One of the great aspects of electronic literature is the statistical information provided by linked users. Before e-book readers like the Kindle and Nook, there was no practical way to share information like commonly highlighted passages. Now, it is as easy as a flip of the switch. Here is a list of the most popular passages from the book as of June 30, 2011 (it’s also a good summary of the theory):

the irony of collective ownership is that it spurs more selfishness than does private ownership.
Highlighted by 8 Kindle users

It is a truth widely recognized that tyranny stems from the consent of the governed as much as democracy does.
Highlighted by 7 Kindle users

If there was a New World at all, it was not in the Americas, but in the hearts and heads of the men looking on from Spain, France, Britain, and Germany.
Highlighted by 6 Kindle users

The benefits of specialism, labor division, and trade are far-reaching because their applications are nearly infinite.
Highlighted by 6 Kindle users

The modern citizen is not concerned with what is proper, what is good, what is just; he is concerned with what is acceptable, what is better, what is workable. When a system is closed, an individual’s decisions are not made from the ground up; they are made under relational pretexts and cannot possibly be based in one’s perceived value.
Highlighted by 6 Kindle users

This interdependency is the driving principle behind the Juggernaut, which is something of a Chinese handcuff laid on the individual. The more productive one is, the more he relies on others; the more he tries to liberate himself, the more reliant he becomes. He believes that working hard and extending productivity grants him freedom in the ability to do what he wants, but as his access to goods and luxuries is increased, his ability to produce in other ways is decreased, and he thus becomes more and more dependent on the system.
Highlighted by 6 Kindle users

One can see the catch here in full view: To fix the ills of the modern system, one must support it and foster its ways, thus exacerbating those ills. To solve the problem, one must become a part of it and thus make it worse.
Highlighted by 5 Kindle users

It is not a leap to suggest that all of the distinctive advances made between 1500 and today, for better or worse, were directly or indirectly brought about by the dissolution of feudal bonds and the rise of individual autonomy.
Highlighted by 5 Kindle users

Communal ownership means that all benefit for a short time; private ownership means that few people benefit over the course of an extended period of time.
Highlighted by 5 Kindle users

If the rise of self-rule was the central event of the modern era, the argument for the Natural Law was its driving intellectual force.
Highlighted by 4 Kindle users