Herbert Spencer was born into a nineteenth-century world where the traditional logic of imperialism interacted with new developments like the Industrial Revolution, and new ideas like free trade and liberalism that emerged out of the Enlightenment of the previous century. The key to understanding Spencer’s importance is to realize that he was a radical proponent of laissez faire, individualism, natural rights, and capitalism. His call for the limitation of state power was so extensive that it included an individual’s right to “ignore the state,” that is, to “drop connection with the state — to relinquish protection and refuse paying toward its support.” These views were strongly articulated in his book Social Statics, considered by Murray Rothbard to be "the greatest single work of libertarian political philosophy ever written.”
This meant that while many developments, such as the burgeoning
trade relations of the time, would fall in line with Spencer’s outlook, his
radical and purist laissez-faire ideology put him at odds with the philosophy
of imperialism that accompanied the perpetuation of overseas territorial
expansion and militaristic activities of the British Empire…..To Read More…..
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