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Final Comments on Wendell Phillips and Non-Voting
Smith concludes his discussion of the no-voting theory of Wendell Phillips by explaining Phillips’s attitude toward taxes and the limits of democracy.
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George H. Smith
George H. Smith was formerly Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Humane Studies, a lecturer on American History for Cato Summer Seminars, and Executive Editor of Knowledge Products. Smith's fourth and most recent book, The System of Liberty, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.
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Abolitionism and Modern Voluntaryism
Smith discusses some similarities between the anti-political abolitionists and contemporary voluntaryists.
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Abolitionism: The Schism Over Voting
Smith discusses the split in the American Anti-Slavery Society over voting, equal rights for women, and other causes.
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More on Garrison and the Civil War
Smith explains why Garrison, an avowed pacifist, supported the North during the Civil War.
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Some Background on the Prohibition Movement
Smith explains some reasons why the temperance movement switched from advocating voluntary methods to calling for coercive prohibitory laws during the 1830s.
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Freethought and Freedom: Miracles and Edward Gibbon
Smith explains why Edward Gibbon rejected miraculous accounts in his masterpiece, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
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More on Lysander Spooner, Vices, and Crimes
Smith continues his discussion of Lysander Spooner’s objections to confusing vices with crimes.
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Immanuel Kant on Our Duty to Obey Government
Smith explains Kant’s basic justification of government and why he opposed the rights of resistance and revolution.
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Immanuel Kant and Nazism
Was Kant somehow responsible for the rise of Nazism? Smith explores two points of view on this issue.
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John Locke: A Leveller Connection?
Smith examines and criticizes Richard Ashcraft’s arguments that Locke was significantly influenced by the Levellers.
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John Locke: In Search of the Radical Locke
Smith explains an important controversy about when the Two Treatises was written, and the possible influence of the Levellers on Locke.
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John Locke: Some Qualifications in Locke’s Theory of Property
Smith explains how Locke dealt with some problems in the traditional Christian theory of private property.
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Freethought and Freedom: John Locke on Property
Smith discusses Locke’s view of the original commons, before the institution of private property.
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Self-Interest and Social Order in Classical Liberalism: Political Philosophy and Justice
Smith explores two concepts of political philosophy and their respective ideas about justice and a good society.
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Lysander Spooner on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery
Smith provides some background on Spooner’s influential book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery.
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Concluding Remarks on Vices are not Crimes
Smith summarizes Lysander Spooner’s objections to the most popular arguments in favor of the prohibition of alcohol.
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John Locke: Some Problems in Locke’s Theory of Private Property
Smith discusses Robert Nozick’s criticisms of Locke’s property theory and the relationship between a natural-law justification of property and social conventions.
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Self-Interest and Social Order in Classical Liberalism: Mandeville on the Benefits of Vice
Smith discusses Mandeville’s defense of legal prostitution and other vices.