Limits of State Action, The [Paperback]

Wilhelm von Humboldt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0865971099 | ISBN-13: 978-0865971097 | Publication Date: March 1, 1993 | Edition: Revised

Modern Political Philosophy

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

This text is important both as one of the most interesting contributions to the liberalism of the German Enlightenment, and as the most significant source for the ideas which John Stuart Mill popularized in his essay On Liberty. Humboldt's concern is to define the criteria by which the permissible limits of the state's activities may be determined. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Liberty Fund; Revised edition (March 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865971099
• ISBN-13: 978-0865971097
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,136,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true classic, August 3, 2008

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Stephen Bailey (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Limits of State Action, The (Paperback)

Liberty is at the heart of the Enlightenment experiment and the greatest question of our modern age (post-modernism not yet showing any lasting ability to transform societies). Humboldt was one of those men who championed the continuation of that experiment, to bring reason into human affairs, at a time when Europe began to move sideways into a love affair with Romanticism and folk culture. He also lived prior to the mass overturning of traditions that arose with the industrial revolution. Yet his well reasoned words still hold value in our materialistic, bureaucratic, and corporate world. This is a relatively faithful and accessible rendering of those words. They are worth savoring again and again, whether we love liberty from a left or right perspective, in order to understand that this yearning is part of the human condition. The desire to live one's life free of coercion, whether from majoritarian governments or quasi-private corporations or criminal enterprises masquerading as governments, is there inside our minds and hearts. If lovers of liberty keep that in mind, then the categories of left and right will seem less important and common ground seem more available. For in the end, as those thinkers of the past have pointed out, all lovers of liberty must ultimately stand together on the battlements and fight the good fight side by side, or they will find that liberty stolen from them.

24 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humboldt and Mill: Classical Liberalism, March 1, 2004

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Gautner "Gautner" (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Limits of State Action, The (Paperback)

I feel a sense of responsibility and urgency to write this review in regards to what the only other reviewer of the Liberty edition has submitted: Wilhelm von Humboldt has nothing to do with "Libertarian socialism" - that statement is simply oxymoronic. Here is what Humboldt speaks to in this particular volume:

1.) The development of classical liberalism in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century.
2.) The role of liberty in the development of the individual.
3.) The necessary criteria to be met in allowing the state to limit individual actions.
4.) The manner in which it is prudent to confine the state to its proper role.

F.A. Hayek, who utterly rejected socialism, considered Humboldt to be Germany's greatest philosopher of freedom. Humboldt's purpose was to juxtapose the ancient ideals of a pursuit for excellence with the concept of negative liberty - which was later elucidated by Isaiah Berlin. If you are interested in the foundations of classical liberalism, I would suggest reading the works of Hayek, Humboldt, Hobhouse, Collingwood, Berlin, Oakeshott, and Mill. However, if you are interested in socialism I would recommend reading Marx, Proudhon, Feuerbach, Hegel, Rousseau, Richard Pipes' "Property and Freedom," Joshua Muravchik's "Heaven on Earth," and especially, "News from Nowhere," by William Morris.

17 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars insight into the philosophy of libertarian socialism, June 19, 2000

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egalitarian ethos - See all my reviews

This review is from: Limits of State Action, The (Paperback)

In "The Limits of State Action" Enlightenment thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt describes the leading principle of his thought as being the essential importance of human development in its richest diversity - a principle that is not only undermined by the narrow search for efficiency through division of labour, but by wage labour itself.

Humboldt espouses the libertarian view that whatever labour "does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness"; when the labourer works under external control, "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is."

Essentially anticapitalist in its nature,"The Limits of State Action" provides insight into the philosophy of libertarian socialism, anarchy and educational reform. Fascinating reading.