Total State

Authoritarian nationalism is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere. Freedom is endangered in Eastern Europe. In the Middle East, militant Islam threatens peace, stability, and liberty. The US has recently faced an existential crisis, with the rise of populism and the unprecedented polarization of Left and Right. Brexit has endangered the integrity of the EU, which has hitherto operated as a defender of peace and freedom. At the same time, threats have arisen in the West to the traditional value of free speech.

With the fall of the Soviet Union decades ago, liberal capitalism seemed to be consolidating on the global stage. Since then, the West has been beset by social fragmentation, by the growing consciousness of environmental perils - such as global warming and the threat to biodiversity - and by ongoing racial turmoil.

With the creeping influence of the corporate state, cyber-technology threatens to put our souls up for sale to the highest bidder. Threats to freedom and privacy have become a matter of great concern.

In recent times, the pandemic has involved extraordinary restrictions on freedom on a global scale. The recent imposition of emergency legislation serves to emphasize the fragility of the liberties we normally take for granted.

Drawing widely on relevant literature, including political theory from Plato to Hannah Arendt, this book highlights the above and related issues. In practical terms, it suggests some ways in which the tendency to undermine freedom might be countered, through a political re-assertion of the value of liberty.