{"product_id":"9780195444018","title":"The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism : Hobbes to Locke by C.B. Macpherson","description":"This seminal work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson was first published by the Clarendon Press in 1962, and remains of key importance to the study of liberal-democratic theory half-a-century later. In it, Macpherson argues that the chief difficulty of the notion of individualism that underpins classical liberalism lies in what he calls 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 conception, the essence of humanity becomes freedom from dependence on the wills of others; society is little more than a system of economic relations; and political society becomes a means of safeguarding private property and the system of economic relations rooted in property.   As the New Statesman declared: \"It is rare for a book to change the intellectual landscape. It is even more unusual for this to happen when the subject is one that has been thoroughly investigated by generations of historians. . . . Until the appearance of Professor Macpherson's book, it seemed unlikely that anything radically new could be said about so well-worn a topic. The unexpected has happened, and the shock waves are still being absorbed.\"A new introduction by Frank Cunningham puts the work in a twenty-first-century context.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56226367308149,"sku":"9780195444018","price":38.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780195444018.jpg?v=1762239509","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9780195444018","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}