Liberty is perhaps the most praised of all social ideals. Rare is the modern political movement which has not inscribed "liberty," "freedom," "liber- ation," or "emancipation" prominently on its banners. Rarer still is the political leader who has spoken out against liberty, though, of course, some have condemned "license. " While there is overwhelming agreement on the value of liberty, however, there is a great deal of disagreement on what liberty is. It is this fact that explains how it is possible for the most violently opposed of political parties to pay homage to the "same" ideal. From...

Early in his life, Marx had perceived the prevailing social system as being so deeply flawed as to be irreparable. He was as impatient with utopian fantasies as he was with mere tinkering, and so he was driven to develop not only the intellectual forecast of bourgeois capitalism's necessary demise but also the plan of human action that would at once hasten that demise and school the revolutionary actors for the post-revolutionary task of constructing a good society. The essays in this 1981 book examine the problems that have arisen from attempts to implement Marx's critical theory. The...