The Free Society in Crisis

Critiquing assumptions on both the left and the right, noted historian of ideas and political theorist David Selbourne stresses the importance of shared community and civic duty.How stable are free societies today? This book argues that they are under threat from "market free-choice" and "moral free-choice," two sides of the same coin that between them, the author warns, threaten to tear civil society apart. Market free-choice is the prevailing economic ideology that gives free reign to market forces, even when they ride roughshod over communities and whole nations. Moral free-choice, the other side of the coin, is the notion of individual rights without any sense of civic responsibility. The result of such ultra-individualism in economic and moral practice is the malaise we find ourselves in today: a lost sense of place, community, and belonging, as well as dismissiveness and unawareness of the lessons of the past.In the wake of these destructive tends, this book...