English
Język Polski
The Republican Idea of Limited Government and the Liberal Goal of a Minimal State
Aleksander Stępkowski
Abstract
The paper attempts some clarification of the reason why the liberal movement, when attempting to achieve the republican idea of limited government, in fact presided over the creation of an unprecedented growth of the state and its functions. Starting with a comparison of classical and modern republican ideas, the paper analyzes ideas by the philosophers considered to be strong advocates of the modern idea of the minimal state (Phisiocrats,Locke, Kant), showing that their approach to the nature of state intervention was in fact far from what is commonly believed in this respect. The way in which individualism inspires far reaching intervention in family autonomy was subsequently presented in the example of J.S. Mill’s project of the in testacy abolishing as combined with high, progressive taxation of mortis causa dispositions. Upon this demonstration, it was claimed, the very reason of the modern state’s dynamic growth was the fact it was conceptualised on an individualistic premise as to the nature of the human being. In this respect it became clear, individualism is not an adversary of the state, but of a community. In order to emancipate an individual out of the communities it participates in, state agendas must be granted with the far reaching competences. Because of that, individualism inspires the growth and not a reduction of a state’s activities.
Keywords
Republicanism ; Liberalism ; minimal state ; individualism ; state?s interference with social life
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