Champions of a Free Society

Ideas of Capitalism's Philosophers and Economists

By (author) Edward W. Younkins

Publication date:

28 August 2008

Length of book:

408 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739126479

This book is constructed around great thinkers of the past and present who have been influential in developing the philosophy of freedom. Its main purpose is to provide a survey and overview of the ideas of leading individual philosophers and economists of capitalism who have contributed to developing what might be called the classical liberal or libertarian worldview. Champions of a Free Society endeavors to provide a guide to political and economic thinking about the desirability and construction of a free society that is intelligible to the educated layperson.

Edward Younkins provides an historical perspective of the pursuit of political and economic truth. The goal of this book is to present the development of ideas in language that permits generally educated readers to understand and appreciate their significance. The book's chronological approach considers the thinkers and their ideas as they have developed over the course of time. There is much unfulfilled illuminative potential to be found in the ideas of the past and Younkins successfully integrates the ideas of past and current thinkers into a logical contemporary worldview.

1 Table of Contents
2 Preface
3 Introduction
Part 4 I. Ancient and Medieval Periods
Chapter 5 1. Lao Tzu's Naturalistic Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics
Chapter 6 2. Aristotle and Human Flourishing
Chapter 7 3. Aristotle and Economics
Chapter 8 4. Epicurus on Freedom and Happiness
Chapter 9 5. Thomas Aquinas's Christian Aristotelianism
Part 10 II. Early Modern and Renaissance Periods
Chapter 11 6. Spinoza on Freedom, Ethics, and Politics
Chapter 12 7. John Locke's Limited State
Chapter 13 8. Turgot on Progress and Political Economy
Chapter 14 9. Adam Smith's Moral and Economic System
Part 15 III. The Late Modern Period
Chapter 16 10. Jean-Baptiste Say's Law of Markets: A Fundamental Conceptual Integration
Chapter 17 11. Herbert Spencer on Liberty and Human Progress
Chapter 18 12. Carl Menger's Economics of Well-Being
Part 19 IV. The Contemporary Period
Chapter 20 13. Ludwig von Mises on Human Action
Chapter 21 14. Ayn Rand's Philosophy of Objectivism
Chapter 22 15. Murray Rothbard's Randian Austrianism
Chapter 23 16. The Road to Objective Economics: Hayek takes a Wrong Turn
Chapter 24 17. Milton Friedman's Pragmatic and Incremental Libertarianism
Chapter 25 18. Mises, Friedman, and Rand: A Methodological Comparison
Chapter 26 19. James M. Buchanan: Constitutional and Post-Constitutional Political Economy
Chapter 27 20. Robert Nozick's Libertarian Framework for Utopia
Chapter 28 21. Reality is Not Optional: Thomas Sowell's Vision of Man and Society
Chapter 29 22. Michael Novak's Vision of Democratic Capitalism
Part 30 V. The Philosophy of Freedom: In Retrospect and Prospect
Chapter 31 23. Revisiting the Intellectual Heritage of a Free Society
Chapter 32 24. Developing a Paradigm for a Free Society
Chapter 33 Index
34 About the Author

This wonderful volume brings together some of the most important ideas that serve as capitalism's intellectual infrastructure. Now is the time to give them a hearing again! Professor Younkins has done a marvelous service in making this possible for today's students.