Death and taxes are our inevitable fate. We've been told this since the beginning of civilisation. But what if we stopped to question our antiquated system? Is it fair? And is it capable of serving the needs of our rapidly-changing, modern society? In Daylight Robbery, Dominic Frisby traces the origins of taxation, from its roots in the ancient world, through to today. He explores the role of tax in the formation of our global religions, the part tax played in wars and revolutions throughout the ages, why, at one stage, we paid tax for daylight or for growing a beard. Ranging from the despotic to the absurd, the tax laws of the past reveal so much about how we got to where we are today and what we can do to build a system fit for the future. Featured on Stepping up with Nigel Farage 'An important book for investors in gold and bitcoin' - Daniela Cambone, Stansberry Research 'This entertaining, surprising, contrarian book is a tour de force!' - Matt Ridley, author of The Evolution of Everything 'In this spectacular gallop through history, Frisby shows how taxation has warped, stunted and thwarted human progress' - Mark Littlewood, Director General, Institute of Economic Affairs 'Frisby's historical interpretation and utopian ideas will outrage Left and Right' - Steve Baker, MP for Wycombe and Member of the House of Commons Treasury Committee 'Fascinating book which exposes the political and economic basis of tax. A must read for those of us who believe in simpler, lower taxes' - Rt Hon Liz Truss, MP for South West Norfolk, Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade

This book analyses and compares how the USA's liberal allies responded to the use of torture against their citizens after 9/11. Did they resist, tolerate or support the Bush Administration's policies concerning the mistreatment of detainees when their own citizens were implicated and what were the reasons for their actions? Australia, the UK and Canada are liberal democracies sharing similar political cultures, values and alliances with America; yet they behaved differently when their citizens, caught up in the War on Terror, were tortured. How states responded to citizens' human rights claims and predicaments was shaped, in part, by demands for accountability placed on the executive government by domestic actors. This book argues that civil society actors, in particular, were influenced by nuanced differences in their national political and legal contexts that enabled or constrained human rights activism. It maps the conditions under which individuals and groups were more or less likely to become engaged when fellow citizens were tortured, focusing on national rights culture, the domestic legal and political human rights framework, and political opportunities.

In "Two Faces of Liberalism," John Gray argues that liberal thought has always contained two incompatible philosophies. In one, liberalism is a theory of a universal rational consensus, which enables the achievement of the best way of life for all humankind. In the other, liberalism is the project of seeking terms of peaceful coexistence between different regimes and ways of life.

John Gray argues that the liberalism of rational consensus is anachronistic in a time when most late modern societies contain several ways of life, with many people belonging to more than one. The future of liberalism lies with a project of "modus vivendi," first outlined in the writings of Thomas Hobbes. In the course of his argument, Gray presents a new interpretation of liberal toleration and argues that value-pluralism in ethics can support a revised view of universal human rights.

This accessible book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political thought, moral and political philosophy, social and critical theory and cultural studies.

Why do men and women sometimes risk everything to defend their liberties? What motivates principled opposition to the abuse of power? In "Liberalism with Honor," Sharon Krause explores honor as a motive for risky and difficult forms of political action. She shows the sense of honor to be an important source of such action and a spring of individual agency more generally.

Krause traces the genealogy of honor, including its ties to conscientious objection and civil disobedience, beginning in old-regime France and culminating in the American civil rights movement. She examines the dangers intrinsic to honor and the tensions between honor and modern democracy, but demonstrates that the sense of honor has supported political agency in the United States from the founders to democratic reformers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Honor continues to hold interest and importance today because it combines self-concern and personal ambition with principled higher purposes, and so challenges the disabling dichotomy between self-interest and self-sacrifice that currently pervades both political theory and American public life.

How did the banks run wild for so long? Why are so many aged-care residents malnourished? And how is it that arms manufacturers sponsor the Australian War Memorial? In this passionate essay, Richard Denniss explores what neoliberalism has done to Australian society. For decades, we have been told that the private sector does everything better, that governments can't afford to deliver the services they once could, but that security and prosperity for all are just around the corner. In fact, Australians are less equal, and more of us are economically vulnerable. But now that a royal commission has lifted the rug on the reality of corporate regulation, it seems the era of blind faith in free markets is well and truly over. So where to from here? In Dead Right, Denniss looks at ways to renew our democracy and discusses everything from the fragmenting Coalition to an idea of the national interest that goes beyond economics. "Neoliberalism, the catch-all term for all things small government, has been the ideal cloak behind which to conceal enormous shifts in Australia's wealth and culture . . . Over the past thirty years, the language, ideas and policies of neoliberalism have transformed our economy and, more importantly, our culture." Richard Denniss, Dead Right

In Toward a Liberalism, Richard Flathman shows why and how political theory can contribute to the quality of moral and political practice without violating, as empiricist- and idealist-based theories tend to do, liberal commitments to individuality and plurality. Exploring the tense but inevitable relationship between liberalism and authority, he advances a theory of democratic citizenship tempered by appreciation of the ways in which citizenship is implicated with and augments authority. Flathman examines the relationship of individual rights to freedom on one hand and to authority and power on the other, rejecting the quest for a single homogenous and authoritative liberal theory.

In March 1977, John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon of the punk band the Sex Pistols looked over the Berlin wall onto the grey, militarized landscape of East Berlin, which reminded him of home in London. Lydon went up to the wall and extended his middle finger. He didn't know it at the time, but the Sex Pistols' reputation had preceded his gesture, as young people in the "Second World" busily appropriated news reports on degenerate Western culture as punk instruction manuals. Soon after, burgeoning Polish punk impresario Henryk Gajewski brought the London punk band the Raincoats to perform at his art gallery and student club-the epicenter for Warsaw's nascent punk scene. When the Raincoats returned to England, they found London erupting at the Rock Against Racism concert, which brought together 100,000 "First World" UK punks and "Third World" Caribbean immigrants who contributed their cultures of reggae and Rastafarianism. Punk had formed networks reaching across all three of the Cold War's "worlds". The first global narrative of punk, Punk Crisis examines how transnational punk movements challenged the global order of the Cold War, blurring the boundaries between East and West, North and South, communism and capitalism through performances of creative dissent. As author Raymond A. Patton argues, punk eroded the boundaries and political categories that defined the Cold War Era, replacing them with a new framework based on identity as conservative or progressive. Through this paradigm shift, punk unwittingly ushered in a new era of global neoliberalism.

Can open society survive? Is Europe disintegrating? How to overcome the economic crisis? Will Europeans feel secure again? Counter Revolution is a bold attempt to make sense of the extraordinary events taking place in Europe today. It examines the counter-revolution developing in Europe, exploring its roots and implications. The book takes the form of a series of heartfelt letters to the late European guru Ralf Dahrendorf. Several months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dahrendorf wrote a book fashioned on Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Like Burke, he chose to put his analysis in the form of a letter, reflecting on the implications of the turbulent period around 1989. Thirty years' later, and faced with an equally turbulent period, Jan Zielonka asks: what next? This is not a book on populism, however: it is a book about liberalism. Populism has become a favourite topic within liberal circles and few have exposed populist deceptions and dangers better than liberal writers. Yet, liberals have shown themselves better at finger-pointing than at self-reflection. This book addresses the imbalance; it is a self-critical book by a life-time liberal. Counter-Revolution suggests that Europe and its liberal project need to be reinvented and recreated. There is no simple way back. Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel will not produce wonders. Europe failed to adjust to enormous geopolitical, economic, and technological changes that swept the continent over the past three decades. European models of democracy, capitalism, and integration are not in sync with new complex networks of cities, bankers, terrorists, or migrants. Liberal values that made Europe thrive for many decades have been betrayed. The escalation of emotions, myths, and ordinary lies left little space for reason, deliberation, and conciliation. This book examines these different aspects, proposing a way out of the labyrinth.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Liberalism today has perhaps more supporters and adversaries than any other political movement. This volume traces liberalism's global ascent through essays about some of the thinkers and actors who participated in its rise and spread. The essays included here present for the first time in one place the geographic and ideological diversity of liberal thought and practice as it developed since the eighteenth century. By exploring thinkers as diverse as Montesquieu, Abraham Lincoln, Jacob Burckhardt, Khayr al-Din, Hu Shih, John Rawls, and Czeslaw Milosz, this volume contributes toward a better understanding of liberalisms past and present. Each chapter opens with a critical passage from the author under consideration and explores the author's significance for liberalism. By facilitating a direct encounter with influential authors and texts, the volume serves as an introduction both to the multiple dimensions of liberalism and to reading texts in political thought. By engaging with particular liberal moments, the essays allow readers to create and explore conversations among liberalisms across time and space. It thus encourages a broader and more nuanced understanding of the nature and history of liberalism. Stimulating, accessible and interdisciplinary, Liberal Moments will appeal to students and scholars in the history of political thought, intellectual history and beyond.

As host of the CNN show "Piers Morgan Live," Piers Morgan has come a long way from his days as a British tabloid editor and judge on "America's Got Talent." Love him or hate him, it's undeniable that Morgan is one of the most talked-about, controversial figures in the media today. From gun control and gay marriage to religion and pop icons, he tackles the hot-button topics head on.

In The Hot Seat (previously published as Shooting Straight), he discusses candidly his refusal to bend to public pressure or political correctness, from his childhood in England to his career as a tabloid editor to his meteoric rise to fame in the United States. Offering an inside view of the real-time drama behind covering huge breaking news stories such as the killing of Osama bin Laden, Hurricane Sandy, and the massacre at Newtown, Morgan's account is a riveting, no-holds-barred depiction of an adrenaline-fueled life anchoring a nightly news show in the world's most ruthless, competitive, and pressurized media marketplace.

Written in a compelling diary format, The Hot Seat provides a heartfelt account of Morgan's extraordinary new life and his continuing love affair with America. Shocking, funny, and incisive, it proves once again why Piers Morgan has taken the world by storm.

In 1912, a group of young and ambitious bureaucrats and thought-leaders, disillusioned by the progress of change in the Taft Administration, transformed the house they shared into the capital's foremost political salon. Self-mockingly referred to as the "House of Truth," the row house was the residence of the young Felix Frankfurter and the aspiring journalist Walter Lippmann, and their guests included Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Herbert Hoover, and sculptor Gutzon Borglum (later the creator of the Mount Rushmore monument). Weaving together the stories and intellectual trajectories of these figures Brad Snyder shows how the progress of their thinking about government and policy, shifted from a firm belief in progressivism-the belief that the government should protect its workers and regulate monopolies-into what we call liberalism, the belief that government can improve citizens' lives through legislation while still being prevented from abridging their civil liberties and eventually civil rights. This fascinating historical and biographical narrative reimagines and recreates the birth of the minimum wage, child-welfare laws, banking insurance, Social Security, and other programs that we now take for granted. In essence, the origins of the New Deal and American Liberalism can be traced to a row house in Dupont Circle.

`An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot . . . it will march on the horizon of the world and it will conquer.' Thomas Paine was the first international revolutionary. His Common Sense (1776) was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution; his Rights of Man (1791-2) was the most famous defence of the French Revolution and sent out a clarion call for revolution throughout the world. He paid the price for his principles: he was outlawed in Britain, narrowly escaped execution in France, and was villified as an atheist and a Jacobin on his return to America. Paine loathed the unnatural inequalities fostered by the hereditary and monarchical systems. He believed that government must be by and for the people and must limit itself to the protection of their natural rights. But he was not a libertarian: from a commitment to natural rights he generated one of the first blueprints for a welfare state, combining a liberal order of civil rights with egalitarian constraints. This collection brings together Paine's most powerful political writings from the American and French revolutions in the first fully annotated edition of these works. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) may be best known as a statesman. He served in the administrations of presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford; was ambassador to India and the United Nations; and represented New York in the U.S. Senate for four terms. But he was also an intellectual of the first order, whose books and papers on topics ranging from welfare policy and ethnicity in American society to international law stirred debate and steered policy. Moynihan was, journalist Michael Barone remarked, ""the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson."" He was, Greg Weiner argues, America's answer to the 18th-century Anglo-Irish scholar-statesman Edmund Burke. Both stood at the intersection of thought and action, denouncing tyranny, defending the family, championing reform. Yet while Burke is typically claimed by conservatives, Weiner calls Moynihan a ""Burkean liberal"" who respected both the indispensability of government and the complexity of society. And a reclamation of Moynihan's Burkean liberalism, Weiner suggests, could do wonders for the polarized politics of our day. In its incisive analysis of Moynihan's political thought, American Burke lays out the terms for such a recovery. The book traces Moynihan's development through the broad sweep of his writings and career. ""The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society,"" Moynihan once wrote. ""The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."" In his ability to embrace both of these truths, this ""American Burke"" makes it bracingly clear that a wise political thinker can also be an effective political actor, and that commitments to both liberal and conservative values can coexist peaceably and productively. Weiner's work is not only a thorough and thoroughly engaging intellectual exploration of one of the most important politicians of the twentieth century; it is also a timely prescription for the healing of our broken system.

Neoliberalism is among the most commonly used concepts in the social sciences. Furthermore, it is one of the most influential factors that have shaped the formation of public policy and politics. In Governing Practices, Michelle Brady and Randy Lippert bring together prominent scholars in sociology, criminology, anthropology, geography, and policy studies to extend and refine the current conversation about neoliberalism. The collection argues that a new methodological approach to analyzing contemporary policy and political change is needed. United by the common influence of Foucault's governmentality approach and an ethnographic imaginary, the collection presents original research on a diverse range of case studies including public-private partnerships, the governance of condos, community and state statistics, nanopolitics, philanthropy, education reform, and pay-day lending. These diverse studies add considerable depth to studies on governmentality and neoliberalism through a focus on governmental practices that have not previously been the focus of sustained analysis.

Reinhold Niebuhr was a theologian, writer, and public intellectual who influenced religious leaders and social activists in the United States over four crucial decades in the middle of the twentieth century. The Oxford Handbook of Reinhold Niebuhr traces the development of his work through those years and provides an introduction to the dialogue partners and intellectual adversaries whom he influenced and who shaped his own thinking. It deals with major topics in theology and ethics, providing systematic focus to Niebuhr's wide-ranging works that were directed to many different audiences. Later chapters examine Niebuhr's contributions to political thinking and policy making on issues including international relations, pacifism and the use of force, racial and economic justice, family life and gender equality, and environmental concerns. The concluding section examines Niebuhr's legacy and continuing influence.

As Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward argued in the early seventies, in a capitalist economy, social welfare policies alternatingly serve political and economic ends as circumstances dictate. In moments of political stability, governments emphasize a capitalistic work ethic (even if it means working a job that will leave one impoverished); when times are less politically stable, states liberalize welfare policies to recreate the conditions for political acquiescence. Sanford Schram argues in this new book that each shift produces its own path dependency even as it represents yet another iteration of what he (somewhat ironically) calls "ordinary capitalism," where the changes in market logic inevitably produce changes in the structure of the state. In today's ordinary capitalism, neoliberalism is the prevailing political-economic logic that has contributed significantly to unprecedented levels of inequality in an already unequal society. As the new normal, neoliberalism has marketization of the state as a core feature, heightening the role of economic actors, especially financiers, in shaping public policy. The results include increased economic precarity among the general population, giving rise to dramatic political responses on both the Left and the Right (Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party in particular). Schram examines neoliberalism's constraints on politics as well as social and economic policy and gives special attention to the role protest politics plays in keeping alive the possibilities for ordinary people to exercise political agency. The Return of Ordinary Capitalism concludes with political strategies for working through-rather than around-neoliberalism via a radical, rather than status-quo-reinforcing, incrementalism.

Liberalism is one of the most central and pervasive political theories and ideologies, yet it is subject to different interpretations as well as misappropriations. Its history carries a crucial heritage of civilized thinking, of political practice, and of philosophical-ethical creativity. This Very Short Introduction unpacks the concept of liberalism and its various interpretations through three diverse approaches. Looking at its historical and theoretical development, analysing the liberal ideology, and understanding liberalism as a series of ethical and philosophical principles, this is a thorough exploration of the concept and practice of liberalism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Friedrich Hayek was a founding figure of the neo-liberalism that flourished in the 1980s. Yet, despite his antagonistic relationship with socialism, his work became a surprising source of inspiration for several influential thinkers on the left. This book explains the left's unusual engagement with Hayek and reflects on its significance. Engaging Enemies uses the left's late discovery of Hayek to examine the contemporary fate of socialism and social democracy. Did socialism survive the twentieth century? Did it collapse with the fall of the Berlin Wall as Hayek claimed? Or did it transform into something else, and if so what? In turn this allows an examination of ideological and historical continuity. Was the left's engagement with Hayek part of a wider break with a period of ideological continuity that marked the twentieth century, but which did not survive its ending? As such, the book is also a study of how ideologies change with the times, incorporating new elements and jettisoning others. The left's engagement with Hayek was also influential on party politics, particularly on the 'modernization' of the Labour Party and the development of New Labour. Engaging Enemies concludes with a discussion of the wider role of the market for the left today and the contemporary significance of the engagement with Hayek for Labour in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.

This volume makes a compelling case for the continued relevance and significance of Herbert Spencer (1820-1904), one of the foremost intellectuals of the Victorian era whose work now tends to be regarded as being of purely historical interest. One of the originators of the evolutionary classical liberal or libertarian approach exemplified later by F. A. Hayek, Spencer engaged with such issues as the relationship between the individual and the state; the nature of majoritarian democracy; the legitimacy of private property; the consequences of the transition from relatively simple, feudal communities to complex, industrial societies; and the causes of war and the prospects of international peace. For him the future was individualist. However, as the scope of state action expanded and classical liberal ideas became increasingly marginalised during the course of his life, Spencer grew ever more pessimistic about the future prospects for liberty.

Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992), winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, was an influential economist and political philosopher. The increased attention he received in the late 20th century with the rise of conservatism in the US and UK, led him to publish "Why I Am Not a Conservative," an essay in which he berated conservatism. He preferred to be identified as what Edmund Burke called an "Old Whig." Amongst his most important contributions are his writings on general equilibrium, central planning and social justice as well as his political theory work, The Constitution of Liberty, in which he explained the proper role of the government.

This monumental work answers the grand question of where American Jewish liberalism comes from and ultimately questions whether the communal motivations behind such behaviour are strong enough to withstand twenty-first-century America.

In April 1969, one of America's premier universities was celebrating parents' weekend and the student union was an armed camp, occupied by over eighty defiant members of the campus's Afro-American Society. Marching out Sunday night, the protesters brandished rifles, their maxim: "If we die, you are going to die." Cornell '69 is an electrifying account of that weekend which probes the origins of the drama and describes how it was played out not only at Cornell but on campuses across the nation during the heyday of American liberalism.Donald Alexander Downs tells the story of how Cornell University became the battleground for the clashing forces of racial justice, intellectual freedom, and the rule of law. Eyewitness accounts and retrospective interviews depict the explosive events of the day and bring the key participants into sharp focus: the Afro-American Society, outraged at a cross-burning incident on campus and demanding amnesty for its members implicated in other protests; University President James A. Perkins, long committed to addressing the legacies of racism, seeing his policies backfire and his career collapse; the faculty, indignant at the university's surrender, rejecting the administration's concessions, then reversing itself as the crisis wore on. The weekend's traumatic turn of events is shown by Downs to be a harbinger of the debates raging today over the meaning of the university in American society. He explores the fundamental questions it posed, questions Americans on and off campus are still struggling to answer: What is the relationship between racial justice and intellectual freedom? What are the limits in teaching identity politics? And what is the proper meaning of the university in a democratic polity?"