Epstein's writings about property, contract, and limited government
invite the reader not only to consider what he has explicitly written,
but also to wonder about what has been omitted. Epstein's Hound of the
Baskervilles – the dog who does not bark – is power, and its many
manifestations are missing, with the exception of state power.
However, there is a rich political-theoretical position, from
Aristotle through Machiavelli through the present, that sees power at
the heart of politics, that power takes many forms, that power is
lodged in the state, society, and the economy, and that different
expressions of power can be enabling or disabling. Such an approach
recognizes there are dangers in a theory which only sees the state as
the holder of power or considers only the state as dangerous. Such an
approach invites us to assume everything we find in civil society to
be benign. This is something that should be crucially important to
someone who professes to want to protect liberty and autonomy, matters
that the author signals as his driving concerns early in his book.
Richard Epstein has written a provocative book that promotes classical
liberalism and that will delight and fortify its adherents, while
troubling and disappointing its detractors.
---SPSmith
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