(Written while stuck in the Manchester, NH, airport, and posted on<\/p>\n
Thursday): Imagine that some of the major political philosophers of<\/p>\n
the eighteenth century are observing modern politics from their permanent<\/p>\n
perches in Limbo. What would they say?<\/p>\n
Edmund Burke:<\/strong> We should normally maintain the status<\/p>\n quo (whatever it may be), since people have learned to adjust to it<\/p>\n and it embodies the accumulated wishes and experiences of generations.<\/p>\n I am especially skeptical of efforts to reform societies quickly by<\/p>\n imposing ideas that came from other cultures or from the exercise of<\/p>\n "universal reason" (as if there were such a thing). Good conservatives<\/p>\n are hard to find today. This Newt Gingrich person represents the polar<\/p>\n opposite of my views. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was sensible throughout<\/p>\n his career, from his days opposing Great Society programs to his battles<\/p>\n to preserve welfare (always in the interests of maintaining an existing<\/p>\n social structure). Some modern leftists are Burkeans, in their efforts<\/p>\n to conserve indigenous cultures against markets. The IMF and the World<\/p>\n Bank remind me of the British Raj—they are arrogant purveyors<\/p>\n of a rationalist philosophy that will backfire in distant lands. I’d<\/p>\n vote Green, just to shock people.<\/p>\n Edward Gibbon<\/strong>: The Roman Republic exemplified the<\/p>\n main civic virtues: patriotism, military discipline, sobriety, love<\/p>\n of the common good, and worldly reason. These virtues were undermined<\/p>\n by Christianity, which was other-worldly, pacifistic, superstitious,<\/p>\n and hostile to national pride. I have a soft spot for your deist Founding<\/p>\n Fathers, but I can’t find anyone to like these days. Conservatives share<\/p>\n my list of virtues, but they’re revoltingly pious. Things continue to<\/p>\n decline and fall.<\/p>\n Thomas Jefferson:<\/strong> The New Dealers used to like me<\/p>\n because I was a civil libertarian and a political populist. They built<\/p>\n me a nice monument. Now conservatives love to quote statements of mine<\/p>\n like "That government is best which governs least." But I’ve<\/p>\n given up on politics. I don’t know what to make of a society in which<\/p>\n independent family farmers represent much less than one percent of the<\/p>\n population. I was surprised when governments started enacting expensive<\/p>\n programs with the intention of benefiting ordinary people; that never<\/p>\n happened before 1850. Did the programs of the Progressive Era and the<\/p>\n New Deal represent popular will, or did they interfere excessively in<\/p>\n private life? I can’t decide. In any case, my own dead hand should not<\/p>\n weigh heavily on the living, so I advise you to ignore any advice I<\/p>\n gave in my own lifetime. I now spend my whole time working on labor-saving<\/p>\n gadgets.<\/p>\n James Madison:<\/strong> I sought to construct a political system<\/p>\n that would tame the ruling class (to which I admit that I belonged)<\/p>\n and align our interests with those of the broad public. The ruling elite<\/p>\n in my day included Southern planters and Northern traders, manufacturers,<\/p>\n and bankers. They had reasons to care about their own families’ reputations<\/p>\n (especially locally), and thus could be induced to play constructive<\/p>\n roles. Also, they had conflicting interests: planters stood on the opposite<\/p>\n side of many issues from manufacturers and shippers. Thus each group<\/p>\n could be persuaded to check the worst ambitions of the others. I expected<\/p>\n men of my class to hold all the offices in an elaborate system of mutually<\/p>\n competitive institutions. They would seize opportunities to feather<\/p>\n their own nests, but they would also care about the long-term prospects<\/p>\n of their home communities, the institutions within which they served,<\/p>\n and the United States. Therefore, they would act in reasonably public-spirited<\/p>\n ways. In contrast, today’s ruling class consists of large, publicly<\/p>\n traded corporations. They have no concern with their political reputations,<\/p>\n and no loyalty to communities or the nation. You moderns need to look<\/p>\n for a different mechanism for inducing today’s ruling class to serve<\/p>\n public purposes. I do not view the system that I created as adequate<\/p>\n for that purpose. <\/p>\n Jean-Jacques Rousseau: <\/strong>All patriotic, decent people<\/p>\n have the same interests and goals. Disagreements arise because people<\/p>\n chatter together privately in little groups or factions, and also because<\/p>\n some people mislead others with their clever rhetoric. A perfect democracy<\/p>\n