In this concise and elegant work, first published in 1952, Bertrand de Jouvenel purposely ignores the economic evidence that redistributional efforts sap incentives and are economically destructive. Rather, he stresses the commonly disregarded ethical arguments showing that redistribution is ethically indefensible for, and practically unworkable in, a complex society. Bertrand de Jouvenel was an author and teacher, first publishing On Power in 1945. John Gray is Professor Emeritus of European Thought at the London School of Economics.

The Ethics of Redistribution

Business & Money

Jouvenel, Bertrand de

Economics

Liberty Fund, Inc.

Documenting the process by which government and controlling majorities have grown increasingly powerful and tyrannical, Bertrand de Jouvenel demonstrates how democracies have failed to limit the powers of government. This development Jouvenel traces all the way back to the days of royal absolutism, which established large administrative bureaucracies and thus laid the foundation of the modern omnipotent state. On Power is an important work that Professor Angelo M. Petroni of the Luigi Einaudi Center for Research in Torino, Italy, has said is "simply a book that no serious scholar of political science or political philosophy can afford to ignore." Bertrand de Jouvenel was born in Paris in 1903; he traveled widely, becoming an astute observer of British and American institutions. Later in life, he was an author and teacher, first publishing On Power in 1945. Jouvenel died in 1987. Among his other books, besides The Ethics of Redistribution, are Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good (1957) and The Pure Theory of Politics (1963).

ON POWER: The Natural History of Its Growth

Liberty Fund

Documenting the process by which government and controlling majorities have grown increasingly powerful and tyrannical, Bertrand de Jouvenel demonstrates how democracies have failed to limit the powers of government. Jouvenel traces this development to the days of royal absolutism, which established large administrative bureaucracies and thus laid the foundation of the modern omnipotent state. Bertrand de Jouvenel was an author and teacher, first publishing On Power in 1945.

On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth

Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good

Who decides? Who is the Sovereign? What is a good act? In quest of answers to these vitally important questions, Bertrand de Jouvenel examines successively the nature and history of authority, the political good, the sovereign, and liberty. His concern is with “the prospects for individual liberty in democratic societies in which sovereignty purportedly resides in the whole people of the body politic.” His objective is a definition and understanding of “the canons of conduct for the public authority of a dynamic society.” Daniel J. Mahoney is Associate Professor of Politics at Assumption College. David DesRosiers is Executive Vice President at the Manhattan Institute.

This is the final volume in Jouvenel’s magnum opus, the trilogy that begins with On Power, moves to Sovereignty, and concludes with The Pure Theory of Politics. In this volume, Bertrand de Jouvenel proposes to remedy a serious deficiency in political science: “the lack of agreement on first principles, or ‘elements.’” The author’s concern is with political processes as they actually exist, not as they are conjectured to be in hypothetical models.

The Pure Theory of Politics

Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987) was a renowned French philosopher and political economist. In Sovereignty he turned his attention to the relationship between the distribution of power and the creation of an ethical society. More specifically, he was concerned with the potential confusion of the body politic resulting from the development of increasingly dynamic and nebulous social conditions. The text is written in an exploratory fashion, reflecting the authorial perception of an ambiguity in modern political structures. This translated Cambridge edition, which was first published in 1957, was derived from a 1955 French original. It constitutes an important contribution to post-war political theory that will remain of value to anyone with an interest in questions relating to political structures and the nature of authority.

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Cambridge University Press

Un voyageur dans le siècle

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

ROBERT LAFFONT

La ética de la redistribución (Spanish Edition)

Ediciones Encuentro, S.A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jouvenel, Bertrand de. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Jouvenel, Bertrand de

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jouvenel, Bertrand de. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Ethics of Redistribution

The Ethics of Redistribution

ON POWER: The Natural History of Its Growth

On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth

Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good

The Pure Theory of Politics

The Pure Theory of Politics

Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good

Un voyageur dans le siècle

La ética de la redistribución (Spanish Edition)