Before Resorting to Politics is an original account of liberty and property which questions the morality and utility of political solutions and seeks to de-politicise society. Anthony de Jasay shows how politics tacitly claims that it is better if one part of society is made to gain at the expense of the other, than if neither part gains or loses. After a withering critique of consequentialism in politics, the author provides an original and terse analysis of liberty, coercion, the role of chance and deserts in the distribution of resources, common pool and private property and the freedom of contract. This essay concludes with a refutation of communitarian and social democratic arguments for calling the state to use its coercive powers.

Before Resorting to Politics shows how resorting to politics is a desperate remedy that causes civic cooperation to atrophy. Jasay assigns a new role to logic and ethics in defining the legitimate scope for government action.