheism. Nietzsche understands himself as the thinker through whom this process finally attains self-consciousness. Now by Nietzsche's own testimony, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the published writing in which his mature philosophy finds its fullest expression. Yet Zarathustra, because it comprises the “Yes-saying part” of Nietzsche's project, because in it “the eye is spoiled by the tremendous need for seeing far,” possesses a “remoteness” that makes it the most difficult to approach of all his finished works (cf. EH, p. 1141). It seems to presuppose, rather than supply, an account of how Nietzsche understands the cultural crisis to which Zarathustra is responding. My purpose here is to attempt to gather from Nietzsche's diverse pronouncements a synoptic, consistent statement of his critique of the West.

Hegel's Philosophy of Right is the first work to make a doctrine of progress in history conceived as an organized whole into an integral, even culminating, part of a systematic, philosophic political teaching. Certainly Kant and Rousseau, at the least, preceded Hegel in giving history an emphasis soon to be seen as characteristically modern; yet Hegel nevertheless transformed and deepened their rather tentative approaches into something more solid and comprehensive, perhaps also more grandiose, speculative and questionable. In establishing the view that history could be made theoretically intelligible, and an essential element of political philosophy, he produced a concept of historical progress which is free of utopian idealism, distinguishable from theologically inspired precursors, compatible with freedom (indeed, history becomes the story of the realization of freedom), and an alternative to a quite different form of historicism which thought insight into history would justify anti-rationalist realism or subjectivism.

Adam Ferguson was one of several moral philosophers who contributed to the Scottish Enlightenment, a period aptly described as one of “remarkable efflorescence.” The works of Ferguson and his fellow Scotsmen — Adam Smith, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, Lord Kames, Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reid — were widely distributed, seriously read, and vigorously debated during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The greatest contribution of this Scottish school to the history of political thinking was the refinement of the idea of commercial republicanism, the synthesis of modern notions of polity and economy.

… if all of us who come from Nietzscheism, from nihilism, or from historical materialism, said in public that we were wrong and that there are moral values and that in the future we shall do what is necessary to establish and illustrate them, don't you believe this would be the beginning of a hope?

Moses Hess is customarily described as Karl Marx's erstwhile mentor, later colleague and eventual protagonist in the socialist movement, who in his later years surprised most of his friends in publishing in 1862 a proto-Zionist treatise, Rome and Jerusalem. In this book Hess advocated the establishment of a socialist Jewish commonwealth in Palestine as the only way to the solution of the Jewish problem. As both a colleague of Marx and a precursor of Zionism, Hess is in the unique position of being claimed, in various ways, by both the Socialist and Zionist movements.

In recent years many scholars have contributed to the development of Marxist analyses of urban political economy. At the same time, a smaller number of social and political theorists have examined Marx's political theory and identified his theory of public and private life as a central component of his politics. Too often, Marxist analyses of urban political economy do not fully incorporate Marx's political theory. Analyses of Marx's politics, on the other hand, tend to overlook the dimensions of the modern city which illuminate his theory of public and private. This article brings together Marx's urban theory and political theory and suggests that they are, in fact, very much intertwined.

The starting point for explaining modern Palestinian political history is the assumption that Palestinians failed to organize adequately during the British Mandate (1918–1948), were defeated by the Zionist movement, and consequently dispersed from their homeland. That Palestinians did not unite politically during this crucial period in their history, nor cooperate economically, nor even band together militarily is considered corollaries of this organizational incapacity and reasons enough for their failure to achieve a national sovereignty of their own. Thus Porath notes that ultimately no Palestinian political organization could bridge the divisions of region, family, and narrow economic or political interest which encouraged the proliferation of parties and weakened the drive against Zionism. Ann Mosely Lesch calls her book on Arab politics in Palestine, “the frustration of a nationalist movement.”

In recent years there has been a surprising turn in the discussions by moral philosophers, political theorists, jurisprudents, and economic theorists, or at least those economic theorists concerned with distribution. After years of treating justice as a value and, therefore, not an object for scientific investigation, it has become necessary to grapple once again with widely argued and mainstream claims that it is possible to articulate and defend, on the basis of reason, a substantive concept of justice with major consequences for politics, constitutional and statutory law, as well as public policy.

Among recent American historians, few topics have provoked more controversy than the character of the Confederation period. On one side, scholars like Forrest McDonald have contended that the era from the end of the revolutionary war to the creation of the federal constitution was a time of economic confusion and political chaos, a “critical period” in which popular protest became violent enough to threaten civil war. On the other side, critics of this view led by Merrill Jensen have argued that the period was in fact prosperous and relatively stable, that political protests were few and mostly well behaved, and that, in short, the “critical period” was really not very critical at all. This article does not enter into this debate. Instead, it works from the premise that events are often less important than the perception of events. That is, actual conditions aside, it considers how Americans of the day perceived these conditions. In particular, it describes how they viewed their politics through the filter of their understanding of history.

Jimmy Carter's farewell address deplored the pernicious influence of “single-interest” groups in America. These are said to harm the two-party system, which is already in trouble in any case. Such groups are not interest groups in the classical liberal sense, but are more like unusually narrow mass movements.

In his 24 September 1981 television address presenting the argument for a second round of budget cuts, President Reagan concluded by citing an old authority:

More than a century ago a Frenchman came to America and later wrote a book for his countrymen telling them what he had seen here. He told them that in America when a citizen saw a problem that needed solving he would cross the street and talk to a neighbor about it and the first thing you know a committee would be formed and before long the problem would be solved. And then he added, “you may not believe this, but not a single bureaucrat would have been involved.”

In the decade spanning 1968 to 1978, the Supreme Court cited the concept of the “new property” in over forty cases concerning the rights of clients in public sector relationships. The term new property first appeared in two law review articles written by Charles Reich in 1964 and 1965, and its primary points have since found favor with a number of political theorists. At the heart of the “new property” idea was the belief that a great many public sector benefits performed traditional functions of property and, therefore, ought to have been redefined as property in the law. Accordingly, Reich argued that public sector grants, including public assistance as well as unemployment compensation and Social Security, should lose their legal status as gratuities or charitable gifts and become instead “property” with all of the constitutional guarantees of due process that adhere to property in our system. This was a most egalitarian project indeed, with implications that went far beyond extending rights of due process. By transforming all men and women into property owners regardless of their private assets, the “new property” paved the way for a political vocabulary which wedded the particular and exclusive language of property with the universal, all-inclusive language of egalitarianism. In most respects this redefinition simply would have expanded the egalitarian direction implicit in past liberal functionalist theories of property, developments which many had already approved.