Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 169 of Alan Macfarlane’s vital 1978 book, The Origins of English Individualism (footnote deleted; link added):

But he [Montesquieu] was certain that whatever the roots, the legal system and customs in England were peculiarly favourable to individual liberty; ‘their laws not being made for one individual more than another, each considers himself a monarch; and indeed, the men of this nation are rather confederates than fellow-subjects.’ In other words, they had formed an association of equal, independent individuals, rather than forming a basically hierarchical and subservient nation of the ruled.