Pragmatism is not new. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the pragmatic movement, embodied in such American authors as Charles Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910) and John Dewey (1859–1952), has developed various philosophical works and has been engaged in several theoretical disputes as well as political debates. Yet does pragmatism form part of only an American sensibility? Does it belong only to the past? This review essay will argue to the contrary. We will see to what extent pragmatism provides fruitful potential and inspiration for contemporary policy analysis in the United States and in Europe. This review essay will discuss actual issues and challenges within pragmatism by providing a critical reading of two recent books: Pragmatism and European Social Theory, edited by Patrick Baert and Bryan S. Turner (2007) and Reconstructing Democracy, Recontextualizing Dewey: Pragmatism and Interactive Constructivism in the Twenty-first Century, edited by Jim Garrison (2008).

In Book V of the Republic Socrates appears to abandon one of the most fundamental characteristics of Socratic philosophy, that is, the attempt to understand what makes human beings distinct, in favour of an understanding of human life in terms of the activity of animals. This suggests that the purpose of Book V is not to present the best political order as Socrates understands it but rather to illustrate the dangers of any attempt to understand political life from a perspective which, in simplifying the complexities of human life, distorts that life. As the drama of Book V indicates, such proposals are dangerous because of their appeal to those whose desire for control can lead them to embrace radical but simplistic reforms.

The agricultural sector of Israel's Jewish population is not very large; nevertheless the role of agriculture in the political life of the country is of the utmost importance. Seven of the sixteen members of the present cabinet (July, 1956) are members of kibbutzim (collective agricultural settlements). Twenty-six of the seventy-five Jewish members who support the government coalition in the 120-member Knesset (Israel Parliament) are members of kibbutzim or of moshvei-ovdim (co-operative agricultural settlements). David Ben-Gurion, Israel's outstanding leader, who is the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, retains his affiliation with a kibbutz and declares himself to be an agricultural labourer. Recently, for example, he relinquished all his official positions and left for a year and a half to do agricultural work in a kibbutz in Israel's pioneering frontier area, the Negev. The Minister of Finance, the Director General of the Ministry of Defence, and the Secretary General of the Histadrut (Federation of Labour)–three of Israel's key positions–consider themselves members of kibbutzim and take pride in their past as agricultural labourers. The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces, a most popular figure with the youth of the country, was born and raised in a co-operative agricultural settlement, and his father, himself a farmer, is a member of the Knesset.

The expansion of the Niagara Peninsula has occurred with its advance from a frontier of conflict to one of contact. Lying at the western extremity of the Hudson-Mohawk, that “greatest of all routes of continental migration,” it forms a major land bridge from New York to Ontario, and exerts the same attraction today, when it has become one of the chief international regions linking Canada with the United States, as it did in the mid-nineteenth century, when it formed part of the great overland route drawing immigrants to the West, or even earlier, when it was itself a pioneer zone. At the same time it is a prime water link between west and east, and, being used both by American and Canadian, has helped to bring them together, first in the commercialization of the St. Lawrence, and later in its industrialization. As a result it is one of the few districts of Canada able to show a continued native growth, together with a “pull on the northern margins of the neighbouring states at all comparable to that of the numerous urban and industrial regions of the United States.”

Thanks to these advantages, its population has increased fifteen times in the last 120 years, with an expansion in recent decades only exceeded by that of the early pioneer influx (see Figure 1). Its problems, therefore, are associated with growth, and with the attempts to work out a series of integrations with each new stage of development, in order to preserve equilibrium in expansion, and create new organizations of settlement and society. Its chequered history, especially as represented in the urban centre, has shown the varying success with which these issues have been met.

The work of C. B. Macpherson is extremely significant for those seeking to understand the cul-de-sac which liberal political theory and institutions have entered. Considering the experience of socialist societies in this century, the necessity for a nonmarket political theory to retain a positive connection to Western liberal values should be beyond dispute. Any postmarket society requires, not pious reassurances, but institutional support for individual rights that are the most vehemently defended in the liberal tradition. But of course this is not enough. Contemporary society is already undermining liberal individualism through massive organizations and manipulated consumption. The inability of liberal theory to analyze effectively and propose alternatives to the contemporary decline of the individual suggests that the cul-de-sac is rooted in the conceptual foundations of liberalism itself. Macpherson's rigorous analysis of the market assumptions of liberal theory pinpoints this conceptual inadequacy and attempts to maintain a commitment to liberal values in a postmarket society.

The expression “human rights” is used currently to denote two distinct items: one is a guarantee given in positive law; the other is a moral claim purportedly innate to human beings. These two items commonly are conflated, implying that they have a necessary connection. Historically they do not; positive human rights have been defended by those with no concept of innate rights, while believers in extensive innate rights have argued for limited positive rights. The defence of positive rights of the type now found in international treaties would be served by distinguishing it from justifications of the contention that human beings have rights.