C. B. Macpherson: Dilemmas of Liberalism and Socialism

by William Leiss

Crawford Brough Macpherson, an extremely influential writer and teacher and Canada's pre-eminent political theorist, won an international reputation for his controversial interpretation of liberalism. In the first book to examine the entire range of Macpherson's writings, William Leiss seeks to place that interpretation of liberalism within the overall framework of Macpherson's intellectual development. Focusing on two key themes - property and the state - Leiss tracks Macpherson's analysis of the contradictions of liberal-democracy through all of his writings, beginning with his 1935 M.A. thesis supervised by Harold Laski at LSE. His concluding chapter critically examines the core of Macpherson's political philosophy - the distinction between extractive and developmental powers - against the background of social change in the democracies of the West in the period since the end of the Second World War.

152 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1988

Reviews

[Donald]

I thought this was pretty good. It's a brief intellectual biography of CB Macpherson that maps out some of the developments in his commitments and thinking. The book helped me get an overview of Macpherson and his relationship to academia. Leiss argues that Macpherson's sensibility of academic commitment and social reform undergird his liberalism and socialism. This does seem to make sense, although I'm not sure how transferable these arguments would be to others. Part of the book is dedicated to arguing that developed economies are now mixed in such a way that Macpherson's opposition of capitalism and socialism is dated. After so many years of neoliberalism this seems dated in itself, but I thought it was an interesting in reference to Macpherson's thinking around the public interest.