ABSTRACT
In modern republicanism, the question of the common good was a central concern for thinkers such as Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hegel and Marx, something that has been marginalised in contemporary neo-republican theory which has placed emphasis on more liberal concepts of individual liberty as "non-domination". Emphasis on a common interest and common good was displaced over time in political philosophy by the growth and development of political liberalism. The question of growth needs to be posed in a different way: any form of socio-economic growth that replies on pleonexic ends and relations will produce oligarchic forms of social wealth, whereas those that rely on and promote common goods and relations will enhance democratic forms of wealth. Productive growth that damages or in any way unsustainably destroys the natural world cannot count as a common good or interest since human communities are situated within the natural world. Undermining the natural world therefore is against the common interest and good.
