Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen by James Bovard

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Governments and bureaucracies are bigger and more controlling than ever. Today's citizen has less Ability to control his or her own life than ever before. How did we get to this point? James Bovard, bestselling author of Lost Rights, shows how the State has become a behemoth that threatens to destroy the individual. Public policy today is permeated by "Statism"—the belief that government is inherently superior to the citizenry, that progress consists of extending the realm of governmental compulsion, and the vesting more arbitrary power in government officials will eventually make citizens happy. Reading through the history of the State and its war on the citizen, Bovard looks at thinkers as diverse as John Locke, Etieene de la Boetie, James Madison, and G.W.F. Hegel. He explores the original idea of the State; the corruption of the concept of freedom; how the rising number of government dependents is subverting democracy; and the ultimate fraud that is perpetrate d as the State's benevolence. In these times of the Leviathan State, Freedom in Chains is must reading for everyone who took James Bovard's Lost Rights to heart, as well as for anyone trying to understand how government power has transformed self-reliant Americans into wards of the State.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Great Pretending: The State, Ideal & Real
3. The Mirage of Welfare State Freedom
4. Cagekeepers and Caretakers: Modern Democracy
5. The Moral Glorification of Leviathan
6. Sovereignty & Political Slavery
7. Paternalism versus the Blessings of Liberty
8. A Few Thoughts on an Ideal Political Order
9. Taking Coercion Seriously
   Acknowledgements
   Notes
   Index