Once more available in paperback, and with a new Preface, here is Robert Paul Wolff's classic 1970 analysis of the foundations of the authority of the state and the problems of political authority and moral autonomy in a democracy.

For undergraduate Introduction to Philosophy courses. The most widely-adopted introduction to philosophy text for more than two decades, this classic text introduces the major fields, problems, theories, and personalities of philosophy through the biographies and writing of leading thinkers.

Robert Paul Wolff explains the development of the classical theory of value from Adam Smith to Karl Marx in a form readily accessible to readers unfamiliar with anything more than high school algebra, while at the same time offering to the specialist a fundamental criticism of Marxian political economy and an original and controversial interpretation of Capital. He clarifies recent mathematical reinterpretations of classical political economy, so that philosophers, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists interested in Marx's theories can understand the modern rehabilitation of his political economy. Originally published in 1985.

Wolff (philosophy, U. Mass.) first published the book reprinted here in 1969 with Beacon Press. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.