Bryan G. Dear Phil, Thanks for the article and I’m sorry to have taken so long to get back to you. As I read it I heard my own voice echoing the same or similar arguments some years ago when I wrote a series of articles on political, economic and ethical issues for a European journal. The points you make about rights having their complement in responsibilities is a point that needs to made with increasing emphasis. In his famous book, The World we have Lost, a book about the early modern period in English history, Peter Laslet describes how employers in the sixteenth century employed apprentices in just the way you suggest: they accepted all of their broader responsibilities. In effect, the apprentice would become a full member of the family, not just a ‘hand’, to use that most revealing of all metaphors that arose in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. They accepted that when they employed someone they were employing the complete person, not just one aspect of his comp
Left wing commentary from the heart and the head