The New Liberalism: Reconciling Liberty and Community

The New Liberalism of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century is an unjustifiably neglected strand of the liberal tradition. By emphasising community as well as rights and liberty, thinkers such as T. H. Green, J. A. Hobson and L. T. Hobhouse support, but in distinctive ways, recent challenges to the established dichotomy between communitarianism and liberalism. These essays examine new liberal thinking and conclude that liberal and communitarian concerns are compatible, even mutually reinforcing. The ‘common good’, the empowerment of individuals to exercise their freedom, and a regulated free market are among a new liberal ‘basket of ideas’ which, these essays argue, can revitalise the liberal tradition. This collection of essays by leading scholars provides exciting new insights into current debates within the liberal tradition, and will be of great interest to scholars of political theory and the history of political thought.

• First contemporary collection ever published on the new liberals • All essays are original • Contributors include nearly all the leading scholars of the new liberalism

Part I. Introduction: The New Liberalism and the Liberal-Communitarian Debate Avital Simhony and D. Weinstein: Part II: 1. Liberal community: an essay in retrieval Michael Freeden; 2. T. H. Green on individual rights and the common good Rex Martin; 3. T. H. Green’s theory of complex common good Avital Simhony; 4. Private property, liberal subjects and the state John Morrow; 5. Neutrality, perfectionism and the new liberal conception of the state James Meadowcroft; 6. Bosanquet’s communitarian defense of economic individualism: a lesson in the complexities of political theory Gerald Gaus; 7. The new liberalism and the rejection of utilitarianism D. Weinstein; 8. Staunchly modern, non-bourgeois liberalism Alan Ryan; 9. The new liberalism and citizenship Andrew Vincent.

‘The volume … provides an excellent road map to a rich vein of political theorizing, and performs well its task of showing how an understanding of liberalism is seriously deficient without a knowledge of the new liberals.’ Contemporary Political Theory

‘… successfully challenges received views and asks for a comprehensive retrieval of the unfairly neglected resources of liberal thought’. Political Studies Review