Social Statics

This is, I believe, the last American printing of the first edition of "Social Statics" . . . until modern times. Included is an "Introductory Note" and a "New Preface," the former explaining Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy, and the latter cautioning readers that Spencer had withdrawn a number of positions advanced in the volume at hand. Both are fascinating.

I am one of the few libertarians who think Spencer was right later to abridge the present work, getting rid of the Deism, the land socialism, and the near-anarchism . . . and even elements of his early feminism.

Herbert Spencer's first mature statement of his individualist liberalism. A classic of libertarian political thought, it is still worth reading today. Between the green boards of this edition one can find some provocative (and later chucked) chapters such as "The Divine Idea," "The Right to the Use of the Earth," and that classic of near-anarchism, "The Right to Ignore the State."