The essays in Secession, State & Liberty argue that the political impulse to secede—to attempt to separate from central government control—is a vital part of the Lockean classical-liberal tradition, one that emerges when national governments become too big and too ambitious.
Unlike revolution, secession seeks only separation from rule, preferably through non-violent means. It is based on the moral idea, articulated by Ludwig von Mises in 1919, that “no people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want.”
These seven important essays—which cover philosophy, history, economics, and law—argue that the threat of secession should be revived as a bulwark against government encroachment on individual liberty and private property rights, as a guarantor of international free trade, and as protection against attempts to curb the freedom of association.
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David Gordon is Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Mises Review.
This week, Dr. Gordon explores some devastating critiques of utilitarianism from the philosopher F. H. Bradley.
Historian Richard Hofstadter was a well-known progressive, but his take on Abraham Lincoln certainly differs from the hagiographic approach most US historians take toward him.
Mainstream economics is obsessed with “maximizing” so-called utility functions and discovering the ubiquitous “social utility curve.” In this week’s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon takes apart this “utility” fixation.
Gordonh, David, ed. Secession, State, and Liberty (Transaction Publishers, 1998).
