Topic 1: Political Thinkers

The four texts for detailed study have been chosen to illustrate different liberal, conservative, Marxist and anarchist perspectives (see bibliography on page 33 for details of publishers). It is important that study of the various thinkers is informed by a historical understanding of the context in which they wrote. Within each text particular emphasis should be given to the key issues listed below.

• John Stuart Mill

  • On Liberty

    • Mill’s ‘harm principle’ and his utilitarian approach

    • definition of ‘the appropriate region of human liberty’

    • defence of freedom of expression

    • proposed limits on freedom of opinion and action

    • importance of individuality

    • the role of “persons of genius”

    • liberty and progress

    • the limits of society’s authority over the individual.

• Edmund Burke

  • Reflections on the Revolution in France (extracts)

    • The importance of inheritance and the ‘pattern of nature’

    • criticisms of the French revolutionaries and abstract rights

    • definition of the ‘real rights of men’

    • the importance of prejudice

    • religion as the basis of civil society

    • definition of society as a contract

    • criticisms of democracy and majority rule.

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

  • The Communist Manifesto

    • The class struggle and, especially, the class struggle in capitalist society

    • the bourgeois epoch and the progressive role of the bourgeoisie

    • the historical development of the proletariat and their inevitable victory over the bourgeoisie

    • the role of the Communist Party

    • abolition of private property; historical materialism

    • the proletarian revolution and the achievement of communism.

• George Woodcock (ed.)

  • The Anarchist Reader

    • The nine prescribed extracts are:

      • Malatesta ‘Anarchy Defined’

      • Bakunin ‘The Illusion of Universal Suffrage’ and ‘Perils of the Marxist State’

      • Goldman ‘The Failure of the Russian Revolution’

      • Kropotkin ‘Anarchism and Violence’

      • Berkman ‘The Violence of the Lawful World’

      • Thoreau ‘Civil Disobedience’

      • Woodcock ‘Syndicalism Defined’

      • Tolstoy ‘Arranging our Lives’

      • Berkman ‘Lazy Men and Dirty Work’.

    • Key issues are:

      • definitions of anarchism

      • anarchist criticisms of liberal democracy and Marxism

      • anarchist approaches to revolution and protest

      • visions of an anarchist society.