Power and Politics

From Plato's ideal city to Marx's manifesto, these are the books that every later argument about the state answers. Read them in order and you will see each one picking a fight with the last.

1. 1
   RepublicPlato · 8 hrs · ▶ ListenJustice in the soul and the city, and the philosopher-kings.
2. 2
   PoliticsAristotle · 6 hrs · ▶ ListenAristotle's reply: human beings are political animals, and constitutions must fit real people.
3. 3
   The PrinceNiccolò Machiavelli · 2 hrs · ▶ ListenPower as it is really won and kept, without the moralizing.
4. 4
   Part II: Of CommonwealthThomas Hobbes · from Leviathan · 4 hrs · ▶ ListenWhy we hand power to a sovereign: to escape a life that is nasty, brutish and short.
5. 5
   Second Treatise of GovernmentJohn Locke · 4 hrs · ▶ ListenNatural rights, property and consent, and when a people may resist.
6. 6
   The Social ContractJean-Jacques Rousseau · 3 hrs · ▶ ListenMan is born free, and everywhere in chains: the general will.
7. 7
   On LibertyJohn Stuart Mill · 3 hrs · ▶ ListenThe limits of power over the individual: the harm principle.
8. 8
   The Communist ManifestoKarl Marx and Friedrich Engels · 45 min · ▶ ListenHistory as class struggle, and the call to overturn it.