2 - Agrarianism and Political Thought

Summary

This chapter examines the role of land in the history of political thought, specifically with regard to the concepts of value, productivity, natural harmony, and independence, and how, via the notion of the body as a universal materialist foundation, these have been conceptualised in the history of land reform agitation, both in Ireland and beyond. It examines the ideas and influence of key figures such as Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill, setting them in a much broader context of the long-standing tensions between liberal political economy and liberal individualism. The distinctiveness of land, based on the presumption of an individual natural right to life to which land was integral, formed the basis of this paradox in political thought. The chapter also analyses the place of land in Irish political economy, and the challenges faced by Irish economists in discarding references to moral purposiveness in economic thought.