Ebook: LIBERTY AND HARD CASES
Author: Tibor R. Machan
- Genre: Business
- Series: HOOVER INST PRESS PUBLICATION
- Year: 2002
- Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
- Language: English
- pdf
Our free society rests on the fact that human beings are first and foremost sovereign individuals with the capacity for self-rule and self-directedness. But what do we do when disaster strikes? Could a fully free society preserve its liberty while also handling emergencies effectively? Natural calamities—earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and the like—seem to warrant an expansion of governmental authority beyond what a free society would sanction. But principles, says Tibor Machan, are tested by such hard cases. Despite the temptation to abandon the principle of limited government in the face of calamities, we might do well to encourage the development of institutions that could handle these problems without the involvement of government. Liberty and Hard Cases explores whether government action is in fact indispensable under such circumstances and what might be done to restrain the expansion of the scope of governmental power if indeed emergency circumstances warrant governmental intervention. The contributors examine