Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
The Political Economy of Edmund Burke : The Role of Property in His Thought, Paperback / softback Book

The Political Economy of Edmund Burke : The Role of Property in His Thought Paperback / softback

Paperback / softback

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks

Description

In Edmund Burke: A Bibliography of Secondary Studies to 1982 Clara Gandy and Peter Stanlis write, "One of the large unanswered questions is how Burke's economic theory is related to his political theory, and whether they are complementary or contradictory." Canavan is the first to offer a book-length treatment of this question, and in so doing, he places the strength of his argument largely on primary sources rather than a patchwork of previous interpretations.

Canavan aims to show that Burke's own emphasis was no on capitalistic laissez-fair economics, as has been assumen, but that his goals were primarily political and cultural.

Namely, Burke sought the preservation and development of an aristocratic and Christian civilization supported economically by a leading class of landed property owners.

This study projects a new profile of Burke which challenges C.B.

Macpherson's sketch of him as a bourgeois capitalist, or, as depicted by J.B.

Plumb and Frank O'Gorman, as a hired philsopher of the Whig Oligarchy.

Nor does Canavan's study present the philosopher as one who would "declare war on the poor," as Gertrude Himmelfarb charged in her The Idea of Poverty.

Burke emerges from Canavan's treatment as a Whiug who admired paternalistic government by the rich and virtuous whom he felt would govern as trustees for the benefit of the whole people.

Burke did not support the notion that property by monopolized by any one class in society, but wanted the wealthy to empower intermediary institutions which would hold in check the control of the expansive state, whether that meant the Crown in Britain or the revolutionary state in France.

Information

Other Formats

Save 19%

£35.00

£28.35

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
Add to Basket
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information