Local Self-Government Is True Socialism
Joshua Toulmin Smith, the State and Character Formation
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 9804684 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Brian Weinstein (0000-0002-1126-8622, University of Warwick, autor de correspondencia) |
| Año | 2008 |
| Volumen | 123 |
| Número | 504 |
| Páginas | 1193-1228 |
| Fecha de publicación | 2008-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sí |
| Open Access | No |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | The English Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 0013-8266 • E-ISSN: 1477-4534 |
| Editorial | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ehr/cen255 |
| OpenAlex | W2139347067 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Citas recibidas | 3 |
The historiography of the ‘Victorian revolution in government’ has characterized Joshua Toulmin Smith as a promoter of individualism, ‘enterprise values’, and anti-statism. Where Edwin Chadwick has been described as an early theorist of the welfare state, Smith has been seen as Chadwick's foil: a supreme champion of the Victorian laissez-faire state. Smith's strong advocacy of ‘local-self government’ in works such as Local Self Government and Centralization has been held up as proof of this. The following essay agues that Smith's advocacy of local self-government proceeded neither from a belief in the merits of ‘individualism’ nor from a mere anti-statist disposition. Rather, Smith's view of the advantages of local self-government was profoundly communitarian and statist. As the following essay demonstrates, Smith was hostile to political economy and severely critical of most forms of human competition. In place of the laws of political economy, Smith's advocacy of local self-government was underpinned by his engagements with Combean phrenology and ‘philosophical necessarianism’. Ultimately, Smith desired to empower human agency over social circumstance, and he felt that local government was the forum best able to do this. At the same time, Smith's opposition to state ‘centralization’ was not a rejection of the ‘the state’ per se, but rather an articulation of the ‘Country’ critique of state imbalance and corruption
Champion · Individualism · Laissez-faire · Local government · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Statism · Supreme court · Australian History and Society · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law
| Obras citantes distintas | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citas por año | 0,33 |
| Intervalo de citas | 2017 - 2024 (8) |
| Velocidad de citación | recent |
| Altamente citado | No |
| Tipos de cita | Neutras: 3 |