The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism

The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism

by Matthew McManus

(Routledge, 2025)

268 pages

Description

Providing a comprehensive critical genealogy of liberal socialism from a sympathetic but critical standpoint, Matthew McManus traces its core to the Revolutionary period that catalyzed major divisions in liberal political theory to the French Revolution that saw the emergence of writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine who argued that liberal principles could only be inadequately instantiated in a society with high levels of material and social inequality to John Stuart Mill, the first major thinker who declared himself a liberal and a socialist and who made major contributions to both traditions through his efforts to synthesize and conciliate them. McManus argues for liberal socialism as a political theory which could truly secure equality and liberty for all.

Contents [Preview]

Introduction: Retrieving Liberal Socialism 

1. What is Liberal Socialism? 

Part I: The Origins of Liberal Socialism  

2. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity  

3. Thomas Paine’s Denaturalization of Inequality  

4. Mary Wollstonecraft and the Egalitarian Rights of Man and Woman  

Part II: The Maturation of Liberal Socialism  

5. John Stuart Mill-The First Liberal Socialist  

6. Karl Marx’s Critique of Liberalism 

7. Ethical Socialism and Social Democratic Reformism  

8. C.B Macpherson’s Critique of “Possessive Individualism”  

9. John Rawls’ Just Society 

10. On Racial and Black Radical Liberalism  

Part III: The Future of Liberal Socialism 

11. Chantal Mouffe, Norberto Bobbio, and Axel Honneth-Agonistic Liberal Socialism and the Dialectics of Recognition 

12. A Future For Liberal Socialism?

Matthew McManus is a lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan.