WILLIAM MANNING AND THE POLITICAL THEORY OF THE DEPENDENT CLASSES

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEX GOUREVITCH

This article reappraises the political ideas of William Manning, and through him the trajectory of early modern republicanism. Manning, an early American farmer writing in the 1780s and 1790s, developed the republican distinction between “the idle Few” and “the laboring Many” into a novel “political theory of the dependent classes.” On this theory, it is the dependent, laboring classes who share an interest in social equality. Because of this interest, they are the only ones who can achieve and maintain republican liberty. With this identification of the interests of the dependent classes with the common good, Manning inverted inherited republican ideas, and transformed the language of liberty and virtue into one of the first potent, republican critiques of exploitation. As such, he stands as a key figure for understanding the shift in early modern republicanism from a concern with constitutionalism and the rule of law to the social question.

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick L. Schuman

In dealing with the evolution of political thought, most historians and social scientists, until recently at least, have tended to view political behavior and the changing patterns of power in society as rational implementations of dynamic ideas. They have accordingly concerned themselves more with the development of abstract philosophical systems than with the social-psychological contexts conditioning this development. To other observers, more Marxian than Hegelian in their outlook, all political ideas are but reflections of the economic interests and class ideologies of the various strata of society. This school therefore probes for the secrets of political and social change, not in the surface phenomena of ideas, but in the progress of technology and in the shifting economic relations of groups and classes within the social hierarchy. Still others, few in number as yet, have adopted Freud as their guide.


2019 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 165-170
Author(s):  
Aleksey V.  Lomonosov

The article reveals the social significance of determining the political views of V.V. Rozanov in the system of the thinker’s worldview. The correlation of these views with his political journalism is shown. The genesis of social and political ideas of V.V. Rozanov is revealed. The author specifies his ideological predecessors in the sphere of public thought of the late 19th century and the thinker’s affiliation with the conservative political camp of Russian writers. The author of the article also gives coverage of the V.V. Rozanov’s polemical publications in the press. He outlines the circle of political sympathies and determinative constants in the political views of Rozanov-publicist and proves his commitment to the centrist political parties. The author examines the process of Rozanov’s socio-political views evolution at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, and the related changes in his political journalism. The evaluations are based on the large layer of Rozanov’s newspaper publicism in the years of 1905–1917. To determine the Rozanov’s position in the “New time” journal editorial office and to reveal the motives of his political essays the author of the article used epistola


Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110439
Author(s):  
Kevin Blachford

Republicanism is an approach within political theory that seeks to secure the values of political liberty and non-domination. Yet, in historical practice, early modern republics developed empires and secured their liberty through policies that dominated others. This contradiction presents challenges for how neo-Roman theorists understand ideals of liberty and political freedom. This article argues that the historical practices of slavery and empire developed concurrently with the normative ideals of republican liberty. Republican liberty does not arise in the absence of power but is inherently connected to the exercise of power.


2021 ◽  
Vol 137 (137) ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Alfredo Pizano Ferreira

 La distinción entre el lenguaje del humanismo cívico y el republicanismo resulta una aclaración conceptual adecuada para comprender las acciones de Robespierre ante la apertura de una nueva concepción de la política. En el humanismo cívico es posible encontrar elementos que responden a los presupuestos del comunitarismo, en tanto problemas que se circunscriben a una región limitada, y el republicanismo responde a exigencias que son susceptibles de universalidad. Ahora bien, esta distinción no es clara, ya que, durante la Revolución francesa, en especial en el caso de Robespierre, encontramos una mezcla entre la exigencia de la virtud cívica clásica con la búsqueda de un fundamento de legitimidad política con un enfoque social. Así, la anomalía ideológica de Robespierre solo puede esclarecerse a través de la comprensión de las peculiaridades del lenguaje de la virtud y el universalismo moral  Palabras clave Republicanismo, comunitarismo, lenguaje político, mentalidades. Referencias Baron, H. (1966). The crisis of the early Italian Renaissance. Civic humanism and republican liberty in an age of classicism and tyranny. Princeton, Estados Unidos: Princeton University Press.Benjamin, W. (2013). Über den Begriff der Geschichte. En R. Tiedemann (Ed.).Walter Benjamin. Sprache und Geschichte. Philosophische Essays (pp. 141-154). Stuttgart, Alemania: Reclam.Bergeron, L., Furet, F. y Koselleck, R. (2012). La época de las revoluciones europeas, 1780-1848. Ciudad de México, México: Siglo xxi.Bernal, R. (2016). Fraternidad y democracia en el origen de nuestra modernidad política. En G. Ambriz Arévalo y R. Bernal Lugo (Coords.). El derecho contra el capital. Reflexiones desde la izquierda contemporánea (pp. 36-71). Chilpancingo, México: Contraste.Castro Gómez, S. (2019). Republicanismo transmoderno. En El tonto y los canallas. Notas para un republicanismo transmoderno (pp. 161-220). Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.Dubiel, H., Frankenberg, G. y Rödel, U. (1997). El dispositivo simbólico de la democracia. En La cuestión democrática (pp. 137-192). Madrid, España: Huerga y Fierro Editores.Gauthier, F. (2005, 23 de julio). Robespierre: por una república democrática social. Sin Permiso. Recuperado de http://www.sinpermiso.info/textos/robespierre- por-una-repblica-democrtica-y-social.Gaytán, F. (2016). Hacia los nuevos testamentos jacobinos: los decálogos normativos para la laicidad. En Manual de redentores: laicidad y derechos, entre populismo y neojacobinismo (pp. 57-101). Ciudad de México, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México-Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas.Gilroy, P. (2014). El Atlántico negro. Modernidad y doble conciencia. Madrid, España: Akal.James, C. L. R. (2003). Los jacobinos negros. Toussaint L’Overture y la Revolución de Haití. Ciudad de México, México: Turner-Fondo de Cultura Económica.Kant, I. (1900 s.). Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften (Editado por la Real Academia Prusiana de las Ciencias). Berlín, Alemania: Reimer [hoy De Gruyter]. Koselleck, R. (2017). Erfahrungsraum und Erwartungshorizont zwei historischen Kategorien. En Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (pp. 349-375). Fráncfort, Alemania: Suhrkamp Verlag.Mandeville, B. (1983). La fábula de las abejas. Ciudad de México, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.Maquiavelo, N. (2015). Discursos sobre la primera década de Tito Livio. Madrid, España: Alianza.McPherson, C.B. (1962). The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Nueva York, Estados Unidos: Oxford University Press.  


Author(s):  
James Moore

This chapter focuses upon natural rights in the writings of Hugo Grotius, the Levellers and John Locke and the manner in which their understanding of rights was informed by distinctive Protestant theologies: by Arminianism or the theology of the Remonstrant Church and by Socinianism. The chapter argues that their theological principles and the natural rights theories that followed from those principles were in conflict with the theology of Calvin and the theologians of the Reformed church. The political theory that marks the distinctive contribution of Calvin and the Reformed to political theory was the idea of popular sovereignty, an idea revived in the eighteenth century, in the political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


Author(s):  
Siân Silyn Roberts

This chapter situates Charles Brockden Brown’s Gothic and sentimental novels in relation to the broader culture of novelistic miscellany that proliferated before 1820. It considers Brown’s contributions to contemporary narrative theory, his revision of the political economy of sentimentalism and the Gothic, and the historical formalism of episodic and picaresque narratives. It offers an overview of contemporary debates about the moral value of novel reading and considers contemporary calls for a novelistic culture of literary nationalism in terms of a broader, circum-Atlantic system of literary transmission and adaptation. It offers a heuristic account of the social function of the episode or fragment in early American imaginative writings and considers how Brown theorizes his relationship to the generically variable, constitutively elliptical nature of early American literary production more generally.


1959 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 662-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith N. Shklar

It is well known that each age writes history anew to serve its own purposes and that the history of political ideas is no exception to this rule. The precise nature of these changes in perspective, however, bears investigation. For not only can their study help us to understand the past; it may also lead us to a better understanding of our own intellectual situation. In this quest the political theories of the 17th century and particularly of the English Civil War are especially rewarding. It was in those memorable years that all the major issues of modern political theory were first stated, and with the most perfect clarity. As we have come to reject the optimism of the eighteenth century, and the crude positivism of the nineteenth, we tend more and more to return to our origins in search of a new start. This involves a good deal of reinterpretation, as the intensity with which the writings of Hobbes and Locke, for instance, are being reexamined in England and America testify. These philosophical giants have, however, by the force of their ideas been able to limit the scope of interpretive license. A provocative minor writer, such as Harrington, may for this reason be more revealing. The present study is therefore not only an effort to explain more soundly Harrington's own ideas, but also to treat him as an illustration of the mutations that the art of interpreting political ideas has undergone, and, perhaps to make some suggestions about the problems of writing intellectual history in general.


2021 ◽  
Vol V (4) ◽  
pp. 175-200
Author(s):  
Olga Bychkova ◽  
Artem Kosmarsky

This paper focuses on the political genealogy of one of the most promising and influential IT technologies of our time: the blockchain (or distributed registry). We point at important commonalities between the principles of blockchain projects and models of republican governance. In contrast to techno-anarchist and democratic ideas, the republican genealogy of blockchain has so far failed to attract the attention of researchers. After examining the basic technical properties and ideological images of blockchain, we explore how the four main principles of classical republicanism (personal freedom and autonomy of the individual; civic virtues; common good; recognition of great causes) are realized in influential blockchain projects — Bitcoin (developed by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto) and Ethereum (developed by Vitalik Buterin). The functioning of blockchain nodes is supported by a community of miners, who are free, but at the same time agree to act for the development of a common thing. What the republic and the blockchain have in common is that it is impossible to have a community without cooperative action. At the same time, blockchain is a vivid illustration of Bruno Latour's argument on the role of non-humans in social relations: his code seeks to replace untrustworthy humans with rule-acting nodes, and to create a cryptographic society where untrustworthy human relations are replaced by computers' relations. This article is an invitation to begin a discussion of the political ideas that are embedded in new technologies and the models of governance that are mobilized through them, often without proper reflection on the nature of such ideas by their creators.


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