Delibertarianism In Charles Dickens Great Expectations

I almost feel as though I were leaving my own country and my own kinsfolk; for everything that belongs to kinship, good will, love, kindness everything that binds men together with ties stronger than that of blood—I have found among you in abundance. . . . I seem to have found in your friendship alone enough to make me always rejoice that I was forced to pass so many years amongst you.”(Aaron15) Sissy is a classic example of a libertarian type of a government. Philosophers such as Locke and Aristotle said that the human race is not egocentric or hateful, but rather it is filled with happiness and love. Dickens however, shows that with a libertarian type of government, one can be taken advantage of. An example of this is Mrs. Bounderby, Bounderby’s mother. She loves her son and did everything she could for him, which portrays an ideal caring and understanding mother. However, Bounderby realizes this and takes advantage of her. Bounderby then takes advantage of the ideology that if everyone is kind and caring to others, that he can take advantage of them and take their money for his own good. Sissy loves and cares …show more content…
Dickens takes advantage of our dislike towards Bounderby further by introducing the richest 1% capitalist trait in Bounderby. Bounderby’s humiliation and arrogance is seen throughout the novel, in which the reader sees and enjoys. “Through the Josiah in the gutter!’… ‘No such a thing, sir… never forgot her, but pensioned me on thirty pound a year…only making the condition that I was to keep down in my own part, and make no boasts about him, and not trouble him.”(Dickens 200) Bounderby wanted to hide the weakness to his “pride” by paying his mother to be quiet about how he got his fortune. This ultimately shows the downfalls to capitalism- capitalism will fall through the exploitation of the