Liberalism and Social Action. The Page-Barbour Lectures

In this book America’s foremost philosopher defines his economic and political position. Dewey begins this exposition of his most mature political views by tracing the historic development of liberalism from John Locke through Adam Smith, Bentham and the Mills. He observes the enduring value of liberalism—of liberty, of individuality, and of the free use of intelligence. But he criticises present-day liberal formulation of these ideas and enumerates the reasons for their irrelevancy to the economic and polit­ical problems of the present. The concluding portion of the book indicates the road which liberalism must take in order to recover its his­toric vitality. The goals of liberalism, Dewey declares, require an organization of economic factors for their realization; but he espouses organized intelligence, deprecates reliance upon violence, and adversely ex­amines the Marxist or Fascist doctrines of revolution.