The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism

by Yuval Levin

Americans today are frustrated and anxious. Our economy is sluggish, and leaves workers insecure. Income inequality, cultural divisions, and political polarization increasingly pull us apart. Our governing institutions often seem paralyzed. And our politics has failed to rise to these challenges.

No wonder, then, that Americans -- and the politicians who represent them -- are overwhelmingly nostalgic for a better time. The Left looks back to the middle of the twentieth century, when unions were strong, large public programs promised to solve pressing social problems, and the movements for racial integration and sexual equality were advancing. The Right looks back to the Reagan Era, when deregulation and lower taxes spurred the economy, cultural traditionalism seemed resurgent, and America was confident and optimistic. Each side thinks returning to its golden age could solve America's problems.

In The Fractured Republic , Yuval Levin argues that this politics of nostalgia is failing twenty-first-century Americans. Both parties are blind to how America has changed over the past half century -- as the large, consolidated institutions that once dominated our economy, politics, and culture have fragmented and become smaller, more diverse, and personalized. Individualism, dynamism, and liberalization have come at the cost of dwindling solidarity, cohesion, and social order. This has left us with more choices in every realm of life but less security, stability, and national unity.

Both our strengths and our weaknesses are therefore consequences of these changes. And the dysfunctions of our fragmented national life will need to be answered by the strengths of our decentralized, diverse, dynamic nation.
Levin argues that this calls for a modernizing politics that avoids both radical individualism and a centralizing statism and instead revives the middle layers of society -- families and communities, schools and churches, charities and associations, local governments and markets. Through them, we can achieve not a single solution to the problems of our age, but multiple and tailored answers fitted to the daunting range of challenges we face and suited to enable an American revival.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Cultural, Economics, Political Science, Philosophy

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 24, 2016

About the author

American political analyst, public intellectual, academic and journalist. His areas of specialty include health care, entitlement reform, economic and domestic policy, science and technology policy, political philosophy, and bioethics.
He is the founding editor of National Affairs, director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing editor of National Review and a senior editor of The New Atlantis.
Levin was vice president and Hertog Fellow of Ethics and Public Policy Center, executive director of the President's Council on Bioethics, Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy under President George W. Bush and contributing editor to The Weekly Standard. Prior to that he served as a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.
He holds a BA from American University and a PhD from the University of Chicago.

Reviews

[Kathryn Bashaar · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been targeting some of my reading lately at trying to figure out how we ended up with a greedy, crude, narcissistic liar for president-elect. This book came highly recommended but was very disappointing.
First, the author spent the first 100 pages making his main point. The US used to be very united around similar values and a narrow range of political positions, and now we are more fractured. We used to listen to the same news sources; now we have more options and tend to listen to the ones that reinforce our prejudices. We used to be involved in and feel responsibility for our families and our communities; now we are obsessed with our individual satisfaction. All more or less true, but so true that it's pretty much stating the obvious. He didn't need 100 pages to say that. It got very repetitive.
Second, Levin repeatedly states that the social welfare state can't work in the new environment. But he never provides any evidence for that statement; he just puts it out there like it's self-evident. News flash: people like my mother who would otherwise not have health care or a roof over their heads, think that Social Security and Medicare are working pretty damn well.
Third, he scolds us for being "obsessed" with the rich paying their fair share of taxes. Nothing to see here, folks; move along.
Finally, he has some intriguing ideas about how to start rebuilding community and consensus from the bottom up, but he doesn't develop them. The second half of the book is full of vague generalities and phrases like "ways need to be found to..." and "We don't know how this will work, but..." Seriously???!!! You want to take away the tattered remains of the social safety net AND YOU HAVE NO CLEAR IDEA WHAT WILL REPLACE IT???!!! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND???!!! Well, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, since this is exactly what the Republicans are already doing with Obamacare. They voted to repeal it dozens of times and had 7 years to come up with a replacement and now that they're responsible for actually doing that - ooops! - they don't have a plan.
I was very intrigued by some of Levin's ideas about strengthening "mediating institutions" like churches, local governments, labor unions, community organizations and families. I like his premise that these organizations have been "hollowed out" from the top by a powerful central government and from the bottom by individualism. I think he's on to something, especially since it is already clear that the federal government will be basically dysfunctional for another 4 years at least. It's just a shame that he wrote 200+ pages of generalities rather than coming up with any specific ideas. I'd loved to have read about examples of some people who are already rebuilding these mediating institutions.
Like my reviews? Check out my blog at http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/blog/

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this, for the most part. Levin had some very valuable insights and observations, but his prescriptions for what we should do about it all were too detached (e.g. The Right should . . . The Left should, and I ask, "who's going to make 'em?"). Nevertheless, as an observer, Levin was often invaluable. I especially appreciated his distinction of identity and community. Worth reading, at any rate.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one book that lives up to its hype and is simply a must read if you are interested in politics and public affairs in this country. Levin brilliantly lays out the problematic nostalgia that fuels our politics and our frustration with it at the same time. He then lays out a beautiful alternative that actually acknowledges the problems we face and argues for strategies that are likely to retain the progress and positives of our current culture and economy and seek to address their failures and dangers.

I have to confess that my gushing praise of this book might be related to the way it mirrors my own thinking, or more accurately, brings to light in clear prose some of the vague instincts and unclarified thoughts I have had over the years. Levin puts to words, and backs it up with research and data, what I only guessed at or hoped for.

I will probably have to read this again to truly appreciate the argument and details but I can already recommend it wholeheartedly. This is a book for our time. It gives you hope that a future for conservatives and for American politics is actually possible.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Fractured Republic” is a fantastically original book. It is very optimistic, yet clear-eyed, which is a rare combination. Most optimistic books about modern politics are also simplistic. They typically consist of vague and belligerent paeans demanding the recapture of America’s past. Yuval Levin’s book, on the other hand, is the very opposite. It is precise and even-handed. And far from demanding recapture of the past, Levin explicitly rejects any such attempt. At the same time, Levin believes that we as Americans, liberal and conservative, can jointly renew our society without retreading the past, and in this age, such optimism is no small thing.

Yuval Levin is a “reform conservative,” part of a loose group that includes such writers as Reihan Salam, Ross Douthat, Michael Lotus and James Bennett in "America 3.0," and (perhaps) Rod Dreher. Reform conservatives are one of the constellation of conservative sub-groups that has emerged as the Republican pseudo-consensus of the past several decades has shattered. I would say, without knowing all that much about him, that Levin is an applied political philosopher. He edits the journal “National Affairs” and is the author of the excellent “The Great Debate,” contrasting the philosophies of Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke. He has thought very deeply on the problems facing America, and this book is the result.

“The Fractured Republic” is a difficult book to summarize because its thought is densely original. But I’ll try! And reviewing this book is helped by Levin’s writing skill. Each word is measured and precisely chosen. Not a single trace of sloppy writing or sloppy thinking mars this book. Yes, it the material can be a little dry, but that’s in the nature of political philosophy, and I don’t think any author could do better than Levin.

The first part of the book looks at the past century of American history through a new prism, criticizing both the modern Right and Left for a politics based on nostalgia, for focusing on a supposedly golden age they do not fully understand and which in any case cannot be recovered. Levin uses this bipartisan “politics of nostalgia” to explain both the emptiness and profitlessness of present-day politics, and also to explain many key modern social phenomena, especially the bifurcation of many aspects of economics and culture into two stratified groups. The second part of the book looks at the implications of this new understanding for, as the subtitle says, “Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.” At its core, this is a sustained call for a new politics of “subsidiarity”—the revitalization of the middle, non-governmental structures of society.

Levin begins with the premise that since 2000, Americans have faced a “frustrating time.” Economically many Americans have not done well. Culturally there has been enormous division and problems. In response, both parties have tended to become openly nostalgic for an earlier time. For liberals, that time was about 1950 to the late 1960s, where high wages co-existed with growth, government and business cooperated, activism was au courant, and individual choices became vastly greater. For conservatives, it was the early 1960s, where there was a perceived societal consensus on social issues, increasing economic liberalization, and before everything “came apart,” in Charles Murray’s words. Alternatively, for conservatives, it was the Reagan years, echoing the early 1960s—and supposedly showing, after the awful 1970s, that we can, in fact, go back again.

Levin thinks much of this nostalgia is misplaced or exaggerated. But more importantly, he shows, in detail, that whatever else those past times were, they were unique. They were unique because they existed as part of a one-time transition—that of a highly consolidated society as it liberalized across the board, such that for a time it was able to reap the benefits of consolidation while not facing the downsides of unfettered individual choice. That transition is over, and we can never return to that time, whether through more government or more tax cuts. “The powerful nostalgia for the 1950s and early 1960s that so dominates our politics is, in essence, a longing for a safe and stable backdrop for various forms of liberalization—be it toward a culture of expressive individualism or toward market economics.”

Levin takes the reader on a history tour, noting that America was born largely decentralized and localized, with relatively little national cohesion. Post-Civil War, industrialization led to centralization and industrial consolidation, the “Age Of Conformity.” The resulting dislocations and problems led to political reforms that created more centralization, primarily under the progressive banner, with a consequent erosion in the intermediating institutions of society. “The progressives argued that joint social action could only be effective at the national level . . . . They were far less interested in the mediating layers of society—local authority, for instance, or private associations—which they considered unequal to the task of helping Americans handle the increasingly massive scale of the nation’s life.” Technology reinforced this consolidation, from mass media to railroads. World War I further increased both centralization and national coalescence, and then the Great Depression, ensuing changes in constitutional interpretation allowing massive increases in federal power, and World War II brought the process to its high point.

Then America “began to unwind, and to seek some relief from the intense cohesion that had been building for so long.” Conformity came under immediate and sustained attack from taste- and opinion-makers, from Benjamin Spock to J.D. Salinger. Nor was this a liberal thing—conservatives, driven in part by opposition to Communism, similarly mostly lionized individualism in a way unthinkable even a decade earlier. The movement for black civil rights followed close behind. But, crucially, none of the downsides of individual choice, notably atomization and social isolation, had yet reared their heads.

But as this unwinding progressed, economically and socially, America still seemed to have the best of both worlds. The 1950s economy was “exceedingly regulated and constrained,” as a result of decades of coalescence, yet due to America’s global position after the war, economic growth was very strong. Strong unions kept wages high (but low for women and black people), creating both overall prosperity and compressed wage bands (i.e., low income inequality). Individualism increased. But this “happy medium” of increased individuality with increasing prosperity was merely a happenstance, possible only during the unwinding of the old order. “Americans in this time could therefore take for granted some of the benefits of consolidation . . . while actively combating some of its least attractive downsides.”

And what are those downsides? Levin points to two major areas—fragmentation on the individual level, and (paradoxically) greater government power and reach. As to fragmentation, “In liberating many individuals from oppressive social constraints, we have also estranged many from their families and unmoored them from their communities, work and faith. In accepting a profusion of options in every part of our lives to meet our particular needs and wants, we have also unraveled the institutions of an earlier era, and with it the public’s broader faith in institutions of all kinds.” And as to government power and reach, “[A]dministrative centralization often accompanies cultural and economic individualism. As the national government grows more centralized, and takes over the work otherwise performed by mediating institutions—from families and communities to local governments and charities—individuals become increasingly atomized; and as individuals grow apart from one another, the need for centralized government provision seems to grow.”

In this latter insight, Levin is indebted, as he acknowledges, to Robert Nisbet’s prescient 1953 book “The Quest For Community,” which first pointed out that Leviathan grows as intermediary institutions decay, since people seek meaning, and when they cannot obtain meaning on the local level, they will turn to national meaning, thus strengthening the central state (while obtaining only counterfeit meaning). Levin’s response, throughout his book, is to call for a restoration of these intermediary institutions. “The middle layers of society, where people see each other face to face, offer a middle ground between radical individualism and extreme centralization. . . . [We should] work toward a modernized politics of subsidiarity—that is, of putting power, authority, and significance as close to the level of the interpersonal community as reasonably possible.”

But before Levin gets to his recommendations, he continues his history tour. The death of conformity brought on the “Age Of Frenzy.” The late 1960s and the 1970s showed the costs of the erosion of conformity, with economic chaos—stagflation, unemployment—coupled with social transformation resulting from the the “me decade,” accompanied by massive increases in crime, broken families, and overall narcissism and consequent alienation. At the same time, individual choice was undeniably increased, leading to at least potential fulfilment for many. “A powerful sense of growing instability and unraveling, or growing individualism and liberalism, thus prevailed in the culture of the 1970s.”

While both Right and Left saw the problems, even if they did not necessarily agree on what were all the problems, neither pushed a return to conformity. Instead, “new norms were rooted in the new ethic of individualism but geared to giving people’s lives some stability and structure.” Over time, the upper segments of society re-normed, with strong wages and strong social and family structures. The lower segments did not, thus creating a bifurcation (one of Levin’s overriding themes, echoing Charles Murray, that society at the top and bottom is very different today, in undesirable ways). However, “The Twentieth Century ended better than Americans in the 1970s would have had any reason to expect.” In part this was because economic liberalization created enough prosperity that most people felt more secure. But socially, loneliness and isolation increased, as “elective affinities” failed to substitute for the older traditional ties. And society further bifurcated, with those at the top doing better not only economically, but socially and culturally.

Although America recovered from the 1970s nadir, things have not continued their upward arc. After a period of stabilization, we entered the “Age Of Anxiety,” and we are in it now. Economic growth and productivity are stagnant; public institutions are sclerotic and unsuited for “our diffuse and decentralizing society,” and there has been a trend toward “detachment from some core sources of social order and meaning,” especially the family. Levin does not think it all uniformly dreadful—the Internet is, in fact, well-suited to a diffuse and decentralizing society—but, like other forms of elective affinity, the Internet encourages weak and shallow social bonds, a problem pre-existing the Internet, not caused by it. Bifurcation continues—the upper segments of American society are richer and more stable; the lower segments poorer and less stable. He notes the middle class has mostly moved up; “the problem is that those at the bottom are unable to rise.” The Left blames economic instability. The Right blames cultural disintegration. Both predict cataclysm. Levin, ever the optimist, doesn’t—but he does argue that our current path is “may not be compatible with human flourishing . . . we are stuck in a rut, and getting out of it will require understanding it. No moment of change will be forced upon us, so if we are to revive the fortunes of the least among us, we will need to act.” But we can’t act by going back. “[Our] society is a diffuse and still diffusing democracy, and this fact must help shape our understanding of both the problems we confront and any plausible solutions. . . . Any policy that relies on significantly counteracting [diffusion] is likely to prove foolhardy.” (This also explains, although Levin doesn’t mention it, why gun rights have become more popular in our country, while other socially conservative positions have foundered. It’s because gun rights are philosophically aligned with a diffuse society focused on individual rights, unlike other socially conservative positions.)

Levin then turns to his recommendations for reinvigorating human flourishing in our country. First, discussing “The Unbundled Market,” he addresses economics, rejecting again the politics of nostalgia. He notes that, whatever Arthur Laffer says, this is not 1979, and past prescriptions will solve little. Levin addresses the economic challenges of “diffusion and specialization,” specifically with respect to globalization, automation, immigration and consumerization, especially as those affect the bifurcated nature of modern society. He notes that, contrary to conservative myth, “the data suggest that relative mobility has been remarkably stable—and remarkably low—for at least the past five decades in the United States.” Levin therefore calls for a “mobility agenda,” consisting of ways to allow the lower segments of society to rise. Here, Levin rejects a larger government role—he calls for reducing government barriers and increasing education, not through top-down mechanisms, but through decentralized solutions. “The idea in each case is to channel power and resources to the mediating institutions of society and allow for bottom-up problem solving that takes a variety of specialized, adapted forms.” Perhaps there’s too much optimism here, and the Left will probably think this is too free-market oriented (although Levin would say that’s merely nostalgia for the days of consolidated government and society, and also that part of his call is for public, i.e., governmental, options as competitive alternatives), but you don’t know until you try.

Levin’s final chapter of analysis is “Subculture Wars.” Here he discusses, as “the reigning spirit of this era,” “expressive individualism.” “It is a drive both to be more like whatever you already are and also to live in society by fully asserting who you are.” This chapter is so packed with cogent, original analysis and thoughts that I cannot possibly do it justice. In brief, Levin ascribes our social transformation, in both its good and bad aspects (and, unlike many conservatives, he sees much good in this transformation), to this spirit. But the transformation, well-intention itself, broke a consolidated consensus that (contrary to common modern assumption) was itself well-intentioned, and the transformation had innumerable unintended bad consequences. Among them are fragmentation and alienation (citing Nisbet, and also Robert Putnam), the destruction of the nuclear family and consequent poverty and other ills, and, again, the bifurcation of society.

Levin notes that conservatives are wrong to think that most people have fallen away from a core, and conservative, moral and religious consensus. Instead, most people were always merely fellow-travelers to what was the then-dominant consensus. And now they are not, for it is no longer the consensus. The same percentage of people are strongly religious and conservative as always were—but there are fewer of them than those people believed. Yes, that norm was “a source of great strength and stability.” But it’s gone, and the new norm of expressive individualism does not provide the same strength and stability. Conservatives should not lament, nor should they predict a cataclysm that is unlikely to come (and Levin also thinks that the Left has reached its high tide); they will merely destroy what credibility with larger society they have left. Instead, both Left and Right should work on a positive argument for restoring cultural intermediaries (everything from church groups to bridge clubs to labor organizations), which will knit society together and, perhaps, move society in the direction that conservatives broadly want, if the results appeal to the larger society. (This is very much not the Remnant of Isaiah and Albert Jay Nock—Levin’s program is meant to reforge the country, not preserve virtue in sheltered corners until some distant future revival, which Levin would criticize as the worst type of politics of nostalgia.)

Levin’s vision, of course, has much in common with Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option,” which Levin specifically discusses. The idea is (roughly—Dreher has a book coming out in 2017 that will clearly define his vision) that conservatives, and more broadly those dissatisfied with today’s culture, should focus on local, small-scale activities and institutions, thereby providing both satisfaction and happiness for themselves and their families, and also showing an appealing way of life to the broader culture, by modeling appealing alternatives. This is not a physical separation, but a change of focus. This is a revival of community, not a political action. And such local action is in tune, rather than in opposition to, the spirit of the age, since it is decentralized and diffuse action based on individual choice (leaving aside the problem of increased government centralization and reach).

Finally, in “One Nation, After All,” Levin brings together his analysis, his prescriptions, and his vision of freedom. He notes the dysfunction and polarization of modern politics, and focuses on two matters. First, such polarization is the historical norm. But second, today’s polarization is created less by policy differences and more by nostalgia. If each side would offer constructive visions of the future, applying their “insights to today’s different circumstances,” rather than policy prescriptions driven by nostalgia, the ineffectual nature of modern politics could change and a real movement, hopefully for the better and focused around subsidiarity and intermediary institutions, could begin.

Levin notes that on a philosophical level, although this is the age of diffusion and individualism, we as a society must recognize (although he admits it is not a novel insight) that “The liberty we can truly recognize as liberty is achieved by the emancipation of the individual not just from coercion by others but also from the tyranny of his unrestrained desires. . . . A fuller idea of freedom than the one we now incline toward turns out to be a precondition for the actual practice and preservation of freedom in our time.” (Oddly, Levin nowhere mentions Russell Kirk, the modern conservative philosopher of such ordered liberty, but I suppose tight writing requires few sidebar discussions.) Here Levin lays out his explicit case for “subsidiarity,” under which intermediaries can bridge and heal the bifurcation of society. “Subsidiarity means no one gets to have their way exclusively. And that is what freedom means, too.” Levin believes that we can have our cake and eat it too. We can have increased social good and still maintain individual choice in key matters.

[Last two paragraphs of the review are in the comments.]

[Skipr · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do we make our fractured republic a society of human flourishing? Levin rejects both the progressive Left's prescription for consolidating more power in the national government and the libertarian Right's prescription of expanding individual liberty without regard for whether we as a people, through our governments (federal, state, local), are making space for and promoting institutions that will form citizens with enough moral maturity to choose the good, true, and beautiful.

Instead Levin calls for a communitarian conservatism dedicated to the protection and promotion of the institutions in between the national government and the individual, most especially the family, religious communities and institutions, work, and education. In other words, Levin is a big fan of the concept of subsidiarity.

I would like to believe that there is a chance that Levin's prescription would work. Unfortunately, I think that we Americans are so splintered that there is not enough common ground for the middle institutions to effectively renew our culture.

Let's take the example of families. I'm all for government policies supporting families. Unfortunately, we can't agree on what constitutes a family.

Same for education. I think a good education that, in addition to teaching practical skills, provides students with an appreciation of history, literature, and the arts, helps form good citizens. But, who can agree on how to teach those subjects, either at the K-12 or the university level? I think it's safe to suppose that students at, for example, Brown University in the Ivy League and those at the University of Dallas (a Catholic university with a reputation for excellence and an appreciation for tradition) are receiving vastly different educations in the humanities.

I hope Levin is right and I am wrong. I will need to hear more persuasive arguments to be convinced.

The fact that Levin didn't win me over is certainly not due to brevity. He could have fit this 225 page book into about 100 pages. Levin's redundancy repeatedly had me thinking, "He's already made this point three times. Enough already."

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my quest to read from many perspectives, I picked up this book, which was a good read. I thought the first half was very good, with an analysis of the paralysis of nostalgia for both political parties. But his cultural analysis was flat, and the second half of the book seemed to be filled with vague opinions ("Expressive individualism....points toward moral chaos.") But his bottom line prescription fits for all perspectives --- work locally, whether through civic groups, churches, non-profit associations.

[Dan Sasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a very interesting and unique perspective that challenged many preconceived notions I had. Fortunately this book was actually quite optimistic even if it seemed more dire than not.

In The Fractured Republic, Yuval Levin offers a piercing and refreshingly nonpartisan diagnosis of America’s political malaise. A former policy adviser, Levin argues that both the Left and the Right are trapped in an unproductive nostalgia for mid-20th century America—a time of postwar unity, economic dynamism, and strong institutions. While conservatives yearn for cultural cohesion and liberals reminisce about economic equality and robust welfare programs, Levin contends that both sides ignore how profoundly the social, technological, and economic landscape has changed.

Levin’s core thesis is that American society has undergone a deep fragmentation over the past half-century. Where once the country was defined by consolidation—centralized media, big labor, big business, strong families—we now live in an age of individualism, decentralization, and hyperpluralism. This transformation, while bringing greater freedom and diversity, has also undermined social capital, eroded institutions, and made governing far more difficult. This has led to the explosion of government, and the government doing for its citizens what these other institutions once did for them. Levin argues that political nostalgia for the consolidated past blinds us to the real challenges of the present.

Levin does not long for the postwar consensus as many conservatives might; nor does he uncritically celebrate the liberatory effects of the 1960s and ‘70s, as some liberals do. Instead, he emphasizes the trade-offs inherent in every historical moment. The prosperity and cohesion of midcentury America were made possible in part by exclusion—racial, economic, and cultural. Likewise, the gains of the individualistic turn brought their own pathologies: loneliness, polarization, and institutional decay which were accompanied by a more and more intrusive government.

Levin’s policy prescriptions emerge from his belief in a “subsidiarity” approach—empowering institutions that mediate between the individual and the state. He champions a renewal of civic life through local organizations, religious groups, families, and voluntary associations. Rather than seeking top-down national solutions or waiting for a cultural restoration, Levin calls for bottom-up reform that fits the decentralized nature of modern life. This principle, he argues, should guide everything from welfare policy to education reform.

The Fractured Republic remains a compelling, thoughtful, and deeply civil contribution to the conversation about America’s future. Levin writes not with partisan rancor but with a genuine desire to understand and repair what has broken. His insistence that we must move beyond nostalgia—right or left—is a much-needed provocation. In a time of ideological heat and institutional drift, Levin’s book serves as both a mirror and a quiet roadmap for those looking to rebuild the American experiment from the ground up.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yuval Levin does an amazing job in diagnosing how the current leadership of the Democrat and Republican Parties are blinded by nostalgia for bygone eras that were only ever going to be temporary and are impossible to recapture. He makes the case that the US has for decades been undergoing a de-consolidation of sorts and that politicians seem blind to this larger trend. He then points out the problems this is causing with the current political dialogue.

The second part is ideas about where to go from here. I found this part of the book to be much weaker. It is more of a philosophical argument than a practical one. It also seemed quite repetitive, to the point that I quit reading with 20 pages to go (It was also overdue from the library).

Overall I recommend it for the fresh view it gives of today's political situation.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out mildly interesting (both Democrats and Republicans are nostalgic for the good times - but isn't everyone always nostalgic for the good times). Levin's discussion of "economic issues" was fine, although he conveniently left out many details (most notably the impact of the criminal justice system on entrenched poverty) that didn't suit his conservative agenda. By the time he got to the culture wars, I was flat out pissed. Blah blah blah traditional families are great. Blah blah blah gay people wanting to get married infringes on my liberty, instead they should, just what exactly? In the final chapter, Levin concludes that all of this would be fixed if more of our leaders were like Paul Ryan and then I stopped reading.

[Chris Niessl · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Yuval Levin Isn't Dumb" is the title of a critique by the late Todd Gitlin, featured on Tablet (https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/ar...), that shares several of the critiques I have of this book. To summarize three points from that review that are salient:

1. Centralism and cronyism are issues when the government is the force behind it, but the centralization and consolidation of corporate power over the last fifty years are entirely ignored. Jonathan Tepper's 'The Myth of Capitalism' can provide a good summary of the issues corporate consolidation has brought, including a reduction in "dynamism" that Yuval Harari harps on.

2. Ignores the importance of unions as part of the tapestry of non-governmental organizations that function to provide community and support for the welfare of the population. Yuval does not comment on how American regulatory schemes have diminished union power in the United States. In contrast, Canada and Germany have maintained union power, which has served as an important buffer for maintaining worker welfare.

3. Does not contextualize regulatory complexity or size with actual impact on the economy. A link to federal spending relative to US GDP is illustrative here (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FY...). The size of the Federal government relative to the country's economic activity has remained around 20%. Gitlin states this has been consistent since 1953. However, there have been punctuations at times of significant crisis (COVID and the Great Recession being two of those). Regulations have only increased because the scope of economic activities has expanded; otherwise, regulations for each type of economic activity have either shrunk or become more efficient.

However, these are not the only deficiencies in Yuval's book. Before disclosing those, some considerations that prevent dismissing this as 1-star garbage. First, Yuval is correct in identifying nostalgia for the late 40s through early 60s as something that prevents our current generation of politicians from understanding what is attainable and the amount of work necessary to achieve the policy goals they desire. An aging population receiving Medicare and SS benefits will necessarily require higher levels of revenue, which means either raising taxes or offsetting that with spending cuts elsewhere. Second, Yuval at least gives some token acknowledgement of cronyism and how it undermines the benefits of the small-government, market-based economics he promotes. These points, however, are overshadowed by the fact that Yuval's policy proscriptions and acceptance of certain phenomena are what lead to the development of cronyism in the first place.

Chapter 5, The Unbundled Market, is full of the contradictions and unseriousness of Yuval's thinking. He writes, "Wealth is not a problem, but poverty is." Wealth is actually a problem because it enables cronyism in the first place through bribes and underhanded gifts. Yuval does not mention how the overturning of Citizens United or the growth in media consolidation has vastly increased the amount of money in lobbying and campaign funding via PACs, creating more opportunities for quid pro quo that undermine good governance.

Chapter 6, Subculture Wars, is also a textbook example of conservative thought harping on 'culture' and ignoring historical events that shaped and influenced the decline that happened in our country. In this chapter, Yuval laments that single-parent households, a significant source of impoverishment, as well as the decline of religiously identified families, have led to worsening outcomes for society. However, in the 50s and 60s, the United States underwent an experiment that we are still feeling the effects of today.

That experiment is what if the United States stole hundreds of thousands of people's properties, and simultaneously subsidized people to pump chemicals that would cause anti-social behavior and worsening health outcomes in families who were left behind. Such events happened in the 1950s and 60s, and it was called the Interstate Highway System.

Hundreds of Thousands of urban families, heavily poorer and non-white, had their property seized by eminent domain to make way for highways to cut through major cities. Redlining prevented many of those families from obtaining financing for new homes in the suburbs, which were only possible with highway development. Those stuck in the city got to enjoy the effects of lead-based pollution from automobiles until 1986, when a combination of catalytic converter prevalence and government policies banning and reducing lead use in gasoline dramatically reduced lead-based pollution in those cities.

This omission of history is the same lack of consideration and hand-wringing over culture that Sowell employs in his sophistry, so it is not surprising to see another conservative writer fall back on it.

A final note. While this book was written before COVID, the pandemic highlighted weaknesses in complex supply chains resulting from increased specialization. Ironically, Yuval mentions that conservatives are skeptical of expert-based, top-down governance, when imposition of neoliberal economics is precisely the kind of heavy-handed policy proscription that conservatives promote. "We must use specialization to fight the negative effects of specialization," is the kind of drivel that someone who does not understand how specialization increases fragility would promote.

As Gitlin writes, Yuval Levin isn't dumb, he is dangerous. He is precisely the kind of Intellectual Yet Idiot that Nassim Nicholas Taleb warns us about. Only an IYI could write "We must use specialization to fight the negative effects of specialization," without any introspection.

[Harry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mostly poli-sci babble but I like the term "selective nostalgia" as a description of the glorious past that both the right and left yearn for.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

More detailed review coming, but this book was a thoughtful and enjoyable analysis of America from the conservative perspective offering America a path forward.

[Ira · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the author stated, this is basically a very long essay in which the author is working through the polarization in America, but not between Democrat and Republic per se, but more between the philosophies of the "Left" (progressives) and the "Right" (conservatives) and how each side's nostalgic look at their "peak" historical period in the second half of the 20th century is causing problems in current times because neither side is able to let go of the past and adapt their core philosophies to the new reality of a society that is coming apart with pressure at the top and bottom with no middle layer to act as glue.

The author is a conservative so is more (constructively) critical of the Left, albeit never harsh. As someone who has raised from a tradition of progressive liberalism, I am still dipping into the conservative perspective, so it is hard for me to fully assess the author's criticism of either side. That said, his brief relatively brief perspective of the impact of progressive, centralized government from the 1950s through the late 1990s was a fascinating perspective. It was not polemic, but because of its level of abstraction, I can't say whether it was overly simplified, "spun" or significantly wrong. But it did open my eyes to how a traditional conservative would view the scales tilting against him, even during the Bush administration.

Ultimately, the book stayed at a general level and its solutions were more theory and high level talk about the importance of community as intermediary, pushing decisions down from DC -- rather than a detailed work plan to instill change. But the book gave me hope because it was even handed and aimed for a middle ground solution that each "side" could find positives in. If our chattering class in this country could have an open, philosophical discussion and try and reach a middle ground rather than yelling at each other and name calling across the abyss....

[Chrisanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving this a 5, not because it was perfect (I want more citations, graphs, numbers😅), but because this is his best work yet.

Like I said, this could use more footnotes. But, then, I'm the kind of person who wants a footnote after every sentence. Even though he had some really great info.

When compared with his other books, this has less fluff, feels less inflated, and presents more specific information. He admits his conservative leanings but spends a fair amount of time looking at the issues of his own party. It is a brilliant response to (though it was published before) Putnam's The Upswing. Just brilliant. I also feel like it is a good companion book to Arthur Brooks' The Conservative Heart.

Having had many dealings with government aid programs in the last 4 years(yay medical job) I find his criticisms of Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment aid, and WIC as anciently backwards 20th-century behemoths to be quite true. WIC only updated from checks to cards last year. And I have waited 90 minutes + on hold to ask someone at Medicaid about coverage only to be told by the recording that they had closed and I needed to call back another day. 90. Minutes. Not to mention that Medicaid doesn't cover PT before surgeries when it often removes the need for them. His solutions did not include abolishing them (I know. Shocking!) But making them more competitive and easier to adapt. And don't let's even start with the education system.

I disagree with some of his statements on the religious right. But then I don't exactly fit the mode on that topic either.

I hope that more of his books are like this one and wish he had added a chapter on Trump before it was published. But such is life.

[Tim Casteel · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you like the word "bifurcated", you're going to love this book! Seriously. Can't tell you how many times he talked about the "bifurcated consolidation" of America.

I felt the author was guilty of unnecessary
obfuscation (isn't it great that the word that means "making something unintelligible" is itself an unintelligible word?!).

Douglas Hyde has written: "never use a long word where a short one will serve equally well, never write with the idea of proving one’s own erudition but rather in order to ensure that one’s ideas shall be made as understandable to the reader as possible"

It could be that this book makes a bad audiobook. I'm a visual learner and probably would have digested more if I had read, w pen in hand. It also could be that I am politics-averse. It could just be I'm not smart enough to read on this level! I'm guessing it's that I'm a total noob to political science. Any politically minded person would probably take much more out of this book.

I liked the author's premise - I agree w his diagnosis and prescription. I definitely liked his politics better than anything I've heard discussed in last year's election.

As a college pastor, I found chapter 6 on "Subculture Wars" to be the most helpful. The (Jewish) author argues that the marginalization of Christians in America is actually a great thing. In a nation of minorities, Christians can be a counter cultural minority that deeply impacts our country. In fact, Christianity works best as a counter cultural minority and its mission is often undermined when it gets to a place of power where it is controlling culture. Great insights.

[Miles Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kevin's work is weigh reading. My main criticism is that it's a terribly dry dread (in all honesty I skipped significant sections) and that much of his content has been offered in other forums in a more dynamic medium. Kevin's work is a sort of clearing house of conservative and libertarian reflections regarding the fracturing of United States society in the first two decades of the 21st Century. The progressive reflection of this work, George Packer's The Unwinding, was a better written and more engaging work that managed to evoke the reader's sympathy, if not his affirmation. And for that reason alone Levin is disappointing. For Americans like myself from the Atlantic South, who have little interest in patriotism or nationalism of the bourgeois variety, subsidiary ideology already comes quite naturally.

[Zack Clemmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a hitch in my first read of this one about a year ago, I finished it this month in audiobook form. As with so many books these days, Levin's excellent on diagnosis, and I really appreciated how he took the "Coming Apart" narrative so overplayed in conservative circles and presented it across economic, political, and social lines in such a fine-grained manner. It was also a balm, in many ways, for my conservative core, so burned-out in these latter days--a cogent presentation of what and why conservatives conserve. I'm still deeply skeptical about many of his prescriptions, both for their over-reliance on wonkishness and for their trust in market solutions (though I can understand his reservations about central planning, and their vicious cycle relationship with expressive individualism). Still, subsidiarity is about the best I can do these days, to ward off political despair, so two-point-five cheers.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conservatism as it is meant to be (Burkean, not Trumpian). Short on specific policies, but a good overview of the basic problems and tendencies of American politics since WW2, and the general principles Burkean conservatives should use to approach those problems. But oh how far are the Republicans from this type of conservatism, which is sadly rare among those with influence and power.

[Neil White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and coming from a conservative point of view about the broken nature of our political dialogue. Some good points even if I would differ based on political philosophy on solutions or some of the means of diagnosis.

[Vadim Polikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

I typically don’t read books that have anything to do with contemporary politics, but this author, Yuval Levin, kept impressing me each time I heard him interviewed on my favorite (non-political) podcast. Unlike what I imagine most political books to be, this ended up being a very insightful, thoughtful book tracing the US political and social culture since the 1950’s, and suggesting some thoughtful ways forward. As a disclaimer, Levin is a conservative thinker, works at the conservative leaning American Enterprise Institute, is a strident critic of Donald Trump, and writes op eds all over the place, including the New York Times. In hearing him speak and reading two of his books, he seems to be authentically committed to thoughtfully analyzing and attempting to solve the difficult problems of our age.

The book starts with a core problem Levin sees with our political debate on both sides of the aisle: the nostalgia for a golden period of the 50’s and 60’s. Liberal baby boomer politicians look back to the glory days of strong government, strong unions, and a unified American people who were beginning to tackle challenging cultural issues in front of them. Conservative politicians look back to the glory days of strong morals, strong families, and a unified American people who were beginning to dismantle the constricting economic shackles imposed during WW2 and the Great Depression. What both sides don’t realize is that mid-century was a high water mark for consolidation that was unique and won’t be coming back anytime soon. We couldn’t sustain that level of subjection of our individualism to society as a whole and it began to unravel the moment the wartime pressure was off. But right after the war, we had both the cohesion (which was ebbing away) and the individual freedom (which was replacing it), and so the period felt like the best of both worlds (that was in retrospect completely unstable):

“But almost as soon as this consolidated America emerged from the war, it began to unwind, and to seek some relief from the intense cohesion that had been building for so long. Cultural liberalization came first, then economic liberalization. Politics would follow even later. But the general trend was unmistakable.

Crucially, however, the liberalization that would characterize the post-war era took place at first against a backdrop of the highly cohesive American that had taken shape in the prior half century. The country could benefit from the familial, social, cultural, and economic stability made possible by that unity and order, while also benefiting from the dynamism made possible by greater individualism, diversity and competition. It was an unstable mix, but it allowed the nation, for a time, to enjoy the best of both worlds.”

And later:

“That combination of global circumstances, regulatory constraints, cultural exclusions, and policy controls is not one that we could (or would want to) re-create today. But at that time, it must have seemed to liberals like they could have it all: a consolidated economy that kept workers secure, and a culture that was loosening up and diversifying. For conservatives, the era epitomized exceptional cultural stability and cohesion - what seems to be a broad and traditionalist moral consensus, but also fairly broadly shared prosperity. The Left was fighting the cultural constriction while revelling in the economic consensus; the Right was fighting the economic constrictions while reveling in the cultural consensus. Both slides today therefore recall that time as offering a stable foundation for a satisfying struggle for necessary liberalization, even if each side has a different idea of what that foundation was and what needed to be liberalized.”

But then those forces started unraveling that consensus, and the late 60’s and 70’s were a depressing time for Americans:

“By the end of the 1960’s, it was becoming apparent that the midcentury balancing act would be unsustainable. The economic consolidation and restraint that had marked the early postwar decade could be tolerated while America held a position of unique global advantage in the wake of a war. But as the 1970’s approached, the nation’s economic competitors were well on their way to getting their acts together. And the costs of our consolidated economy were becoming apparent just as the darker sides of the breakdown of cultural conformity and stability began to show themselves.

The late 1960’s and the bulk of the 1970’s constituted the darkest, most ominous time in America’s postwar path - it was the moment when we could no longer deny that something fundamental was changing and in some profound way, America seemed to be coming apart. The transient balance of midcentury was undone not by the nefarious workings of ill-intentioned partisans of one stripe or another, but by the progress of the very forces that - acting on a highly consolidated nation - had brought that balance about to begin with: the forces of individualism, decentralization, fracture, and diffusion.”

As our cohesion unraveled as a result of the movement towards individualism and decentralization, we started to see the costs and downsides of these trends, even if they might still have been the right thing to do:

“Grasping that our societal diffusion cannot simply be undone means we must also understand that the most serious problems we face are not just obstacles to our pursuit of our society’s highest hopes, but also consequences of that pursuit. They are the price of progress. In liberating many individuals from oppressive social constraints, we have also estranged many from their families and unmoored them from their communities, work, and faith. In accepting a profusion of options in every part of our lives to meet our particular needs and wants, we have also unraveled the established institutions of an earlier era, and with it the public’s broader faith in institutions of all kinds. In loosening the reins of cultural conformity and national identity and opening ourselves to an immense diversity of cultures, we have weakened the roots of mutual trust. In unleashing markets to meet the needs and wants of consumers we have freed them to also treat workers as dispensable and interchangeable. In pursuing meritocracy, we have magnified inequality. In looking for a more personalized, representative politics, we have propelled polarization. In seeking to treat every person equally and individually rather than forcing all to conform, we have accentuated and concentrated the differences between the top and bottom in our society, and hollowed out the middle.”

He goes on to explore the concept that this “binary approach that allows us only two options for thinking about our society: centralized consolidation or atomizing individualism” is a false choice, and these are just two sides of the same coin. There is a third option, and that is to strengthen middle level intermediating institutions like family, community, clubs, organizations, and religious institutions, a concept he explores a lot deeper in his 2020 book “A Time to Build”. These are the institutions that Putnam talks about started their decline in the post-war period in his book Bowling Alone.

I also like Levin’s discussion of liberty, which I have seen elsewhere but not as eloquently put:

“Simply put, the progressive and conservative versions of this twenty-first-century idea of liberty take the free human person largely for granted. They assume society begins with such individuals, rather than it produces them…

Our highly individualist, liberationist ideal of liberty is possible only because we presuppose the existence of a human being and citizen capable of handling a remarkable high degree of freedom and responsibility. We do not often enough reflect on how extraordinary it is that our society actually contains such people… What indeed does it take to make the freely and rationally choosing man or woman possible?

An idea of liberty is an essential part of the answer. But it is not the individualist notion of liberty we have just traced. Surely liberation from coercion alone does not prepare us for the practice of liberal freedom. To liberate us purely to pursue our wants and wishes is to liberate our appetites and passions. But a person in the grip of appetite or passion couldn’t be our model of the free human being. Such a person is not someone we would easily trust with the exercise of great political and economic freedom.

The liberty we can truly recognize as liberty is achieved by the emancipation of the individual not just from coercion by others but also from the tyranny of his unrestrained desires. This is hardly a novel insight, of course: Socrates helped his students grasp it twenty-five centuries ago. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are rooted in it. But it is a truth our high self-esteem sometimes makes us forget.

This older idea of liberty requires not only that people be free to choose, but also that they be able to choose well. Such liberty arises when we want to do more or less what we ought to do, so that the moral law, the civil law, and our own will are largely in alignment, and choice and obligation point in the same direction. To be capable of freedom, and capable of being liberal citizens, we need to be capable of that challenging combination. And to become capable of it, we need more than the liberation of the individual from coercion. We need a certain sort of moral formation.

To achieve that formation in a free society - where we do not want the state to direct or compel it - requires that we commit ourselves to more than our own will and whim. It requires a commitment precisely to the formative social and cultural institutions that we have seen pulled apart from above and below in our age of fracture. They are where human beings become free men and women ready to govern themselves.”

I think this definition of freedom is a very old definition and has very much gone out of style, and therefore sounds strange to our ears. We are used to a definition of freedom where it is a lack of coercion from others, or from the state. But if we are a slave to our passions and appetites, for food, drink, sex, entertainment, tribalism, aggression, or anything else, it is hard for us to make rational “free” choices. A compulsive gambler is not free to not gamble. Someone who brawls at any slight to their honor is not free to control themselves and stay out of jail. We’ve historically taught that self control in the family and other mediating institutions, and we’ve learned it’s not ok to assault someone else (regardless of what they say to us) within our moral communities and religious teachings. Levin says it better:

“The family is the first and most crucial institution of moral formation. It is above all the nursery of the next generation, which enters the world incapable of exercising liberty and plainly in need of both protection and instruction. … to live as fathers and husbands, wives and mothers, children and siblings, is to live lives shaped by duties and obligations that sometimes grate but often bring joy. This is why the family is best suited to creating individuals freely discharging their responsibilities - the very foundation of any free society. But when we lose sight of the need for the formation it enables, the family can easily come to seem instead like a constricting social form that is justified, at best, as a reliable way to meet some basic material needs - which could surely be met in other less oppressive ways.

Work is another crucial means of shaping us for liberty. Like the family, it has an obvious material utility, enabling us to support ourselves and our families financially. But work also buttresses dignity, inculcates responsibility, encourages energy and industry, and rewards reliability [certainly the types of qualities we would want in our citizens]. It can help form us into better human beings and better free citizens. To see only its material utility is to imagine that work, like family, could be replaced by more efficient forms of distribution. If work is nothing more than a means to financial support, nothing is lost if we provide for the needs of those with meager means in ways that do not require those who can to enter the workforce - and so we now often do.”

He goes on to speak about education (and liberal learning vs trade schools), civic engagement to teach us the limits of radical individualism and hyper centralization (even if it might be less efficient than a federal program), and religious institutions that teach us a mixture of responsibility, sympathy, lawfulness, and righteousness to align our wants with our duties.

Overall, I think this book is interesting in that it lays bare the reality of the midcentury US “glory days” as an unstable equilibrium period that is a poor choice for a target to work towards. It helps us understand why both conservatives and liberals see the period with nostalgia and how our shift towards individualism has unsettled both liberals, who don't like its effects in the market and conservatives, who don't like its effects on traditional morality. We can’t go back (nor would most of us want to), but his focus on mediating institutions as a path forward to get the best of both worlds and reclaim the free citizen (as it was understood since Socrates, but not more recently) is a useful lens to understand the undercurrents behind today’s confusing problems in society.

[Jon Norimann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a weird book. The fracture in US politics is according to the author caused by nostalgia. Levin's proposed solution is going back to old values. Somehow he fails to see this is exactly nostalgia. Watching this confusion unfold is the only reason for reading this book. All the rest is well known stuff. Marriage good, internationalism bad etc etc.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself wanting to give this book a standing ovation in several places, and Yuval Levin has seized on a very compelling diagnosis of our current predicament as a country--our two parties are beset by crippling nostalgia for bygone elements of the 20th century.

Levin is a wonderful writer and thinker; this is the communitarian conservative manifesto we have needed for a while, but hasn't existed in one place. I hope many take its lessons to heart, but I fear that we are probably a couple of decades away from the necessary reform to begin, based on what's happened in American politics in the last 24 months.

Anyway, highly recommended, notwithstanding recent events.

[Joel Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A modern political book that actually makes you think--how refreshing!

[Elizabeth Neff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to enjoy this book as a thought exercise because I fall on a different side of the political spectrum. Made it about half way through and could not continue. Too many platitudes, not enough facts. Zero concrete examples to back up wistful theorizing.
Picked up All the Presidents Men for my next political read instead.

[Justin Lonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Levin updates Tocqueville with a hard look at the brokenness of political and civic culture in 21st century America. Though his writing style can be a bit repetitive at times, he advances a well-researched, well-thought-out argument that the way forward for our country cannot be found in the continuous appeals (from both left & right) to a nostalgia for the lost consolidation of the postwar era. The consensus of those years, he maintains, was not the norm but an aberration from the much more diffuse and localized cultures that have historically defined the world (and the American project).

Rather than make a specific set of policy proposals, he urges readers to return to an understanding of subsidiarity: the notion that all problems are best solved by the authority closest to the source that is able to effectively address the issue. The current model of atomized individuals in direct relationship with a centralized state has proven toxic to neighborliness and citizenship, and demonstrated failure after failure in addressing the issues that we face.

As Levin puts it on p. 215: "The most profound forms of freedom and authority fill the spaces between the individual and the state, and both individual freedom and national power are functions of what happens in those spaces."

[Bill Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent thesis and work -- just too lengthy to be read by most in this age of short attention spans, thus the 4 vs 5 stars.

Yuval asserts that the reason for our division is that both left and right are being driven by nostalgia for "the 50's - 60's" ... a time that will not be repeated, since the conditions of those times are not likely to be repeated. America as the undisputed world economic power since other free nations were devastated by war, a population that had come together in the hardship of depression and WWII. For the Republicans, strong Christian families and solid business; for the Democrats, strong unions and lots of political power.

So, we need to build a new shared vision -- the core of which would be decentralization 0f power from Washington to the states and the rebuilding of the local community (subsidiarity).

SUPER if it could happen! I've been commenting on the need to recover community for a good while --- here is 2016 A Response To Ben Sasse

My sense is that we are too far apart now to recover "America" ... sometimes divorce is the best answer, where the coastal elites go their way and we backward deplorables go ours.

I'm certainly not against trying though!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was super impressed with this book as a whole, as it coalesces a lot of things I've been thinking about lately. It starts off slowly, and I'm sure critiques can be made of the necessarily generalized narrative he gives in the earlier part of the book, but it gets steadily better as one goes on. If you find the "setting the table" chapters a bit dry, don't give up.

In short, Levin argues that partisan politics is hobbled by "competing nostalgias" that get in the way of productive policy debates. Most attempts to fix problems on a national scale prove unworkable because they look backward at an exceptionally consolidated period of U.S. history (mid-20th century), rather than reckoning with the diffuse, fractious society we inhabit today. To get around this roadblock, Levin believes we need to "empower a multiplicity of problem-solvers throughout our society, rather than hoping that one problem-solver in Washington gets it right" (5). In turn, this will demand renewal of the "middle layers," or mediating institutions, of society (neighborhoods, community and religious organizations, workplace and family) to halt the drift toward statism on one hand or excessive individualism on the other. I liked Levin's acknowledgment of the need for "epistemic humility" and experimentation, because we frankly don't know what solutions will be effective for dealing with, e.g., poverty, but we're more likely to find things that work on the face-to-face level (through a "modernized ethic of subsidiarity") than through programs that were designed for very different historical circumstances. He also suggests that the diversity and diffusion of contemporary America may be uniquely well suited to this kind of community-based search for solutions.

There is obviously a lot of work to be done before even getting to that point, and this rather sweeping, densely argued book isn't long on specifics; but I guess that's what National Affairs is for. This is one of the more refreshing, perceptive, and hopeful things I've read on politics this year, and I think it contains a lot that could be profitably discussed by people across the spectrum, not just those who'd identify as "reform conservatives."

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following politics closely leads one to conclude that there's a hell of a lot wrong with government today, but where does one even start a reasoned critique? This book tries to answer this question. Levin argues that bipartisan nostalgia for the unrecoverable socioeconomic/political combinations of postwar America is largely at fault. Politicians are unable to update their approaches. For Levin, the postwar era represented a transition between national unity, homogeneity, consolidated institutions, and an emerging spirit of individualism and liberation. Before World War II, American society was defined by political consensus but today, America is more 'deconsolidated', individualistic, and facing institutional dissolution (sounds a little like Rusty Reno's discussion of strong gods). America in the postwar era benefitted from the old order's stability while profiting from growing diversity and competition (45). But as the 1960s morphed into the 1970s, the extant culture of solidarity dissolved (60), religion turned more individualistic (66), and economic deregulation and de-unionization began in earnest (63). Through the 1980s and 1990s, politicians tried to recreate old norms but instead settled on individualistic ones as trust in institutions kept declining (85).

Essentially, diffusion in aforementioned realms led to dichotomization, what the author calls "bifurcated concentration" (87). The poor and working classes fell victim in some ways to this spirit of openness while the well-off ended up succeeding, moored by their social capital (71). The weaker stabilizing institutions were, the more adrift people became, especially down the economic ladder. Levin thankfully notes (and restates often) how many advances came in the form of expanded rights, but he addresses how paradigm shifts come with tradeoffs.

Economically globalization, automation, immigration, and less job security fed bifurcated consolidation. Levin proposes various solutions, but he's too dismissive of traditional options on the center-left. I don't contest his advocacy for investment in economic mobility (123) and public options in spaces like healthcare (138); these should be acceptable proposals for both sides. And fundamentally, I agree that mediating institutions are necessary for the free market to work well (143). However, he repeats that economic reconsolidation is not possible without explaining why not. Surely passing the PRO Act would go a long way towards recovering unionization? And Levin bemoans industrial policy but it seems to have delivered stunning success during the COVID-19 pandemic? Instead, he turns back to some conservative talking points about allowing people to choose private options in education and social security--turning over social security to profiteers will only destroy what is, by all means, an effective (and underfunded) government program. Sure, we need creative solutions but for this left-conservative, Levin and his Reformicons fall short on economics.

Thankfully, Levin addresses cultural issues better than economic ones, saving his four stars. Levin claims that expressive individualism undermined a moral consensus that previously provided social stability (148). Individualism undermines the "institutions of moral formation" and removes guardrails against temptation (153), which unequally impacts different social classes (154). Levin's solutions are smart here. He recognizes that cultural conservatives often rightly criticize institutional destruction (163) but also implores them to avoid being overly defensive, proposing instead a positive case for moral order (164). This isn't a Vermeule-style rush to take over the administrative state and actually shares more in common with solutions proposed by Patrick Deneen and Rod Dreher; yet it's far more optimistic than either of them. Levin's solution on culture is to embrace "subcultural traditionalism", in which conservatives embody the common good in their own lives and from there, hope to persuade others (174). This is far more compelling than his economic ideas. A renewed localism doesn't have to constitute retreat, but can instead be something to build from as communities form individuals who can contribute to society (183). Levin briefly mentions how the left has a role to play in forming a new localism, and I wish he would've explored this more. There are real opportunities for new coalitions.

Like Robert Nisbet in The Quest For Community: A Study In The Ethics Of Order And Freedom, Levin remarks that an expanding central government proceeds hand-in-hand with hyperindividualism and the decline of mediating institutions. Thus, he urges subsidiarity and more room for local experimentation to fill that emptying space between people and the state. To the extent that subsidiarity can help solve polarization (197) and that it doesn't necessarily equate to making government tiny, Levin is right. But while we're too dependent on an unrestrained executive branch [war powers, anybody??], local and state entities often can't act alone, so the federal government is bound to play a larger role than Levin wants it to. He still seems too attached to cutting government, the classic fusionist right stance. Nevertheless, the left and center can learn about subsidiarity from this work too; Levin waxes poetic about mediating institutions and why their decline tracks with the diffusion of modern life. Bulwarks of democracy, locales for moral formation (212), these little platoons often go forgotten. And yet for all the reasons he discusses, we must recover them if we hope to solve the dilemmas of our time.

But Levin misses the preeminent threat to human-scale institutions. While he addresses large corporations briefly (103), he fails to further analyze hyper-consolidated capital, which even Nisbet spent more time discussing when it posed less of a problem (no big tech in the 50s!). The power of Amazon, Google, and Facebook undercuts Levin's core narrative of a powerful state and isolated individual in a deconsolidation-driven framework. This showcases the limits of the Reformicon project. The diagnosis is close to correct but the solutions miss the mark. Levin solidly critiques the existing liberal order. (E.G. he pushes back on how the right and left both adopt individualistic tropes (201) and discusses how negative liberty conceptions of freedom miss its definition as emancipation from the tyranny of unrestrained desire (203) just like Deneen does) But then he cautiously skirts around how corporate capitalism advances the hyper-liberal order. Like Christopher Lasch and others belabor, consumer capitalism is one of the more potent forces undermining mediating institutions and families. Anybody making this critique must therefore address its role more than Levin does. While "The Fractured Republic" and its prescriptions would probably improve American politics, they are probably a starting point for the right, one that needs more fleshing out.

[Wesley Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Fractured Republic" is without a doubt, one of the best policy books I've read in years about America and why we have become so polarized as a country. Levin's core premise is that both Republicans and Democrats are striving to return to each party's "golden age" (1960s and 1980s specifically) where "things worked" in each party's view. Levin notes on p. 102: "Our politics of competing nostalgias often translation into a fight between individualism and statism that neglects the middle layers of society: the Right wants unmitigated economic individualism but a return to common moral norms. The Left wants unrestrained moral individualism but economic consolidation. Both will need to come to terms with some unconformable realities of twenty--first century America."

The author does a great job walking the reader through these decades and why things seem to have "fallen apart" in the 21st Century. Throughout the book I found myself highlighting key passages and ideas I haven't thought of or considered before or circling passages that effortlessly summarize my thoughts over the years following politics. This book helped me understand better at the 10000 foot view why our country seems "off the rails" and why both political parties are locked in such fierce battles and never-ending partisanship brinkmanship.

Levin makes a lot of sense in this extended essay (as he calls it), which he as put considerable time and reflection into before putting pen to paper or started typing away. A treasure of a book and a road map to the future in our fractured, individualist era we are now living in. Levin states (p 104) that, "Too many Americans are detached from some core sources and channels of human flourishing--family, work, faith, and community. The challenges of governing are great. But they are made made even greater than they have to be by our inability to grasp our circumstances as their are." A must read before the 2016 election and beyond for serious people seeking serious solutions to today's problems.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The conservative movement seems to be nearly dead. The election of Donald Trump has, among other things, demonstrated a priority of power over principle.

Yuval Levin is part of a remnant of conservative thinkers who value the principles that form the heart of conservative ideals. Levin's book is more than just an articulation on conservative values. Rather, it is a hard look at the deep rot within both political parties. His argument begins with the premise, laid out in persuasive detail, that 21st century conservatism is mired in the ideals of the 1980s, whereas 21st century liberalism is mired in the ideals of the 1960s.

Both are deeply misguided, argues Levin, because they fail to incorporate massive social and technological changes that have made their traditional visions obsolete. It is a powerful argument, and one that has captured far less attention than this country needs.

After all, Trump's election has been a case study in understanding how fixated conservatives are on a form of European-style right wing ethnocentrism and how fixated liberals are on a form of European-style socialism. Neither, however, fits the American experiment.

There is indeed tremendous value in the two party system—at least when it functions well—and Levin demonstrates a vision for what conservatism in particular (since while his vision is not just for conservatives, he writes out of the conservative movement). Namely, conservative is best understood as a skepticism of big institutions, because large instituons accrue power in ways that are ultimately unhealthy for society. Thus, while it remains true that conservatives in Levin's view ought to be skeptical of big government, they ought to be skeptical of big business as well.

This is an outstanding book, and it has rightly won praise among contemporary political thinkers. Its biggest question in the Trump era, however, is whether it is capable of being relevant.