Sorry, Ancaps, you've got your priorities backwards

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"Thus, the world of Bourgeois Society -- a world, on the whole, of cash nexus and mere protection by the State -- has a structure or tendency of its own which brings it back by necessary steps to connection with the State proper or explicit and determinate social unity. It is, we must observe, posterior to the State in time. It is only within the State proper, and resting on it solid power, that such a world as that of Bourgeois Society could arise or be conceivable. Its priority to the State is, like that of the family, the priority of comparative narrowness or simplicity, of dealing with fewer factors, and of representing human nature in a more special, though necessary, aspect. And for this very reason it could not exist by itself." -- Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 276

Comments

  1. Unknown1:07 PM

    Gene,

    You really, really need to do a sort of "Top Ten" list of books or authors in political science and history! I'd read and study all of them.

    Now back to Oakeshott...

    ReplyDelete

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