- In the Name of Liberty: The Argument for Universal Unionization
- By Mark R. Reiff, research associate, Department of Philosophy
Mark R. Reiff performs an astonishing intellectual feat in this deeply researched, incisively reasoned and passionately argued volume. Joseph A. McCartin, professor of history, Georgetown University
In the Name of Liberty, author Mark R. Reiff says, reclaims the argument for liberty from the political right; paves the way for political philosophers to give unionization the same detailed attention they have long devoted to inequality, but have not applied to unionization before; and provides the first and only moral argument for universal unionization the mandatory unionization of every firm that is consistent with the principles of liberal capitalism.
In a review, Georgetown history professor Joseph A. McCartin wrote: [Reiff] deftly demolishes the claims of those who critique unions for infringing individual liberty; then he elegantly constructs in their place not only a powerful liberty-based argument for unionization, but for universal unionization.
His persuasive contention that strong unions are a prerequisite for the preservation of true liberty within 21st-century capitalism demands the attention of anyone who cares about the intertwined fates of workers rights and democracy.
This is Reiffs fifth book, after On Unemployment, Volume I: A Micro-Theory of Economic Justice and On Unemployment, Volume II: Achieving Economic Justice After the Great Recession (both published in 2015); Exploitation and Economic Justice in the Liberal Capitalist State (2013); and Punishment, Compensation and Law: A Theory of Enforceability (2005).