The Open Society and Its Enemies (1+2)

By Karl Popper

Subjects: Sociology, Social sciences, Political science, Socialism, Sciences sociales, Social sciences, philosophy, Liberty, Sociale ideeën, Political culture, Sociologia, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Historisme, Sociologie, Politische Philosophie, Political science, philosophy, Communism, Historizismus, Political, Totalitarisme, Social change, Philosophie, Philosophy

Description: An open society provides its citizens with a mechanism for changing government; a closed society doesn't, forcing its citizens to rely on extra-legal revolution. Popper analyzes the open-closed society debate using three exemplars of closed-society advocacy: Plato, Hegel (and wow, does Popper hate on Hegel), and Marx. The main analytical viewpoints are historicist (backward-looking, utopian) motivations for closed societies and rational (forward-looking, empirical) motivations for open societies.