Current review queue
Pearce: British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Deneen: The American Conservative
Chao-Reiss: Computing Reviews
St. Paul and I Agree...
Taxation is not theft: "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves." -- Romans 13 The key idea implicit here, and the one that turned me on the subject of whether or not taxation is theft, is that "every soul" owes obedience to the "governing authorities." Now, if that is a debt I truly owe , then, when those authorities levy the taxes they need to do the job of governing, I owe them those taxes, and attempts to collect them certainly do not constitute acts of theft. And obviously it doesn't matter at all, from this point of view, whether or not I "signed" any sort of "social contract." (In fact, the history of political thought since the Reformation can be read as an attempt to find a secular rep...
I like the title, "Why Liberalism Failed".
ReplyDeleteIs there a prior book named "Did Liberalism Fail" that was written before?
The evidence of the failure is the stunning successes of fascism and socialism wherever they have been tried. North Korea for example, which has a sterling record on reducing wasteful consumption of all kinds: energy, minerals, food.
DeleteSo, Ken, you think if ideology A and B failed, that means ideology C must have succeeded?
DeleteBy the way, Deneen explicitly addresses fascism and communism, and how they failed first and more spectacularly than liberalism is (right this moment) failing.
They are all bound to fail, since all ideologies are dream worlds, and we can't live in a dream world.
The book has a very nice description.
Delete"As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history."
Thomas Fleming of Chronicles once neatly said that libertarians have not noticed that as free market and pro-business ideas have become more and more accepted, the state has grown larger and larger. In the name of creating openness for business, we have created the largest and most expansive state ever seen.
And it has a positive review from... Cornel West!? I am looking forward to the read.
Delete'Failure' is not the word that springs to my mind for hugely extending life spans, vastly increasing wealth, and fostering unprecedented peace. YMMV.
DeleteI don't think we generally judge success or failure against ideals. In 1920, which treatment was successful against syphilis, mercury, prayer, or salvarsan? My choice is salvarsan. Did it cure without side effects? no. Did it make you younger? No. So measured against an ideal maybe it was a failure.
The "unprecedented peace" has been thoroughly debunked Ken.
DeleteAnd mightn't we have said, circa late 1941, the 'failure' is not the word that springs to mind for a system that has united the German people, conquered half of Europe, etc. etc.
Liberalism is not a failure "judged against an ideal": it is a failure on its very own terms. It has produced a first world of wealthy, long-lived, *miserable* people!
And, by the way, it's not like Deneen or I are unaware that people are wealthy and living longer!
DeleteLiberalism: like a meth addict on the verge of burning out who points to how active he has been for the past year and just how slim he is getting to prove that nothing is wrong!
Is present progressive a past tense now?
DeleteI like how you kept a fourth book's cover hidden. Mysterious!
ReplyDelete