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While no one has yet announced the death of capitalism, reports
of its imminent demise have been as numerous as they have been
exaggerated. Such reports have usually been bolstered by thoughtful
analyses of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, which
was expected to come sliding—if not crashing—down
under the weight of its own inconsistencies. Leaving aside Karl
Marx's own predictions, twentieth-century analysts as diverse
as Joseph Schumpeter, Daniel Bell, and Jurgen Habermas have
asserted that the contradictions of capitalism could only mean
that its days were numbered. Alas, all that has been established by
these analyses is that predictive failure is no impediment to market
success: either the consumer's demand for such theories of
capitalism's failures is naturally robust, or supply continues
to generate its own demand.

This fine study purports to offer "a normative theory of nationalism." Such a theory is needed, the author claims, because most of the literature on the ethics of secession proceeds on the mistaken assumption that the normative problem of state breakup is best addressed by applying established liberal arguments or values to the issue at hand. In fact, however, it makes little sense to derive a theory of secession in this way, rather than by considering directly the kinds of normative claims secessionists make. These are nationalist claims. We need, moreover, to recognize that well-known accounts of nationalism, such as those offered by Ernest Gellner, for whom nationalism is a political principle that holds that the political and national unit should be congruent, are inadequate—either because they include too much, or because, as in the case of Gellner (Nations and Nationalism, 1983), they associate it with a particular set of demands or principles. Nationalism, according to Margaret Moore, should be understood as "a normative argument that confers moral value on national membership, and on the past and future existence of the nation, and identifies the nation with a particular homeland or part of the globe" (p. 5). Once we have understood this, we will be in a better position to understand the key policies and demands of nationalists, including their occasional (and only occasional) demands for national self-determination, and to understand the normative limits of nationalism. And we will then be in a better position to understand the nature, and defensibility, of national self-determination, and of secession in particular.

The foundations of human inequality lie in the fact of human diversity, or in the human tendency to differentiate from some while associating with others to form groups. The diversity which results from association and differentiation makes equality unattainable. Diversity and equality are incompatible, and attempts to promote one can only be made at the expense of the other. In these circumstances, we should abandon the ideal of equality as incapable of offering us an adequate understanding of the nature of the good society.

Is the ideal society one that embodies or aims for ethical uniformity, orone that emphasizes instead the accommodation of ethical pluralism?From a classical liberal perspective the answer can only be that ethicalpluralism should be accommodated.

The foundations of human inequality lie in the fact of human diversity, or in the human tendency to differentiate from some while associating with others to form groups. The diversity that results from association & differentiation makes equality unattainable. Diversity & equality are incompatible, & attempts to promote one can only be made at the expense of the other. In these circumstances, we should abandon the ideal of equality as incapable of offering us an adequate understanding of the nature of the good society. 1 Figure. Adapted from the source document.

The question of the state's role in the control of sponsorship of education is addressed in the light of liberal political principles designed to keep peace and enforce toleration in culturally diverse societies. Some contemporary, self-described liberal philosophers argue for a much more substantial educational role for the state than liberal principles will really allow. Brian Barry's argument for that role assumes that the state can prescribe answers to controversial questions regarding the truth and the good life in which a truly liberal state would take no interest. Stephen Macedo is more accommodating to religious diversity than Barry, but his argument fails because of his rashly optimistic view of the state's effectiveness in promoting civic virtue and the possibility of reconciling that role with fundamental liberal values. Liberal regimes do not depend on civic education, even under conditions of diversity. Their life-blood is toleration and dissent rather than the widespread diffusion of civic virtue.

Proposes two different scenarios for a society based on the first principle of libertarianism, the right of all individuals to live as they choose, free from interference by other persons or by the state, and examines whether the societies described are acceptable from the standpoint of liberty.