The Challenge of Liberty: Classical Liberalism Today. This item is unavailable.The Challenge of Liberty: Classical Liberalism Today

Restoring the ideas and ideals of classical liberalism, this collection shows how its contemporary exponents defend such pillars of free societies as individual rights, human dignity, market processes, and the rule of law. The quest for freedom has always been as much a battle of ideas as it is a popular struggle. Classical liberal pioneers such as John Locke and Adam Smith stressed the inherent worth of the individual, inalienable rights, and the benevolent consequences of the cooperative, peaceful pursuit of one’s own happiness. These ideas became the intellectual scaffolding for much of the West’s most fundamental institutions and achievements. Yet after its 19th-century high-water mark, classical liberalism lost much of its passion, focus, and popular support. Intellectual trends increasingly began to support coercive egalitarianism, empire, and central planning at the expense of individual liberty, personal responsibility, private property, natural law, and free institutions. Yet this book indicates that the eclipse of classical liberalism by contemporary liberalism and conservatism is passing.

Robert Higgs is senior fellow in political economy at The Independent Institute and editor of The Independent Review. Dr Higgs received his PhD in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, and Seattle University. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and was formerly a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation. He has written three other books and over 100 articles for scholarly journals as well as publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times.