Political Theory

Anthony de Jasay's short book contains more good sense about political theory than many treatises of enormously greater length.

Shutting down the government was this Congress's most noble act. Though the freshmen, who forced the closing against the leadership's wishes, didn't properly prepare for the inevitable response from the media and the bureaucracy, they were on the right track. It may have been the only principled act in two years of political compromise.

The big 2000 is approaching, and with it comes renewed interest in millennialism and the Book of Revelation. Everyone is looking for signs of something to happen, either cataclysmic or glorious. Will the Kingdom of God be established on earth? If so, what will it look like and who will be its prophet?

In a truly free society, it wouldn't matter who the president was. We wouldn't have to vote or pay attention to debates. We could ignore campaign commercials. There would be no high stakes for ourselves, our families, or the country. Liberty and property would be so secure that we could curse him, love him, or forget about him.

A premise many conservatives share with liberals is that government largess harms its beneficiaries. Welfare supposedly creates dependence and "traps" its recipients in poverty. Much as the poor want to support themselves and their families, they are lured into sloth by Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other programs. Similar criticisms are brought against affirmative action, which supposedly labels its beneficiaries as inferior.

N. Scott Arnold's outstanding book makes a vital contribution to the debate over socialism; but Arnold has in part misconceived his own achievement. 

Michael Lerner fears ridicule, with good reason. His "politics of meaning" is a farrago of nonsense, one absurd assertion tumbling over another. But we dare not laugh too much: this man is dangerous.

One school of thought—Public Choice—says that statesmen can't exist in a democracy. Politics consists of vote trading, logrolling, rent seeking, and legislated looting. Politicians buy and sell favors, lobbyists act as middlemen, and the public gets fleeced. It can be no other way, say these theorists.

In the welfare debates, Congress spared what is perhaps the most objectionable part of the welfare state, cash subsidies for illegitimate children. The opponents had committed a terrible error early in the debate. They granted the first philosophical assumption of the program's supporters: that we all should take responsibility for America's children. But should we?

The whole gay rights debate has, by now, gotten so tiresome that most Americans, even liberals, wish the "love that dare not speak its name" would shut up. But the gay lobby has plenty of bucks, a narrow focus, and is easily offended, a combination that keeps candidate Clinton hopping.