Twenty-First Century Democratic Renaissance: From Plato to Neoliberalism to Planetary Democracy

Starting from Ancient Greece and the writings of Thucydides and Plato, Professor Harris examines the major concepts of democracy developed by notable thinkers from Plato through Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx and on to contemporary thought. By contrast with this democratic tradition, Harris advances a powerful analysis of the tradition that has attempted to subvert the legitimacy of democracy, beginning with Nazi legal theorist, Carl Schmidt, down through Joseph Schumpeter, Vilfredo Pareto, Friedrich von Hayek, Hans Morgenthau, and Benjamin Barber. He shows the relationship between the flawed thinking of this tradition and the work of Leo Strauss, the darling of today's Neoconservatives who for the past decade have wreaked such havoc in Washington, D.C. and the world. Harris concludes by pointing to the urgent necessity for a world federal process including a world constitution as the rational, effective, secure and lawful means by which the people and nations of the world can ensure true and enduring world democracy.

Errol E . Harris is John Evens Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philodophy (Emeritus) at Northwestern University, Honorary Research Fellow at the Center for the Philsophy and History of Science, Boston University, and a former President of the Hegel Society of America. Only a part of his many publications include, Atheism, Spinoza's Philosophy: an Outline, Cosmos and Anthropos; The Foundation of Metaphysics in Science; Cosmos and Theos, The Spirit of Hegel; Apocalypse and paradigm: Science and Everyday Thinking, and Earth Federation Now: Tomorrow is Too Late.