Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks. Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain. Edited and with an Introduction by David Womersely (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2015).

Montagu’s warnings in Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks are unusual in that each of the five states he examines supplies a separate lesson adapted to the needs of Britain during the crisis. Sparta instructs modern Britain to suppress commerce, refinement, and opulence and to bolster the landed interest. Athens warns of the dangerous levity of a democratical form of government, of the disastrous influence the people can exercise over the constitution and policy of a state if they are not checked by a powerful and confident aristocracy, of the proneness of the people to encourage charismatic despotism, and lastly of the folly of foreign entanglements and empire-building. Thebes, more encouragingly, demonstrates the potency of a “very small number of virtuous patriots” to save a state from corruption. The calamitous Carthaginian experience with mercenaries shows the incomparable superiority of a militia over hired soldiers. Finally, Rome plays her usual role of showing the fatal consequences of luxury. In the end, it was the Epicurean atheism of the Roman upper classes that gave the coup de grâce to the Roman state; an interpretation of Roman decline that paves the way for Montagu’s censure of British irreligion in his own day.

Selections from Cobbett’s Political Works: being a complete abridgement of the 100 volumes which comprise the writings of “Porcupine” and the “Weekly political register.” With notes, historical and explanatory. By John M. Cobbett and James P. Cobbett. (London, Ann Cobbett, 1835). Vol. 4.

Selections from Cobbett’s Political Works: being a complete abridgement of the 100 volumes which comprise the writings of “Porcupine” and the “Weekly political register.” With notes, historical and explanatory. By John M. Cobbett and James P. Cobbett. (London, Ann Cobbett, 1835). Vol. 3.

In this month's Liberty Matters online discussion we reassess the economic ideas of John Stuart Mill as found in his classic work Principles of Political Economy (1st ed. 1848, 7th ed. 1871) and other writings. In the Lead Essay by Steven Kates of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology it is argued that in the light of the evident failures of Keynesian economics to solve the problems of the boom and bust cycle, and that of ongoing high unemployment and economic stagnation, that we should go back to Mill's "Four Propositions on Capital" for enlightenment. In Kates's view there is "more insight into the operation of an economy than any of the Samuelson clones that have been published to explain what Keynes meant in trying to raise aggregate demand." The commentators are Nick Capaldi, the Legendre-Soulé Distinguished Chair in Business Ethics at Loyola University New Orleans; Richard M. Ebeling, the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina; and Sandra J. Peart, who is dean of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. See the Archive of "Liberty Matters".

The first 10 Liberty Matters Online Discussions are available as a single file in a variety of ebook formats. This version has quite a few corrections, mainly updating the links to conform to the new OLL website’s format. It is just over 260,000 words and 400 pages long. The pictures on the title page are of some books we have in the archive room in the Liberty Fund Library.

Essentials of Parliamentary Reform (London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1831).

Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform; with a Reply to the Objections of The Edinburgh Review, no. LXI (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1821).

This was the second work by George Grote on parliamentary reform. It was published on the eve of the passage of the First Reform Act of 1832 which largely achieved the goals of the Philosophic Radicals around James Mill.

Grote wrote this defence of electoral reform, the extension of suffrage, and brief terms for parliament against an essay by James Mackintosh which appeared in the Edinburgh Review.