This seminal work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson remains of key importance to the study of liberal-democratic theory. In it, Macpherson argues that the problem with the idea of individualism that underpins classical liberalism lies in its "possessive quality"--"its conception of the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them." Under such a view, society is little more than a system of economic relations and political society but a means of safeguarding private property and the system of economic relations rooted in such property.

• Introduction to the Wynford Edition


• I. INTRODUCTION


• 1: The Roots of Liberal-Democratic Theory


• 2: Problems of Interpretation


• II. HOBBES: THE POLITICAL OBLIGATION OF THE MARKET


• 1: Philosophy and Political Theory


• 2: Human Nature and the State of Nature


• 3: Models of Society


• 4: Politcal Obligation


• 5: Penetration and Limits of Hobbes's Political Theory


• III. THE LEVELLERS: FRANCHISE AND FREEDOM


• 1: The Problem of the Franchise


• 2: Types of Franchise


• 3: The Record


• 4: Theoretical Implications


• IV. HARRINGTON: THE OPPORTUNITY STATE


• 1: Unexamined Ambiguities


• 2: The Balance and the Gentry


• 3: The Bourgeois Society


• 4: The Equal Commonwealth and the Equal Agrarian


• 5: The Self-Cancelling Balance Principle


• 6: Harrington's Stature


• V. LOCKE: THE POLITICAL THEORY OF APPROPRIATION


• 1: Interpretations


• 2: The Theory of Property Right


• 3: Class Differentials in Natural Rights and Rationality


• 4: The Ambiguous State of Nature


• 5: The Ambiguous Civil Society


• 6: Unsettled Problems Reconsidered


• VI. POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY


• 1: The Seventeenth-Century Foundations


• 2: The Twentieth-Century Dilemma


• Appendix


• Social Classes and Franchise Classes in England, circa 1648


• Notes


• Works and Editions Cited


• Index

C.B. Macpherson (1911-1987) was professor of political science at the University of Toronto. Widely regarded as Canada's pre-eminent political theorist of the twentieth century, he was the author of numerous books, including The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy and The Real World of Democracy, and was named to the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honour.