Many studies of the reign of Frederick II, King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, emphasize the authoritarian nature of the regime he led. To leave it at that, however, would be to overlook the liberal orientation of the political writings of this «enlightened despot».
At the helm of El Salvador since 2019, Nayib Bukele is pursuing a shock policy to reduce crime. His vision of power is reminiscent of a classic of political philosophy: Thomas Hobbes« »Leviathan".
Liberalism doesn't claim to say everything. It only answers the question of the political organization of society, which must be based on respect for negative freedoms. This in no way precludes a positive and complementary conception of freedom.
As a daughter of the Enlightenment, Germaine de Staël naturally embraced the liberal discourse. But she developed it by associating it with the idea of the nation, a reflection of the Romanticism of the time, which liberalism had come to tame with the concept of the nation-state.
In an economic context marked by the return of inflation, rising public spending and profound technological transformations, the famous founder of the monetarist movement, who died in 2006, still has some very useful things to tell us.
The Austrian school of economics, which has recently re-emerged in the news, distinguishes itself from the dominant «neoclassical» theories, notably by redefining the value of a good as the importance that individuals attribute to it. Here's how it works.
In a little-known text first published in 1705, Bernard Mandeville set out some of the central themes of what would become economic liberalism. Dive into «The Fable of the Bees».
Self-confident yet beset by doubts, Alexis de Tocqueville was a paradoxical man. In his biography, Olivier Zunz, Professor Emeritus of U.S. History at the University of Virginia, demonstrates the relevance of the author of the seminal book «Democracy in America».
It's an indisputable fact, according to Jean-Claude Michéa: economic and political liberalism are the two sides of a single «liberal logic» that is at the root of our modern societies. Dive into «The Empire of the Lesser Evil».
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