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Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy
The defect, Sandel maintains, lies in the impoverished vision of citizenship and community shared by Democrats and Republicans alike. American politics has lost its civic voice, leaving both liberals and conservatives unable to inspire the sense of community and civic engagement that self-government requires.
In search of a public philosophy adequate to our time, Sandel ranges across the American political experience, recalling the arguments of Jefferson and Hamilton, Lincoln and Douglas, Holmes and Brandeis, FDR and Reagan. He relates epic debates over slavery and industrial capitalism to contemporary controversies over the welfare state, religion, abortion, gay rights, and hate speech. Democracy's Discontent provides a new interpretation of the American political and constitutional tradition that offers hope of rejuvenating our civic life.
In search of a public philosophy adequate to our time, Sandel ranges across the American political experience, recalling the arguments of Jefferson and Hamilton, Lincoln and Douglas, Holmes and Brandeis, FDR and Reagan. He relates epic debates over slavery and industrial capitalism to contemporary controversies over the welfare state, religion, abortion, gay rights, and hate speech. Democracy's Discontent provides a new interpretation of the American political and constitutional tradition that offers hope of rejuvenating our civic life.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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1925 people want to read
About the author
Michael J. Sandel
30 books2,370 followersMichael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher who lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1980. He is best known for the Harvard course 'Justice', which is available to view online, and for his critique of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.
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January 3, 2025
The next paragraphs are more detailed so this is the TLDR: The caveat to the five stars I give this book is that it must be paired with Sandel’s other book, The Tyranny of Merit. Together, these two books give what I believe to be the most accurate account explaining Donald Trump’s ascendancy. It was not a freak accident. Sandel weaves a brilliant tale from the founding of the United States to today, drawing from historical, political, and philosophical examples, to explain why and how Donald Trump won in 2016 and again in 2024. At the end of the reads, Trump’s victory looses its novelty, becoming more of a disappointment with the entrenched political economic machine we’ve created rather than a surprise. That is certainly worth five stars.
Political debates on economic policy today can be boiled down to a disagreement on whether we should focus on economic growth, just on increasing the size of the pie reasoning that a raising tide lifts all boats, or focus instead on distributive justice, emphasizing that who gets what and how big their slice is relative to what others get matters. This is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, the issues of political economy were more focused on whether decisions would corrupt the morality of US citizens and whether they were good for self governance and cultivating civic virtue because ultimately a democracy is only as good as the people who live in it.
This for example was the debate between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton’s financial plan was to create a national bank and to have the federal government assume state revolutionary debts, then have the federal government pay back this debt by issuing securities to wealthy speculators, the interest of which would be paid for by excise taxes. Jefferson, on the other hand, thought this plan would corrupt the citizenry. Not only would it mean poor farmers who had nothing to do with the debts wracked up by states like New York were putting money in the pockets of wealthy speculators, but Hamilton’s plan created a monied aristocracy, beholdening legislators to the interests of the wealthy. Ultimately Hamilton thought the best way to govern democracy was through aligning the wealth of the nation with private interests, Jefferson thought this would corrupt our democracy and that cultivating independent citizens through independent work was the best method of governance.
This disagreement was a precursor to the next contentious political topic—whether manufacturing had a place in America. Jefferson and others thought this kind of wage labor, beholding a laborer to a master such that the labor or did not depend on himself but on the master for food, housing, etc, was degrading and spoiled the ideals of self reliance, self-responsibility and independence on which the U.S. was founded, which would corrupt statesmanship and public spiritedness, to which the independent farmer living off the land was much more conducive. The siren call of growing wealth and manufacturing, of course, ended up winning out.
The introduction of manufacturing was what first began to drive the wedge between the wealthy and the poor. What followed was the debate between Andrew Jackson, who argued that the working man was poor and depressed and that the unequal distribution of wealth between producers and non-producers was unacceptable, and the Whigs, who argued that so long as national wealth was growing everyone was better off regardless of wealth disparity. Whereas today, progressives and social reformers, who are allegedly fighting for the working class people, advocate for big government, in the 1830s and 40s, the working class farmer, mechanic, laborer, advocated for less government intervention, suspicious that government had been captured by private monied interests and that any regulation would be disproportionately favorable to the wealthy because they paid the politicians. Andrew Jackson’s main policy was not to use government to promote equality, he reasoned that could happen on its own so long as the rich and powerful were prevented from using government to secure special privileges and advantages.
At base, however, this debate was one of what it meant to be free. Jackson thought that, to be free, a worker had to own the means of production. Such ownership over your own work was more conducive to self-government. Wage labor—toiling for a master for your substance—was a form of slavery. Perhaps economies of scale, division of labor and specialization was more efficient, but amassing unskilled labor in this way was not good for democratic rule or for the people on whom democracy depends. The gains from the former don’t necessarily exceed the cost to democracy. It breeds reliant and irresponsible uninformed citizens. Abolitionists, however, disputed this analogy. They argued that wage labor was perfectly acceptable because it was voluntary. Slave labor, on the other hand was not. Labor advocates like George Henry Evens, though, asked whether these wage laborers working manufacturing jobs could really be said to be doing voluntary work when they relied on the little money they got to feed themselves and the conditions they endured were often worse than slavery. In fact, slavers used the conditions of wage labor to argue in favor of slavery, saying the north enslaved its laborers as much as the south its slaves. George Fitzhugh memorably said “Capital commands labor, as the master does the slave.”
Eventually we conceded to the perpetual existence of wage labor in this country and accepted the trade off of independence to wealth. Out of this grew the labor movement of the 1860s to 90: and the two major labor parties—the knights of labor and the national labor union. The knights of labor focused on shoring up the identities of laborers and acknowledging the dignity of work. They advocated for a more independent laborer who owned what he made in the form of coops. The labor unions on the other hand conceded the servile nature of work and instead focused on obtaining good hours and working conditions. The Supreme Court in the 1870s was exceedingly contrarian and rejected both views with opinion like the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873. This philosophy achieved its zenith in 1905 with Lochner v. New York. The voluntarist understanding of free labor that the abolitionists relied on to end slavery was the seed from which the laissez-faire approach to labor flourished. Labor was being commodified and the dignity of labor was being eroded. Even as the Lochner era ended in the 1930s, the vision of the Knights of Labor had been snuffed out, the labor unions’ more hollow idea of work had won out.
The early 20th century brought globalization, telegraphs and telephones, and a more nationalized market. But, while these brought people in distant places closer together, the national economy dominated by vast corporations diminished the autonomy of local communities, the traditional cite for self governance. Meanwhile, large impersonal cities teeming with poverty and disorder led many to fear that we were loosing our national identity. Liberals at the time saw this and began to create a system of governance by means of more neutral bureaucratic techniques and involving “experts” in governance. Other liberals, however, like Louis D. Brandeis, argued that the problem was with concentrated power, both economic and political. The solution was not to confront big business with big government, that would only compound the curse of bigness, the solution was to break up both. Teddy Roosevelt agreed to an extent but him and the philosopher Hebert Croly, although agreeing that the dignity of work and an independent citizenry was at stake and toiling to break up big business, thought the best way to do it was by nationalizing and empowering the government.
By the 1920s though a new vision of political economy came to rise—the vision of the consumer. Walter Lippmann wrote that women’s suffrage increased the power of the consumerist message because, as they were excluded from the work place, they looked at the world more as a consumer. People were connected more with what they consumed rather than how they worked. Large retail organizations, department stores, and chain stores came to reign over domestic commerce. Whereas American democracy used to be founded in producer’s identities, that of the artisan blacksmith or craftsman, by the 1930s it was to be found in consumer identities. Instead of asking how to elevate or improve or restrain people’s preferences, we asked how we could most efficiently satisfy them.
This led to the struggle in the 1920s between citizenship and consumer welfare embodied in the first antitrust movement, which had two prongs: traditional antitrust consumer centrist law and the anti-chain store movement. In the late 1920s, state legislatures sought to restrict the growth of chain stores by taxing for every store over 5 for example or subsidizing the independent grocer or shopkeeper with hold that they would carry the idea of the community oriented local and independent citizen to the 20th century. The Supreme Court however struck these laws down with cases like Liggett Company v. Lee in 1933.
But it was still the case that the chain store, by furthering the concentration of wealth and power by promoting absentee ownership, was thwarting American ideals and breeding inequality, posing a threat to self government. Chain stores defended themselves through the idea of consumer welfare. They could offer a greater variety of goods for cheaper and more efficiently. A utilitarian justification rather than one grounded in civic ideals. But the loss of an independent class of producers was a civic loss not measurable in terms of consumer welfare alone. Can you blame the small town resident who is frustrated because control of their local business was being transferred from their local community to a distant city where men on the 54th floor decided the fate of their communities with whom they had little or no relationship, by simply glancing at a balance sheet and a profit loss statement? This is an all to well known reality for residents of towns like Goldendale, Washington whose locally owned sawmill was closed by auditors in NYC to promote global efficiencies. Perhaps we were too enamored of the fruits of consumption to realize the struggle so many were enduring so we could consume. As we will see, Trump provided a voice to that struggle that both democrats and traditional republicans ignored.
This consumerist ethic bled nicely into the Keynesian revolution of the late 1930s and 40s. John Maynard Keynes wrote that “consumption is the sole end and object of all economic activity.” Keynesian’s thought that by artificially inflating consumer demand via government stimulus, we could sustain perpetual growth and avoid recessions and job loss. Although far from being an early acolyte of Keynesian economics, FDR’s policies aligned perfectly with Keynes’s economic suggestions. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration for example manipulated supply to stabilize the agricultural economy by subsidizing pig farmers and cotton farmers to destroy their crops and pigs. The National Industrial Recovery Act committed employers to minimum wages and maximum hours but also was essentially government sanctioned price fixing. FDR was answering big business by inflating government power. Of course, this made government all the more attractive to big business for regulatory capture. And of course by this time the old questions about what economic arrangements were most hospitable to self government had disappeared from national debate. Consumer welfare was king.
As more Americans begin to see economic arrangements as instruments of consumption rather than schools for citizenship, we will see an ever hollowing out of our civic and political debate. Modern liberals put the right before the good. But this creates a vacuum ripe for exploitation by a demagogue actually willing to express a moral direction to take. The morally devoid, consumption based, neutral, rights-focused new progressive ideology had little to say to those who feared they were losing control of their lives to vast structures of impersonal power while the moral fabric of neighborhood and community unraveled around them.
All this, in fact, was the point Robert Kennedy was trying to make in 1968 when he said “the growing accumulation of power and authority in central government” needed to return to the American people in “their own local communities.” This is why Robert Kennedy was called “the last liberal politician who could communicate with white working-class America.”
Ronald Reagan was essentially a reverse Teddy Roosevelt. He called for the decentralization of big government while propping up big business. But his message struck an important cord for many: “our citizens feel they’ve lost control of even the most basic decisions made about the essential services of government, such as schools, welfare, roads…” such rhetoric was reminiscent of what Tocqueville said in Democracy in America, local attachments enable citizens to “practice the art of government in the small sphere within their reach.” This civic strand of rhetoric enabled Reagan to capture the presidency twice despite being a political outsider and enabled Trump to do the same.
The progressive detached technocratic expert bureaucrat cannot inspire the moral and civic engagement self government requires of the average person. The meritocracy that liberals have embraced has also given an almost providentialist sanction to the economic status quo—you can make it if you try, what you learn depends on what you earn, you can go as far as your talent and hard work will take you—progressives have embraced the politics of desert. But this is a double edged sword, the insidious underbelly of the argument that you deserve your success because you went to college and tried hard, is that your failure is your fault. Liberals have unwittingly been defending the moral status of the current economic disparity by signaling that those who didn’t go to college and who thus earn less (almost 2/3rds of Americans have not attended college), deserve their place in our society. It is not surprising that such rhetoric has produced a populist rancor, suspicious of big government that only serves the successful, and hostile to the elites who have so disparaged them. Donald Trump was able to win by striking the chord that Democrats had been pulling for decades.
Global financial markets and the further concentration of private power as banks and businesses continued to merge and as pieces of legislation like glass Steagall were gutted only exacerbated the situation. As corporations were able to move jobs overseas and agreements like NAFTA were formed, the American working class found themselves competing against people in China. Both democratic and republican presidents are guilty of appeasing global finance. Clinton for example provided for a huge loophole in the company million dollar tax deductible cap with the performance pay exemption, which actually incentivized stock buybacks. And when the highly leveraged derivatives (credit default swaps) that insured all the mortgage backed securities issued in the mid to late 2000s, finally detonated, Obama bailed out the banks in 2009. Not only did he bail them out, he did not hold them to account by restructuring the system like he did with car manufacturing. Neither did he bailout the poor foreclosed person whose house was underwater. When you pair this government behavior with the bloated rewards financiers extract for little to no productive activity (eg laying down fiber optic cable connecting Chicago futures traders with New York stock markets to speed up such transactions by a few milliseconds) it is a wonder someone like Trump was not elected sooner.
Trump may not have delivered on his promises to the economically disenfranchised, but his rhetoric attacking “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities” resonated with those who felt left behind, the weak, and the powerless disparaged by liberals. Can you blame those people who for so long were without a voice in this country for voting for the man who finally gave them one?
Political debates on economic policy today can be boiled down to a disagreement on whether we should focus on economic growth, just on increasing the size of the pie reasoning that a raising tide lifts all boats, or focus instead on distributive justice, emphasizing that who gets what and how big their slice is relative to what others get matters. This is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, the issues of political economy were more focused on whether decisions would corrupt the morality of US citizens and whether they were good for self governance and cultivating civic virtue because ultimately a democracy is only as good as the people who live in it.
This for example was the debate between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton’s financial plan was to create a national bank and to have the federal government assume state revolutionary debts, then have the federal government pay back this debt by issuing securities to wealthy speculators, the interest of which would be paid for by excise taxes. Jefferson, on the other hand, thought this plan would corrupt the citizenry. Not only would it mean poor farmers who had nothing to do with the debts wracked up by states like New York were putting money in the pockets of wealthy speculators, but Hamilton’s plan created a monied aristocracy, beholdening legislators to the interests of the wealthy. Ultimately Hamilton thought the best way to govern democracy was through aligning the wealth of the nation with private interests, Jefferson thought this would corrupt our democracy and that cultivating independent citizens through independent work was the best method of governance.
This disagreement was a precursor to the next contentious political topic—whether manufacturing had a place in America. Jefferson and others thought this kind of wage labor, beholding a laborer to a master such that the labor or did not depend on himself but on the master for food, housing, etc, was degrading and spoiled the ideals of self reliance, self-responsibility and independence on which the U.S. was founded, which would corrupt statesmanship and public spiritedness, to which the independent farmer living off the land was much more conducive. The siren call of growing wealth and manufacturing, of course, ended up winning out.
The introduction of manufacturing was what first began to drive the wedge between the wealthy and the poor. What followed was the debate between Andrew Jackson, who argued that the working man was poor and depressed and that the unequal distribution of wealth between producers and non-producers was unacceptable, and the Whigs, who argued that so long as national wealth was growing everyone was better off regardless of wealth disparity. Whereas today, progressives and social reformers, who are allegedly fighting for the working class people, advocate for big government, in the 1830s and 40s, the working class farmer, mechanic, laborer, advocated for less government intervention, suspicious that government had been captured by private monied interests and that any regulation would be disproportionately favorable to the wealthy because they paid the politicians. Andrew Jackson’s main policy was not to use government to promote equality, he reasoned that could happen on its own so long as the rich and powerful were prevented from using government to secure special privileges and advantages.
At base, however, this debate was one of what it meant to be free. Jackson thought that, to be free, a worker had to own the means of production. Such ownership over your own work was more conducive to self-government. Wage labor—toiling for a master for your substance—was a form of slavery. Perhaps economies of scale, division of labor and specialization was more efficient, but amassing unskilled labor in this way was not good for democratic rule or for the people on whom democracy depends. The gains from the former don’t necessarily exceed the cost to democracy. It breeds reliant and irresponsible uninformed citizens. Abolitionists, however, disputed this analogy. They argued that wage labor was perfectly acceptable because it was voluntary. Slave labor, on the other hand was not. Labor advocates like George Henry Evens, though, asked whether these wage laborers working manufacturing jobs could really be said to be doing voluntary work when they relied on the little money they got to feed themselves and the conditions they endured were often worse than slavery. In fact, slavers used the conditions of wage labor to argue in favor of slavery, saying the north enslaved its laborers as much as the south its slaves. George Fitzhugh memorably said “Capital commands labor, as the master does the slave.”
Eventually we conceded to the perpetual existence of wage labor in this country and accepted the trade off of independence to wealth. Out of this grew the labor movement of the 1860s to 90: and the two major labor parties—the knights of labor and the national labor union. The knights of labor focused on shoring up the identities of laborers and acknowledging the dignity of work. They advocated for a more independent laborer who owned what he made in the form of coops. The labor unions on the other hand conceded the servile nature of work and instead focused on obtaining good hours and working conditions. The Supreme Court in the 1870s was exceedingly contrarian and rejected both views with opinion like the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873. This philosophy achieved its zenith in 1905 with Lochner v. New York. The voluntarist understanding of free labor that the abolitionists relied on to end slavery was the seed from which the laissez-faire approach to labor flourished. Labor was being commodified and the dignity of labor was being eroded. Even as the Lochner era ended in the 1930s, the vision of the Knights of Labor had been snuffed out, the labor unions’ more hollow idea of work had won out.
The early 20th century brought globalization, telegraphs and telephones, and a more nationalized market. But, while these brought people in distant places closer together, the national economy dominated by vast corporations diminished the autonomy of local communities, the traditional cite for self governance. Meanwhile, large impersonal cities teeming with poverty and disorder led many to fear that we were loosing our national identity. Liberals at the time saw this and began to create a system of governance by means of more neutral bureaucratic techniques and involving “experts” in governance. Other liberals, however, like Louis D. Brandeis, argued that the problem was with concentrated power, both economic and political. The solution was not to confront big business with big government, that would only compound the curse of bigness, the solution was to break up both. Teddy Roosevelt agreed to an extent but him and the philosopher Hebert Croly, although agreeing that the dignity of work and an independent citizenry was at stake and toiling to break up big business, thought the best way to do it was by nationalizing and empowering the government.
By the 1920s though a new vision of political economy came to rise—the vision of the consumer. Walter Lippmann wrote that women’s suffrage increased the power of the consumerist message because, as they were excluded from the work place, they looked at the world more as a consumer. People were connected more with what they consumed rather than how they worked. Large retail organizations, department stores, and chain stores came to reign over domestic commerce. Whereas American democracy used to be founded in producer’s identities, that of the artisan blacksmith or craftsman, by the 1930s it was to be found in consumer identities. Instead of asking how to elevate or improve or restrain people’s preferences, we asked how we could most efficiently satisfy them.
This led to the struggle in the 1920s between citizenship and consumer welfare embodied in the first antitrust movement, which had two prongs: traditional antitrust consumer centrist law and the anti-chain store movement. In the late 1920s, state legislatures sought to restrict the growth of chain stores by taxing for every store over 5 for example or subsidizing the independent grocer or shopkeeper with hold that they would carry the idea of the community oriented local and independent citizen to the 20th century. The Supreme Court however struck these laws down with cases like Liggett Company v. Lee in 1933.
But it was still the case that the chain store, by furthering the concentration of wealth and power by promoting absentee ownership, was thwarting American ideals and breeding inequality, posing a threat to self government. Chain stores defended themselves through the idea of consumer welfare. They could offer a greater variety of goods for cheaper and more efficiently. A utilitarian justification rather than one grounded in civic ideals. But the loss of an independent class of producers was a civic loss not measurable in terms of consumer welfare alone. Can you blame the small town resident who is frustrated because control of their local business was being transferred from their local community to a distant city where men on the 54th floor decided the fate of their communities with whom they had little or no relationship, by simply glancing at a balance sheet and a profit loss statement? This is an all to well known reality for residents of towns like Goldendale, Washington whose locally owned sawmill was closed by auditors in NYC to promote global efficiencies. Perhaps we were too enamored of the fruits of consumption to realize the struggle so many were enduring so we could consume. As we will see, Trump provided a voice to that struggle that both democrats and traditional republicans ignored.
This consumerist ethic bled nicely into the Keynesian revolution of the late 1930s and 40s. John Maynard Keynes wrote that “consumption is the sole end and object of all economic activity.” Keynesian’s thought that by artificially inflating consumer demand via government stimulus, we could sustain perpetual growth and avoid recessions and job loss. Although far from being an early acolyte of Keynesian economics, FDR’s policies aligned perfectly with Keynes’s economic suggestions. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration for example manipulated supply to stabilize the agricultural economy by subsidizing pig farmers and cotton farmers to destroy their crops and pigs. The National Industrial Recovery Act committed employers to minimum wages and maximum hours but also was essentially government sanctioned price fixing. FDR was answering big business by inflating government power. Of course, this made government all the more attractive to big business for regulatory capture. And of course by this time the old questions about what economic arrangements were most hospitable to self government had disappeared from national debate. Consumer welfare was king.
As more Americans begin to see economic arrangements as instruments of consumption rather than schools for citizenship, we will see an ever hollowing out of our civic and political debate. Modern liberals put the right before the good. But this creates a vacuum ripe for exploitation by a demagogue actually willing to express a moral direction to take. The morally devoid, consumption based, neutral, rights-focused new progressive ideology had little to say to those who feared they were losing control of their lives to vast structures of impersonal power while the moral fabric of neighborhood and community unraveled around them.
All this, in fact, was the point Robert Kennedy was trying to make in 1968 when he said “the growing accumulation of power and authority in central government” needed to return to the American people in “their own local communities.” This is why Robert Kennedy was called “the last liberal politician who could communicate with white working-class America.”
Ronald Reagan was essentially a reverse Teddy Roosevelt. He called for the decentralization of big government while propping up big business. But his message struck an important cord for many: “our citizens feel they’ve lost control of even the most basic decisions made about the essential services of government, such as schools, welfare, roads…” such rhetoric was reminiscent of what Tocqueville said in Democracy in America, local attachments enable citizens to “practice the art of government in the small sphere within their reach.” This civic strand of rhetoric enabled Reagan to capture the presidency twice despite being a political outsider and enabled Trump to do the same.
The progressive detached technocratic expert bureaucrat cannot inspire the moral and civic engagement self government requires of the average person. The meritocracy that liberals have embraced has also given an almost providentialist sanction to the economic status quo—you can make it if you try, what you learn depends on what you earn, you can go as far as your talent and hard work will take you—progressives have embraced the politics of desert. But this is a double edged sword, the insidious underbelly of the argument that you deserve your success because you went to college and tried hard, is that your failure is your fault. Liberals have unwittingly been defending the moral status of the current economic disparity by signaling that those who didn’t go to college and who thus earn less (almost 2/3rds of Americans have not attended college), deserve their place in our society. It is not surprising that such rhetoric has produced a populist rancor, suspicious of big government that only serves the successful, and hostile to the elites who have so disparaged them. Donald Trump was able to win by striking the chord that Democrats had been pulling for decades.
Global financial markets and the further concentration of private power as banks and businesses continued to merge and as pieces of legislation like glass Steagall were gutted only exacerbated the situation. As corporations were able to move jobs overseas and agreements like NAFTA were formed, the American working class found themselves competing against people in China. Both democratic and republican presidents are guilty of appeasing global finance. Clinton for example provided for a huge loophole in the company million dollar tax deductible cap with the performance pay exemption, which actually incentivized stock buybacks. And when the highly leveraged derivatives (credit default swaps) that insured all the mortgage backed securities issued in the mid to late 2000s, finally detonated, Obama bailed out the banks in 2009. Not only did he bail them out, he did not hold them to account by restructuring the system like he did with car manufacturing. Neither did he bailout the poor foreclosed person whose house was underwater. When you pair this government behavior with the bloated rewards financiers extract for little to no productive activity (eg laying down fiber optic cable connecting Chicago futures traders with New York stock markets to speed up such transactions by a few milliseconds) it is a wonder someone like Trump was not elected sooner.
Trump may not have delivered on his promises to the economically disenfranchised, but his rhetoric attacking “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities” resonated with those who felt left behind, the weak, and the powerless disparaged by liberals. Can you blame those people who for so long were without a voice in this country for voting for the man who finally gave them one?
May 2, 2019
Accept this as an argument from ignorance, as you wish.
Only a jurist could give proper respect to the tight argumentation and layering of precedent laid down by Michael Sandel in his book, which is a political argument hoisted onto the written page with the heft of a compulsive legal brief.
It’s put forward as a philosophical exploration, a foundational work for public examination. It seeks to guide public understanding and ultimately attitudes and policy. The understanding of those in power or directing their lives toward gaining power. As that sort of twilit entrant into the sphere which would include interested American readers, Democracy’s Discontent: America In Search Of A Public Philosophy camouflages its true identity as a political document.
Absent deep levels of jurisprudential knowledge, a reader might conclude Sandel’s apparent airtight interlocking of case law, logic, and historical interpretive commentary provide an overwhelming proof. But this is a lawyer’s, not a scientist’s, proof – a defense of position rather than a dispassionate bid at disconfirming a hypothesis.
Sandel’s book lays out the reasoning that justifies proper court precedent, ‘proper’ resting on the outlook formed at the country’s foundation. His is what used to be considered ‘strict construction’ as opposed to ‘loose’. It’s taken on the term ‘originalist’. That means, in broad terms, the restrictions on power, the division of powers, the fragmentation and localization of authority seen wise in the latter 18th Century by North American English colonists marginalized by an unresponsive London Parliament and King, still hold, as much as is possible, in full.
On that score, a skeptic might – ‘discount’ might be too severe – depreciate Sandel’s rigorous logical argumentation, his attempt at airtightness, and ask whether it camouflages a full social re-orientation of the United States. Whether it presents legal ‘cover’ for those offended by various social changes, an attempt at reviving moribund ways of life last fully thriving some hundred years ago by legitimating it in the name of the Founders.
One whole collective life of the generation to which I belong, and of the generation lived just before, have learned to see the United States in terms of its Constitutional structure. Military adventures aside, America has scrutinized itself under an inspecting glass of some magnitude. What lawmakers could do, they managed. What they could not do got done by courts. What either did reflected what it thought comported with social values executed within a legal frame.
Wise, of course. Constitutional rules could and can be amended, but done so with the same steadiness and craft as formed the original. Slow, checked.
One should ask, however, whether values thought sensible when considered by mercantile and agrarian standards – judicious, even, when filtered through some of the best-educated and -led minds of that time – might prove too unsupple to engage with things truly unfamiliar.
Of course, it is always possible to shape one’s thoughts into the breathless confines of an exegetical corset. Given ‘first principles’ of one kind or another, certain things may be shown logically to follow. Or by some shifting ‘extension’, be assimilated.
Sandel is smart, learned, careful, and lawyerly. Professorial. Nothing he lays down appears careless. His history of key cases is a book-long case itself for a particular legal approach, a way of conserving movement in order not to make sudden blunders. A way of deciding uniformly, even when conditions change. It abides, in fact, by an assumption of plus ҫa change: the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Sandel’s piece forwards a particular foundation for a political philosophy meant to guide America – indeed, meant to have guided America all along. According to this view, the true polity envisioned at the start understood a free people as founded within their freely constituted natural institutions. What was there, in place, locally, exemplified human values. Typified them. Was the ‘natural’ expression of them.
Only such people allowed to be unimpeded to so be could then – having established for themselves what ‘good’ they recognized – only then could they declare as equals their collective public policies. Freedom in that democratic, public sphere, found its base on the private institutions ‘naturally’ occurring among individuals and their common collectives.
What America has come to understand – erroneously, by this measure – is that people have the right to assert the freedom to discover what is good, the right to seek what is good. An openness to search for the good, to find it, to be agnostic to it, to experiment with those things novel, to invent new aggregations and re-interpret the value of older ones.
For Sandel, virtue lies in institutions formed prior to governmental arrangement, in the character built naturally and found ready to take on self-government. For him, government action – say, much Constitutional law from the 30s to date, often implemented at a physical distance and by strange agency, undercuts those local values arising from family, neighbor community, bonds of faith, individual business initiative – forces that allow character to build, or at least cohere.
It is hard to find enough elasticity in Sandel’s way of approach to manage America as we see it today. Even if we wish it to be the Boston or Williamsburg of 1770, we can make it so only in annual re-enactments, honoring the past. But costumes cannot remake the man. Understanding historical development is vital to fathoming what we face day to day. It lends us prudence and balance.
Law knows this. It recognizes human rashness and bad judgment, and it rewards and punishes accordingly. Legal reasoning should certainly try all similar cases equally. But what is ‘similar’? Agricultural and trading colonies the same as corporate industrial capacities, electronic instantaneity? When will ‘artificial intelligence’ become a ‘person’?
The legalist is developing – has developed – the methodology of a Talmudic scholar, the discerning eye of a Jesuit: each new case has the obligation of being weighed against the bulk, the volume of a constantly solidifying re-affirmation, a great many shading instances not very far off from an original ‘culmination’.
For us, civilized as we are and wish to continue to be, order is a prime value. But what Sandel has unfolded essentially equates order with social arrest. A live civilization needs more room to maneuver.
Only a jurist could give proper respect to the tight argumentation and layering of precedent laid down by Michael Sandel in his book, which is a political argument hoisted onto the written page with the heft of a compulsive legal brief.
It’s put forward as a philosophical exploration, a foundational work for public examination. It seeks to guide public understanding and ultimately attitudes and policy. The understanding of those in power or directing their lives toward gaining power. As that sort of twilit entrant into the sphere which would include interested American readers, Democracy’s Discontent: America In Search Of A Public Philosophy camouflages its true identity as a political document.
Absent deep levels of jurisprudential knowledge, a reader might conclude Sandel’s apparent airtight interlocking of case law, logic, and historical interpretive commentary provide an overwhelming proof. But this is a lawyer’s, not a scientist’s, proof – a defense of position rather than a dispassionate bid at disconfirming a hypothesis.
Sandel’s book lays out the reasoning that justifies proper court precedent, ‘proper’ resting on the outlook formed at the country’s foundation. His is what used to be considered ‘strict construction’ as opposed to ‘loose’. It’s taken on the term ‘originalist’. That means, in broad terms, the restrictions on power, the division of powers, the fragmentation and localization of authority seen wise in the latter 18th Century by North American English colonists marginalized by an unresponsive London Parliament and King, still hold, as much as is possible, in full.
On that score, a skeptic might – ‘discount’ might be too severe – depreciate Sandel’s rigorous logical argumentation, his attempt at airtightness, and ask whether it camouflages a full social re-orientation of the United States. Whether it presents legal ‘cover’ for those offended by various social changes, an attempt at reviving moribund ways of life last fully thriving some hundred years ago by legitimating it in the name of the Founders.
One whole collective life of the generation to which I belong, and of the generation lived just before, have learned to see the United States in terms of its Constitutional structure. Military adventures aside, America has scrutinized itself under an inspecting glass of some magnitude. What lawmakers could do, they managed. What they could not do got done by courts. What either did reflected what it thought comported with social values executed within a legal frame.
Wise, of course. Constitutional rules could and can be amended, but done so with the same steadiness and craft as formed the original. Slow, checked.
One should ask, however, whether values thought sensible when considered by mercantile and agrarian standards – judicious, even, when filtered through some of the best-educated and -led minds of that time – might prove too unsupple to engage with things truly unfamiliar.
Of course, it is always possible to shape one’s thoughts into the breathless confines of an exegetical corset. Given ‘first principles’ of one kind or another, certain things may be shown logically to follow. Or by some shifting ‘extension’, be assimilated.
Sandel is smart, learned, careful, and lawyerly. Professorial. Nothing he lays down appears careless. His history of key cases is a book-long case itself for a particular legal approach, a way of conserving movement in order not to make sudden blunders. A way of deciding uniformly, even when conditions change. It abides, in fact, by an assumption of plus ҫa change: the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Sandel’s piece forwards a particular foundation for a political philosophy meant to guide America – indeed, meant to have guided America all along. According to this view, the true polity envisioned at the start understood a free people as founded within their freely constituted natural institutions. What was there, in place, locally, exemplified human values. Typified them. Was the ‘natural’ expression of them.
Only such people allowed to be unimpeded to so be could then – having established for themselves what ‘good’ they recognized – only then could they declare as equals their collective public policies. Freedom in that democratic, public sphere, found its base on the private institutions ‘naturally’ occurring among individuals and their common collectives.
What America has come to understand – erroneously, by this measure – is that people have the right to assert the freedom to discover what is good, the right to seek what is good. An openness to search for the good, to find it, to be agnostic to it, to experiment with those things novel, to invent new aggregations and re-interpret the value of older ones.
For Sandel, virtue lies in institutions formed prior to governmental arrangement, in the character built naturally and found ready to take on self-government. For him, government action – say, much Constitutional law from the 30s to date, often implemented at a physical distance and by strange agency, undercuts those local values arising from family, neighbor community, bonds of faith, individual business initiative – forces that allow character to build, or at least cohere.
It is hard to find enough elasticity in Sandel’s way of approach to manage America as we see it today. Even if we wish it to be the Boston or Williamsburg of 1770, we can make it so only in annual re-enactments, honoring the past. But costumes cannot remake the man. Understanding historical development is vital to fathoming what we face day to day. It lends us prudence and balance.
Law knows this. It recognizes human rashness and bad judgment, and it rewards and punishes accordingly. Legal reasoning should certainly try all similar cases equally. But what is ‘similar’? Agricultural and trading colonies the same as corporate industrial capacities, electronic instantaneity? When will ‘artificial intelligence’ become a ‘person’?
The legalist is developing – has developed – the methodology of a Talmudic scholar, the discerning eye of a Jesuit: each new case has the obligation of being weighed against the bulk, the volume of a constantly solidifying re-affirmation, a great many shading instances not very far off from an original ‘culmination’.
For us, civilized as we are and wish to continue to be, order is a prime value. But what Sandel has unfolded essentially equates order with social arrest. A live civilization needs more room to maneuver.
January 12, 2008
Democracy's Discontent is now my framework.
I'd been working with a bits-and-pieces political philosophy, a lumpy mix of Tocqueville, MacIntyre, and Neuhaus, leavened with lessons I learned from the indie-rock community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I had a vague sense that I wanted to hear politicians to talk about the common good, but they never did. This weird batch of ideas didn't cook well, and I was, in a word, discontented.
I had always assumed (as a Southerner) that the trauma of the Civil War turned the nation away from its first priorities. Either that or the New Deal.
Not so, according to Michael Sandel. The key feature of modern political discourse, both in constitutional law and in political economy, is a voluntarist liberalism: a belief that the role of the government is to enable citizens to pursue self-chosen ends, showing no preference to any particular idea of what is good. This neutrality among ends shows up in both Keynesian economics and classical liberalism, and in all sorts of jurisprudence. Voluntarism is essentially Kantian. It emerged first in the Supreme Court's Lochner era, and then took over in public discourse around the time of the New Deal.
Sandel shows that, historically, Americans subscribed to a more republican philosophy. The government was not neutral among ends; rather, both citizens and politicians believed that the government had to cultivate certain civic virtues in order to secure the kind of liberty needed for the good life.
I wish I could tell the whole story here. Although the book is full of quotations and repeated ideas, I read it like a novel. I actually got angry at the early advocates of consumer culture. Perhaps I'll revise this review once I've had some time to think about it.
I wish I could give this book four stars. Unfortunately, the writing doesn't sparkle. As I noted earlier, the book repeats itself in places. If someone could take this same story and present it in a rhetorically appealing manner, a la David Bentley Hart, I'd put it up there as a classic.
I'd been working with a bits-and-pieces political philosophy, a lumpy mix of Tocqueville, MacIntyre, and Neuhaus, leavened with lessons I learned from the indie-rock community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I had a vague sense that I wanted to hear politicians to talk about the common good, but they never did. This weird batch of ideas didn't cook well, and I was, in a word, discontented.
I had always assumed (as a Southerner) that the trauma of the Civil War turned the nation away from its first priorities. Either that or the New Deal.
Not so, according to Michael Sandel. The key feature of modern political discourse, both in constitutional law and in political economy, is a voluntarist liberalism: a belief that the role of the government is to enable citizens to pursue self-chosen ends, showing no preference to any particular idea of what is good. This neutrality among ends shows up in both Keynesian economics and classical liberalism, and in all sorts of jurisprudence. Voluntarism is essentially Kantian. It emerged first in the Supreme Court's Lochner era, and then took over in public discourse around the time of the New Deal.
Sandel shows that, historically, Americans subscribed to a more republican philosophy. The government was not neutral among ends; rather, both citizens and politicians believed that the government had to cultivate certain civic virtues in order to secure the kind of liberty needed for the good life.
I wish I could tell the whole story here. Although the book is full of quotations and repeated ideas, I read it like a novel. I actually got angry at the early advocates of consumer culture. Perhaps I'll revise this review once I've had some time to think about it.
I wish I could give this book four stars. Unfortunately, the writing doesn't sparkle. As I noted earlier, the book repeats itself in places. If someone could take this same story and present it in a rhetorically appealing manner, a la David Bentley Hart, I'd put it up there as a classic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2016
Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent is a miss for me because I think he misunderstands what liberalism is in its classical philosophical sense. Classical Liberalism presumes the most limited form of government possible on the grounds that we ought to be suspicious of any person or institution claiming to possess political power. Sandel writes that liberalism is about being neutral toward conceptions of the good life but I think this is just a misunderstanding of what liberalism is. Sandel believes that the United States has been at loggerheads over whether to advance a liberal conception of society--that is, liberal in his sense, where people do not stake claims in terms of what the public good should be, or whether to advance a republic conception, where people do deliberate about what the common good is. The sorts of examples he cites do not do much in advancing what he sees as the battle here. For example, he writes of Supreme Court cases as though they fit this liberal versus republican paradigm but they don't: the cases he cites are really about judicial conservatism versus judicial activism. Sandel's books have been thoughtful and illuminating, but this book is based on a false premise.
Incidentally, if you are interested, you can read a more elaborate view I gave of the book HERE.
Incidentally, if you are interested, you can read a more elaborate view I gave of the book HERE.
April 19, 2025
Sandel is a talented writer and philosopher who has written some excellent and approachable books such as Meritocracy and Justice. Democracy’s Discontent fell short of my expectations and of the caliber of Sandel’s other works that I have read.
Most of the book is a history lesson about self-governance, community, and what being free meant to the leaders of our country in the late 1700’s and 1800’s. It was interesting to revisit the world through their eyes - agrarian, local - and reflect on the debates of those eras.
Ultimately, the definition of the “good life” and the role of government are looked at - especially as our politics and economy shift towards consumerism in the 20th century. As our world becomes more complex and the local is replaced (or augmented) by the national and the global, our sense of community and ability to self-govern have become compromised.
It all makes sense. But, Sandel falls short, in my view, of sharing potential futurescapes and evolutions of our politics and systems of government to forge a better future for its citizens. How can one be a good citizen? How can a good life be defined and lived in the current world order? And, as a proponent of communitarianism, how do we develop ties of community and shared sense of purpose and common good in our fragmented world? It seemed like there is a sequel that needs to be published. I hope so….
If you haven’t read Sandel, perhaps start with Meritocracy (previously reviewed).
Most of the book is a history lesson about self-governance, community, and what being free meant to the leaders of our country in the late 1700’s and 1800’s. It was interesting to revisit the world through their eyes - agrarian, local - and reflect on the debates of those eras.
Ultimately, the definition of the “good life” and the role of government are looked at - especially as our politics and economy shift towards consumerism in the 20th century. As our world becomes more complex and the local is replaced (or augmented) by the national and the global, our sense of community and ability to self-govern have become compromised.
It all makes sense. But, Sandel falls short, in my view, of sharing potential futurescapes and evolutions of our politics and systems of government to forge a better future for its citizens. How can one be a good citizen? How can a good life be defined and lived in the current world order? And, as a proponent of communitarianism, how do we develop ties of community and shared sense of purpose and common good in our fragmented world? It seemed like there is a sequel that needs to be published. I hope so….
If you haven’t read Sandel, perhaps start with Meritocracy (previously reviewed).
September 4, 2023
Es un libro muy interesante para conocer la evolución del discurso político en Estados Unidos. Permite analizar y conocer la evolución del concepto de virtud cívica en el debate político de dicho país, desde la guerra de secesión hasta la actualidad.
Ello permite contemplar la evolución del concepto de libertad, desde la concepción republicana muy ligada al civismo hasta la concepción voluntarista de hoy en día.
Es un buen libro para aproximarse a la historia del debate político de Estados Unidos, aunque no profundiza demasiado en los hitos históricos y los personajes clave que propiciaron estos cambios.
Ello permite contemplar la evolución del concepto de libertad, desde la concepción republicana muy ligada al civismo hasta la concepción voluntarista de hoy en día.
Es un buen libro para aproximarse a la historia del debate político de Estados Unidos, aunque no profundiza demasiado en los hitos históricos y los personajes clave que propiciaron estos cambios.
July 4, 2024
Fantástica obra sobre a evolução da democracia na América
March 28, 2018
Sandel's book, published over twenty years ago, is remarkably relevant to contemporary political debates. The bulk of the book charts the eclipse of civic republicanism in American constitutional law and political debates.
Civic republicanism is contrasted with procedural liberalism, most famously articulated by Rawls. Where procedural liberalism conceptualizes the self as independent of its social relationships, civic republicanism highlights the embedded self, where identity is intrinsically constituted by its relationships and membership within various social groups. Similarly, whereas procedural liberalism fails to acknowledge obligations on persons that are not chosen, civic republicanism recognizes that persons typically find themselves placed under obligations stemming from social ties, religious affiliation, among other sources, that cannot be understood as merely chosen.
Sandel argues that the procedural liberalism both fails to adequately account for our moral experience, the sense that we are face ethical requirements that we have not chosen, and also fails to provide a sufficient normative foundations for the bonds of solidarity needed to sustain the welfare state. In other words, procedural liberalism, Sandel argues, is likely to devolve into neoliberalism, where freedom is primarily understood in terms of the market. This is one Sandel's most interesting claims, one that seems to have found support in the time since the book was published.
The first part of the book charts the shift in constitutional law toward procedural liberalism. This is marked by a focus upon rights, a prioritization of negative liberty, and the demand for neutrality between rival conceptions of the good. Sandel convincingly illustrates this shift but he fails to explain exactly why it occurs. One suspects that something like a version of a MacIntyre's 'Enlightenment Project' may have taken hold among judges and legal scholars, where the secularization of Protestantism leads to an attempt to justify legal decisions without appeal thick conceptions of the good. This left nothing but negative liberty to provide the basis of these decisions.
The second part of the book charts the eclipse of civic republicanism in American politics. This is the story of the growth of the market and the marginalization of an economy dominated by small producers. While some sought to restrain these economic forces, and restore a smaller scale economy, others thought that 'bigness' was inevitable and sought to increase democratic control of the economy through more aggressive federal regulations. Ultimately, this lead to the dominance of the consumer rather than producer perspective and the end of civic republican attempts to view the economy in terms of a formative project where small scale economic activity promoted independent judgment, virtuous character, and social attachments. Instead Keynesianism came to dominant and with this an emphasis on economic growth and fair distribution as the only legitimate aims of economic policy.
Sandel argues that a return to civic republicanism is needed overcome the contemporary malaiseL a feeling of powerlessness and and lack of social cohesion. Civic republicanism provides a more robust notion of freedom, a positive conception whereby freedom is realized though public engagement in political activity. He suggests that this conception can be recovered by adopting a notion of heterogenous sovereignty where membership in various groups from familial and local associations, through the state (and the firm), to international organizations, provides different types of obligations that must be continuously navigated and harmonized without giving any group priority before the fact.
While Sandel's history is incredibly insightful, a more extensive discussion of the possibility of a revival of civic republicanism is warranted. If Sandel's approach was widely adopted, one wonders what would be different. In terms of constitutional law it would clearly involve a move away from neutrality and allowance for preferential treatment for conceptions of the good that are warranted, for instance favoring speech supporting civil rights movements rather than fascist parties. It is less clear what this might involve politically, though it is likely to involve legislative support for forms of community that play a positive role within the civic project.
Civic republicanism is contrasted with procedural liberalism, most famously articulated by Rawls. Where procedural liberalism conceptualizes the self as independent of its social relationships, civic republicanism highlights the embedded self, where identity is intrinsically constituted by its relationships and membership within various social groups. Similarly, whereas procedural liberalism fails to acknowledge obligations on persons that are not chosen, civic republicanism recognizes that persons typically find themselves placed under obligations stemming from social ties, religious affiliation, among other sources, that cannot be understood as merely chosen.
Sandel argues that the procedural liberalism both fails to adequately account for our moral experience, the sense that we are face ethical requirements that we have not chosen, and also fails to provide a sufficient normative foundations for the bonds of solidarity needed to sustain the welfare state. In other words, procedural liberalism, Sandel argues, is likely to devolve into neoliberalism, where freedom is primarily understood in terms of the market. This is one Sandel's most interesting claims, one that seems to have found support in the time since the book was published.
The first part of the book charts the shift in constitutional law toward procedural liberalism. This is marked by a focus upon rights, a prioritization of negative liberty, and the demand for neutrality between rival conceptions of the good. Sandel convincingly illustrates this shift but he fails to explain exactly why it occurs. One suspects that something like a version of a MacIntyre's 'Enlightenment Project' may have taken hold among judges and legal scholars, where the secularization of Protestantism leads to an attempt to justify legal decisions without appeal thick conceptions of the good. This left nothing but negative liberty to provide the basis of these decisions.
The second part of the book charts the eclipse of civic republicanism in American politics. This is the story of the growth of the market and the marginalization of an economy dominated by small producers. While some sought to restrain these economic forces, and restore a smaller scale economy, others thought that 'bigness' was inevitable and sought to increase democratic control of the economy through more aggressive federal regulations. Ultimately, this lead to the dominance of the consumer rather than producer perspective and the end of civic republican attempts to view the economy in terms of a formative project where small scale economic activity promoted independent judgment, virtuous character, and social attachments. Instead Keynesianism came to dominant and with this an emphasis on economic growth and fair distribution as the only legitimate aims of economic policy.
Sandel argues that a return to civic republicanism is needed overcome the contemporary malaiseL a feeling of powerlessness and and lack of social cohesion. Civic republicanism provides a more robust notion of freedom, a positive conception whereby freedom is realized though public engagement in political activity. He suggests that this conception can be recovered by adopting a notion of heterogenous sovereignty where membership in various groups from familial and local associations, through the state (and the firm), to international organizations, provides different types of obligations that must be continuously navigated and harmonized without giving any group priority before the fact.
While Sandel's history is incredibly insightful, a more extensive discussion of the possibility of a revival of civic republicanism is warranted. If Sandel's approach was widely adopted, one wonders what would be different. In terms of constitutional law it would clearly involve a move away from neutrality and allowance for preferential treatment for conceptions of the good that are warranted, for instance favoring speech supporting civil rights movements rather than fascist parties. It is less clear what this might involve politically, though it is likely to involve legislative support for forms of community that play a positive role within the civic project.
December 3, 2021
Read for my history class this past semester. A dense read and a bit dated but introduces a very interesting and important philosophical understanding of the public and what civic responsibility is.
December 15, 2022
The only reason I was interested in reading this book was not because of any update in Sandel's argument, but because I was curious of how we wanted to situate his hope for a revival in civic or republican liberty in the present context, and he did provide some of that. The long epilogue to the book focuses on globalization, financialization, and meritocracy, all of which in fairly obvious ways privilege individualistic readings of American democracy, and threaten the sort of participatory democratic or communitarian versions that he thinks are central of the survival of the American experiment with national democracy. It would be nice if someone like Sandel could be open to rethinking the problems inherent in that "nationality" itself, but maybe that's too much to hope for.
April 27, 2019
This is one of Sandel's not for popular consumption works, but is definitely more accessible than his critiques of the work of Rawls, and a good exhibition of his thought.
April 27, 2024
No livro “O descontentamento da democracia”, o professor de Harvard, Michael Sandel, examina as causas da erosão da democracia contemporânea. Por meio de análise da história política dos EUA, ele observa que, do séc. XIX até a primeira metade do séc. XX, prevaleceu o ideal cívico republicano de “autogoverno”.
O ideal republicano entende ser fundamental que os indivíduos se “autogovernem”, deliberando sobre o “bem comum” da comunidade política. A participação cria um vínculo moral de pertencimento, fomentando “virtudes cívicas”. A liberdade só pode ser experimentada quando indivíduos compartilham de escolhas e mantém vínculos morais.
Esse ideal se orienta por uma “economia política da cidadania” em que os cidadãos podem participar ativamente das decisões políticas e econômicas. O governo pode atuar, ativamente, no cultivo de qualidades de caráter do cidadão. Assim, a coesão das comunidades e a liberdade cidadã compartilhada podem fortalecer a democracia.
Contudo, a partir do séc. XX, prevaleceu o “ideal liberal de neutralidade”. Esse ideal diz que todos os valores e decisões individuais têm igual importância, de modo que as comunidades e o governo devem ser neutros quanto às escolhas dos indivíduos. A liberdade está no procedimento: siga as regras, não prejudique outrem, e faça o que quiser.
Nesse modelo, direita e esquerda compartilham a crença de que as comunidades e o governo não podem induzir um caráter cívico e comunitário. A preocupação deve ser, estritamente, aumentar o bem-estar e o consumo, seja pelo aumento da riqueza (preocupação da direita), seja por sua distribuição (preocupação da esquerda).
Sob o ideal liberal, a globalização da economia e o discurso da meritocracia fizeram com que: 1) o ideal de autogoverno fosse abandonado e as elites assumiram o controle; 2) as comunidades se enfraqueceram diante do poder do Estado dominado por elites; e 3) os indivíduos que não se adequaram à competição foram deixados para trás, tornando-se descontentes e ressentidos.
De fato, a tradição republicana tem um grande problema: comunidades e o governo podem se tornar perversos e, em nome do bem comum, podem fustigar indivíduos. Ainda assim, Sandel tem um ponto importante: democracia sem comunidades cívicas integradoras e sem possibilidade de participação real no autogoverno leva ao descontentamento.
Quando as elites assumem o controle, a economia opera tão-somente para mais consumo, e não há incentivos para o desenvolvimento de virtudes cívicas, aprofunda-se o descontentamento da democracia e abre-se espaço para o populismo. Em meio à polarização e ao ressentimento, quem cuidará da fraternidade que alicerça o ideal democrático?
O ideal republicano entende ser fundamental que os indivíduos se “autogovernem”, deliberando sobre o “bem comum” da comunidade política. A participação cria um vínculo moral de pertencimento, fomentando “virtudes cívicas”. A liberdade só pode ser experimentada quando indivíduos compartilham de escolhas e mantém vínculos morais.
Esse ideal se orienta por uma “economia política da cidadania” em que os cidadãos podem participar ativamente das decisões políticas e econômicas. O governo pode atuar, ativamente, no cultivo de qualidades de caráter do cidadão. Assim, a coesão das comunidades e a liberdade cidadã compartilhada podem fortalecer a democracia.
Contudo, a partir do séc. XX, prevaleceu o “ideal liberal de neutralidade”. Esse ideal diz que todos os valores e decisões individuais têm igual importância, de modo que as comunidades e o governo devem ser neutros quanto às escolhas dos indivíduos. A liberdade está no procedimento: siga as regras, não prejudique outrem, e faça o que quiser.
Nesse modelo, direita e esquerda compartilham a crença de que as comunidades e o governo não podem induzir um caráter cívico e comunitário. A preocupação deve ser, estritamente, aumentar o bem-estar e o consumo, seja pelo aumento da riqueza (preocupação da direita), seja por sua distribuição (preocupação da esquerda).
Sob o ideal liberal, a globalização da economia e o discurso da meritocracia fizeram com que: 1) o ideal de autogoverno fosse abandonado e as elites assumiram o controle; 2) as comunidades se enfraqueceram diante do poder do Estado dominado por elites; e 3) os indivíduos que não se adequaram à competição foram deixados para trás, tornando-se descontentes e ressentidos.
De fato, a tradição republicana tem um grande problema: comunidades e o governo podem se tornar perversos e, em nome do bem comum, podem fustigar indivíduos. Ainda assim, Sandel tem um ponto importante: democracia sem comunidades cívicas integradoras e sem possibilidade de participação real no autogoverno leva ao descontentamento.
Quando as elites assumem o controle, a economia opera tão-somente para mais consumo, e não há incentivos para o desenvolvimento de virtudes cívicas, aprofunda-se o descontentamento da democracia e abre-se espaço para o populismo. Em meio à polarização e ao ressentimento, quem cuidará da fraternidade que alicerça o ideal democrático?
February 8, 2025
Although I'm a fan of Michael Sandel, I admit I had a tough time getting through this new (2002) edition of the book first published in 1996. The original edition detailed how the republican notion of citizenship had gradually given way to consumerism and globalization of the political economy--to the detriment of American democracy. In other words, during the first half of the 20th century, politics had been reduced to disagreements over the size and distribution of the economic pie. All other issues, e.g., those involving relative political power or the civic consequences of economic arrangements, were deemed off-limits because they were deemed inconsistent with individual choice,(the voluntarist conception of freedom). This emerging perspective came to be seen as natural and inevitable despite alternative formulations, including the notion that government has a formative role in promoting particular kinds of citizens (especially in their role as producers), having been prominent in earlier periods. Perhaps my difficulty with the book had something to do with my having bought into this perspective myself.
The new edition extends the historical narrative an additional quarter century through the presidencies of Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and the beginning of Biden's tenure--a period of increased polarization and political distrust, and heightened sense of disempowerment and loss of community, in part exacerbated by the culture wars. Sandel reiterates from his other writings the detrimental effects of meritocracy, in particular how those with a college degree are unfairly advantaged in the new political economy while the other two-thirds of the country are discouraged and implicitly insulted (by not having "chosen" to obtain a college degree). If I'm reading Sandel correctly, this recent period only serves to underscore his thesis, that the country and its leadership has gotten even more mired in what Sandel would characterize as artificially constrained, technocratic politics, what he refers to as the liberal procedural republic.
Democracy's Discontent is praiseworthy for placing our current dilemma within the full sweep of U.S. history including the views of founders Jefferson, Hamilton, and others--quite unexpected from a political philosopher like Sandel. It presents an important diagnosis of our current ills but might have been rendered even more compelling by clearer explication of several key concepts.
The new edition extends the historical narrative an additional quarter century through the presidencies of Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and the beginning of Biden's tenure--a period of increased polarization and political distrust, and heightened sense of disempowerment and loss of community, in part exacerbated by the culture wars. Sandel reiterates from his other writings the detrimental effects of meritocracy, in particular how those with a college degree are unfairly advantaged in the new political economy while the other two-thirds of the country are discouraged and implicitly insulted (by not having "chosen" to obtain a college degree). If I'm reading Sandel correctly, this recent period only serves to underscore his thesis, that the country and its leadership has gotten even more mired in what Sandel would characterize as artificially constrained, technocratic politics, what he refers to as the liberal procedural republic.
Democracy's Discontent is praiseworthy for placing our current dilemma within the full sweep of U.S. history including the views of founders Jefferson, Hamilton, and others--quite unexpected from a political philosopher like Sandel. It presents an important diagnosis of our current ills but might have been rendered even more compelling by clearer explication of several key concepts.
February 19, 2025
Having listened to his interview and having only read the first chapter so far, I believe this analysis is intelligent and accurate in a profound way not explained by most others. The problems identified in this book are also a product of not being able to fully identify and expose them without criticizing the idea of American self-government and American Democracy, which has been flawed since conception. Although the author identifies this flaw, he still fights to defend our democratic principle which although having fluctuated in strength throughout our short history, has only proven to be a fantasy (as we witness its present total deterioration regardless of party). Antonio Gramsci once said "All governments are dictatorships", this can be confirmed regardless if it be one man or a financial oligarchy. The only choice the people can influence is what type of authoritarian power they prefer. Since the people have repeatedly proven they don't care to be a part of the "self-government" franchise or even understand responsible governing (Richard W. Child, The writing on the wall) , we now have what I would call a "Sictatorship".
The answer to the Hamilton / Jefferson debate was to balance both methods of economic governing under a government which controlled and balanced all economic systems independent of wealth and money influence. Corporatism under Mussolini copied in the New deal by FDR controlled and maintained without corrupt influence and always in the interest of the people or the whole and not financial elitist singular interests.
As one reviewer states here that " Trump may not have delivered on his promises to the economically disenfranchised, but his rhetoric attacking “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities” resonated with those who felt left behind, the weak, and the powerless disparaged by liberals. Can you blame those people who for so long were without a voice in this country for voting for the man who finally gave them one?"
The problem is that Trump is the greatest supporter of the financial elites who would increasingly rob the working class and the resources of other nations forcefully using authoritarianism for their purpose and not for the people as other historical socialist based authoritarians.
The answer to the Hamilton / Jefferson debate was to balance both methods of economic governing under a government which controlled and balanced all economic systems independent of wealth and money influence. Corporatism under Mussolini copied in the New deal by FDR controlled and maintained without corrupt influence and always in the interest of the people or the whole and not financial elitist singular interests.
As one reviewer states here that " Trump may not have delivered on his promises to the economically disenfranchised, but his rhetoric attacking “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities” resonated with those who felt left behind, the weak, and the powerless disparaged by liberals. Can you blame those people who for so long were without a voice in this country for voting for the man who finally gave them one?"
The problem is that Trump is the greatest supporter of the financial elites who would increasingly rob the working class and the resources of other nations forcefully using authoritarianism for their purpose and not for the people as other historical socialist based authoritarians.
March 9, 2025
A strongly written argument that expertly traces the path of an American ideal through history. Small-r republicanism is given voice and space past its usual discussion at the founding, with excellent quotations and references used throughout to support his claims and arguments. While the historical aspect of the book takes up most of the space, it isn't until the final chapter and the conclusion, plus the epilogue in this new edition, where Sandel starts to truly bring the philosophy in; it is in the latter half of the book then where Sandel truly shines as an author in being able to synthesize his arguments to clarify his goals and his wishes for redirection moving forward. I wish the earlier parts of the book had left some space for this analysis, where I feel Sandel works his best and lives in more in his other works (think What Money Can't Buy and the Tyranny of Merit, for example), but I can understand the more formal approach here. I knock half-star off and round down due to this and the fact that occasionally the language felt repetitive in its statement of ideas and summarizing.
What I love most about reading Sandel's works is the way in which they touch upon all of the institutions we interact with in our lives - local communities, schools and universities, markets, careers, politics, and each other -- and so as I read through any of his books I instantly see connections to the world around me; it often feels as if my brain is being changed and broadened to understand the connectivities of society that liberalism may so often ignore.
While the implications are diverse and worth discussing, I'll leave off with a paragraph that really struck me as I read, in which Sandel critiques the perspective of the "cosmopolitan citizen" that values "humanity" yet loses sight of the value and importance of those closest to him: "It is difficult to imagine a world in which persons were so virtuous that they had no friends, only a universal disposition to friendliness. The problem is not simply such a world would be difficult to bring about but that it would be difficult to recognize as a human world. The love of humanity is a noble sentiment, but most of the time we live our lives by smaller solidarities. This may reflect certain limits to the bounds of moral sympathy. More important, it reflects the fact that we learn to love humanity not in general but through its particular expressions."
What I love most about reading Sandel's works is the way in which they touch upon all of the institutions we interact with in our lives - local communities, schools and universities, markets, careers, politics, and each other -- and so as I read through any of his books I instantly see connections to the world around me; it often feels as if my brain is being changed and broadened to understand the connectivities of society that liberalism may so often ignore.
While the implications are diverse and worth discussing, I'll leave off with a paragraph that really struck me as I read, in which Sandel critiques the perspective of the "cosmopolitan citizen" that values "humanity" yet loses sight of the value and importance of those closest to him: "It is difficult to imagine a world in which persons were so virtuous that they had no friends, only a universal disposition to friendliness. The problem is not simply such a world would be difficult to bring about but that it would be difficult to recognize as a human world. The love of humanity is a noble sentiment, but most of the time we live our lives by smaller solidarities. This may reflect certain limits to the bounds of moral sympathy. More important, it reflects the fact that we learn to love humanity not in general but through its particular expressions."
September 4, 2024
An excellent analysis of American politics in its relation to the economic forces that have been driving the US since its founding.
Sandel establishes a key distinction between liberal and republican conceptions of freedom (and the good life). The republican conception maintains that for effective self-government, citizens must possess certain virtues and freedom entails a sort of dignity whereby citizens have a stake in the governance of their local communities (civic conception of freedom). On the other hand, the liberal conception believes that democracy can function insofar as the citizens have a freedom of choice (voluntarist conception of freedom).
With these two ideological lenses, we see how the American political economy of citizenship has debated various policy and legislative decisions from the Jeffersonian era to the economically-driven late 20th century.
What used to be at the forefront of American politics — debates about how wage labour, monopolies and workers’ rights were influenced by both civic and voluntarist conceptions of freedom — has now given way to a neoliberal acceptance of the free market. Post-WW2 America has silently adopted the voluntarist conception of freedom, relying on the perfection of the free market to satisfy producers and consumers to the best degree without perceivable dissent in order to set the stage for modern American political debate. Sandel argues that both the Democrats and Republicans now agree that the market economy is an unstoppable force that can only be negotiated with using its very language of consumerist freedom.
However, a more illuminating path would perhaps be to bring back the republican conception of freedom — one that necessitates debate about the good life and what a good citizen ought to be. This way, we can counter the growing alienation and disempowerment of the average American citizen of today’s world, a world that claims to spoil all consumers with infinitely many choices but actually only serves to enslave us to the capitalist system, operating our ‘freedom’ according to the confinement it provides.
Sandel establishes a key distinction between liberal and republican conceptions of freedom (and the good life). The republican conception maintains that for effective self-government, citizens must possess certain virtues and freedom entails a sort of dignity whereby citizens have a stake in the governance of their local communities (civic conception of freedom). On the other hand, the liberal conception believes that democracy can function insofar as the citizens have a freedom of choice (voluntarist conception of freedom).
With these two ideological lenses, we see how the American political economy of citizenship has debated various policy and legislative decisions from the Jeffersonian era to the economically-driven late 20th century.
What used to be at the forefront of American politics — debates about how wage labour, monopolies and workers’ rights were influenced by both civic and voluntarist conceptions of freedom — has now given way to a neoliberal acceptance of the free market. Post-WW2 America has silently adopted the voluntarist conception of freedom, relying on the perfection of the free market to satisfy producers and consumers to the best degree without perceivable dissent in order to set the stage for modern American political debate. Sandel argues that both the Democrats and Republicans now agree that the market economy is an unstoppable force that can only be negotiated with using its very language of consumerist freedom.
However, a more illuminating path would perhaps be to bring back the republican conception of freedom — one that necessitates debate about the good life and what a good citizen ought to be. This way, we can counter the growing alienation and disempowerment of the average American citizen of today’s world, a world that claims to spoil all consumers with infinitely many choices but actually only serves to enslave us to the capitalist system, operating our ‘freedom’ according to the confinement it provides.
November 14, 2020
依我看来，桑德尔在此书中所提出的共和主义的公共哲学，与其说是一项旨在取代康德式的程序自由主义的雄心勃勃的计划，不如说是对一种日趋式微且处于康德式自由主义话语之外的传统的重申。他批评程序自由主义放弃了对道德和价值的追问，导致了一种苍白贫乏的公民生活，因此缺乏一种维持我们自治所必需的公共精神和公民资源——这是“自治的丧失”；在这个资本主义的全球化趋势正日益形成一个无比庞大的经济体系的时代中，程序自由主义描绘出一种“无负荷的自我”形象，切断了人与人之间认同和归属的纽带，加剧了我们在面对这些巨大的非人格力量时的无力感——这是“共同体的侵蚀”。重申共和主义的传统即出于在以上两方面对程序自由主义的反思。
在这些犀利透彻的批评之外，桑德尔并没有在正文里对共和主义的公共哲学作出全面而具体的构建。这或许基于以下两种原因：首先，在当代世界中，庞大的经济规模、复杂的社会构成和飞速变迁的生活节奏使得共和主义所必需的共同体塑造变得极其困难，能否获得成功以及如何获得成功都尚无定论。其次，共和主义政治是“一种没有担保书的政治”，在实践过程中很难消除那些潜在却巨大的现实风险，正是这一点让绝大多数自由主义者望而却步。康德式的程序自由主义的确为捍卫个人的基本权利不受侵犯付出了重大代价——它间接催生了道德和价值的相对主义及作为其必然后果的道德冷漠和价值冷漠。因此，共和主义意在超越程序自由主义的中立性框架，将道德讨论和价值讨论重新引入到公共生活中来。但随着“权利优先于善”这一前提的消失，共和主义在为公共生活提供了更大的上升空间的同时，也暗含了一种被原教旨主义者、狭隘的地方主义和封闭的共同体成员所滥用的危险——在那里，排他性和强制性将取代宽容的精神，那些为人普遍珍视的权利也会受到侵犯。这样，共和主义的面貌难免就显得有些忽明忽暗了。
但在批评者的追问下，桑德尔不得不在附录里作出一些更明确的答复。桑德尔在正文里区分了两种共和主义的版本：一种是温和的版本，它将公民参与看作是自由的一种工具性价值——即将公民参与视作为实现自我选择的一种手段和途径；另一种是强势的版本，它将公民参与看作是自由的一种内在的或者说是本质性的价值——亦即是一种实现人类繁荣不可或缺的要素。事实上，温和的共和主义与现有的程序自由主义的中立框架之间并无根本性的冲突，共和主义的诉求在这一框架内拥有足够的发展空间，即便它们得不到来自框架本身任何的支持。而桑德尔在追问下所倾向于选择的强势版本的共和主义，其源头直追溯至亚里士多德，这一古老而相对陌生的观念在获得大多数人的认同上，显然存在着更大的难度。更重要的是，强势的共和主义将不可避免地破坏程序自由主义的现有框架，虽然它许诺了一幅更美好的生活远景，但我们会因此立刻丧失一种最低程度的权利保障。所以，当温和的共和主义试图为程序自由主义提供了一份修补和完善的可能性时，强势的共和主义更像是一种冒进的赌博。而桑德尔在追问下为强势的共和主义辩护的理由是：“这种（温和的共和主义）思想不可能是稳定而可靠的。除非公民有理由相信共享自治在本质上就是重要的，否则他们牺牲个人利益以维护共同善的意愿就可能受到对政治参与的成本和收益计算的侵蚀。”但桑德尔所忽视的是，比起维护公共善，维护私利恰恰才是一种更稳定和可靠的政治动机。开明而理性的公民能够以一种整体且长期的考量来计算私利的得失，并由此成为温和版本共和主义的支持者和积极的行动者，这样一种设想是完全可能的。虽说这一兼容程序自由主义框架的共和主义设想无疑也具有浓厚的理想主义色彩，因为它对公民智慧提出了极高的要求。但问题在于，既然桑德尔自己也承认，在现实条件下共和主义的公共哲学——无论是哪种版本——本身就是“一种我们不愿意放弃的理想”，那么我们又为何不选择那种有着较小破坏和较小风险的温和版本呢？
在这些犀利透彻的批评之外，桑德尔并没有在正文里对共和主义的公共哲学作出全面而具体的构建。这或许基于以下两种原因：首先，在当代世界中，庞大的经济规模、复杂的社会构成和飞速变迁的生活节奏使得共和主义所必需的共同体塑造变得极其困难，能否获得成功以及如何获得成功都尚无定论。其次，共和主义政治是“一种没有担保书的政治”，在实践过程中很难消除那些潜在却巨大的现实风险，正是这一点让绝大多数自由主义者望而却步。康德式的程序自由主义的确为捍卫个人的基本权利不受侵犯付出了重大代价——它间接催生了道德和价值的相对主义及作为其必然后果的道德冷漠和价值冷漠。因此，共和主义意在超越程序自由主义的中立性框架，将道德讨论和价值讨论重新引入到公共生活中来。但随着“权利优先于善”这一前提的消失，共和主义在为公共生活提供了更大的上升空间的同时，也暗含了一种被原教旨主义者、狭隘的地方主义和封闭的共同体成员所滥用的危险——在那里，排他性和强制性将取代宽容的精神，那些为人普遍珍视的权利也会受到侵犯。这样，共和主义的面貌难免就显得有些忽明忽暗了。
但在批评者的追问下，桑德尔不得不在附录里作出一些更明确的答复。桑德尔在正文里区分了两种共和主义的版本：一种是温和的版本，它将公民参与看作是自由的一种工具性价值——即将公民参与视作为实现自我选择的一种手段和途径；另一种是强势的版本，它将公民参与看作是自由的一种内在的或者说是本质性的价值——亦即是一种实现人类繁荣不可或缺的要素。事实上，温和的共和主义与现有的程序自由主义的中立框架之间并无根本性的冲突，共和主义的诉求在这一框架内拥有足够的发展空间，即便它们得不到来自框架本身任何的支持。而桑德尔在追问下所倾向于选择的强势版本的共和主义，其源头直追溯至亚里士多德，这一古老而相对陌生的观念在获得大多数人的认同上，显然存在着更大的难度。更重要的是，强势的共和主义将不可避免地破坏程序自由主义的现有框架，虽然它许诺了一幅更美好的生活远景，但我们会因此立刻丧失一种最低程度的权利保障。所以，当温和的共和主义试图为程序自由主义提供了一份修补和完善的可能性时，强势的共和主义更像是一种冒进的赌博。而桑德尔在追问下为强势的共和主义辩护的理由是：“这种（温和的共和主义）思想不可能是稳定而可靠的。除非公民有理由相信共享自治在本质上就是重要的，否则他们牺牲个人利益以维护共同善的意愿就可能受到对政治参与的成本和收益计算的侵蚀。”但桑德尔所忽视的是，比起维护公共善，维护私利恰恰才是一种更稳定和可靠的政治动机。开明而理性的公民能够以一种整体且长期的考量来计算私利的得失，并由此成为温和版本共和主义的支持者和积极的行动者，这样一种设想是完全可能的。虽说这一兼容程序自由主义框架的共和主义设想无疑也具有浓厚的理想主义色彩，因为它对公民智慧提出了极高的要求。但问题在于，既然桑德尔自己也承认，在现实条件下共和主义的公共哲学——无论是哪种版本——本身就是“一种我们不愿意放弃的理想”，那么我们又为何不选择那种有着较小破坏和较小风险的温和版本呢？
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 8, 2023
La polarización, la intolerancia y la insatisfacción con la democracia que se viven en estos tiempos le han servido a Michael Sandel para presentar una reedición de su ya clásico "El descontento democrático", en el que analizaba las fronteras entre liberalismo y comunitarismo, abordando una discusión que está presente en los EEUU desde el momento mismo de su fundación.
En el texto original, Sandel analiza estas dos visiones de la democracia y el papel que el capital puede desempeñar en ella. Sin embargo, si bien es crítico del liberalismo económico, no se aleja demasiado del liberalismo político, aunque el sentido de libertad y de justicia de esta ideología política es ampliamente revisado y contrastado.
En esta versión actualizada, Sandel explora en el último capítulo los desafíos políticos y éticos que han surgido en los Estados Unidos en los últimos años desde el aparecimiento del neoliberalismo, abordando también las acaloradas guerras culturales que hoy por hoy predominan el debate público.
Si bien no es un libro fácil de leer, su lectura es muy útil o así me lo ha parecido a mí, para entender la idiosincrasia estadounidense, su forma de ver la política y las maneras que tiene para enfrentar las distintas consecuencias para la democracia de tal o cual camino tomado. Lo que más me ha gustado es el recuento de los profundos debates teóricos entre los padres fundadores de ese país a fin de optar por tal o cual modelo político y económico, lo que, evidentemente, impregna toda su historia. Sin embargo, por un lado, no comparto algunas de sus conclusiones y, por otro, en ciertos pasajes es un libro que se vuelve algo farragoso y pesado.
En el texto original, Sandel analiza estas dos visiones de la democracia y el papel que el capital puede desempeñar en ella. Sin embargo, si bien es crítico del liberalismo económico, no se aleja demasiado del liberalismo político, aunque el sentido de libertad y de justicia de esta ideología política es ampliamente revisado y contrastado.
En esta versión actualizada, Sandel explora en el último capítulo los desafíos políticos y éticos que han surgido en los Estados Unidos en los últimos años desde el aparecimiento del neoliberalismo, abordando también las acaloradas guerras culturales que hoy por hoy predominan el debate público.
Si bien no es un libro fácil de leer, su lectura es muy útil o así me lo ha parecido a mí, para entender la idiosincrasia estadounidense, su forma de ver la política y las maneras que tiene para enfrentar las distintas consecuencias para la democracia de tal o cual camino tomado. Lo que más me ha gustado es el recuento de los profundos debates teóricos entre los padres fundadores de ese país a fin de optar por tal o cual modelo político y económico, lo que, evidentemente, impregna toda su historia. Sin embargo, por un lado, no comparto algunas de sus conclusiones y, por otro, en ciertos pasajes es un libro que se vuelve algo farragoso y pesado.
November 27, 2024
Excellent broad look at the history of political economy in the United States
Sandel explains the divergent political and economic trends in our country and how they are reflected in the civic and voluntary understanding of approaches to self government. The well thought out examination helps to explain how and why the United States is struggling to find a way to preserve democracy founded on republican principles of having a real voice in public affairs and an influence in the policy decisions that effect each of us. He offers a few suggestions on how one might restore civic engagement by becoming more involved in local politics and in community organizations that offer not only opportunities to help solve local problems that can provide examples to others but also as a way for individuals to develop attitudes of civic responsibility that can promote trust and self worth.
Sandel explains the divergent political and economic trends in our country and how they are reflected in the civic and voluntary understanding of approaches to self government. The well thought out examination helps to explain how and why the United States is struggling to find a way to preserve democracy founded on republican principles of having a real voice in public affairs and an influence in the policy decisions that effect each of us. He offers a few suggestions on how one might restore civic engagement by becoming more involved in local politics and in community organizations that offer not only opportunities to help solve local problems that can provide examples to others but also as a way for individuals to develop attitudes of civic responsibility that can promote trust and self worth.
September 4, 2025
Sandel gives a remarkable analysis of what led to the presidency of Donald Trump, tracing two strands of political economy that go back to the age of Hamilton and Jefferson. One side sees government's role as creating and spreading economic prosperity. The other sees a need to create citizens who are capable of self government. After the Great Depression the first role dominated and ten morphed into the idea that government's role was to grant individual autonomy with no sense that some paths are better than others (especially in th4e sense of estab;iosjh9omg a strong society.}
When economic inequality began to arise after 1970 a large number of working people(who under FDR had been strong Democrats) shifted right as they felt left out of the prosperity and they are the ones Trump appealed to. He details how they were let down by Clinton nd Obama and points to ways the left might regain touch with working people.
When economic inequality began to arise after 1970 a large number of working people(who under FDR had been strong Democrats) shifted right as they felt left out of the prosperity and they are the ones Trump appealed to. He details how they were let down by Clinton nd Obama and points to ways the left might regain touch with working people.
August 22, 2021
He makes an interesting, albeit not entirely convincing, case for a revival of American communitarianism.
His point about the political frustration, disempowerment, and alienation springing from morally neutral, voluntarist liberalism is well taken. I am also attracted to his vision of citizenship which demands a responsibility for active self-government and an obligation to the common good. As he argues in the book, this blueprint of community organizing has been effective historically for brining about important change.
However, insofar as his approach would decentralize the taxing, spending and redistributive authority of the federal government, I am strongly opposed. I see no alternative to throttling corporate despotism than a formidable national government.
His point about the political frustration, disempowerment, and alienation springing from morally neutral, voluntarist liberalism is well taken. I am also attracted to his vision of citizenship which demands a responsibility for active self-government and an obligation to the common good. As he argues in the book, this blueprint of community organizing has been effective historically for brining about important change.
However, insofar as his approach would decentralize the taxing, spending and redistributive authority of the federal government, I am strongly opposed. I see no alternative to throttling corporate despotism than a formidable national government.
March 14, 2024
Más que un libro que estrictamente de filosofía, es una historia de las ideas economicas restringido a los EEUU, pero bastante interesante, hasta llegar a nuestros días, donde quedan reflejadas ideas que ya estaban en libros anteriores del autor. Naturalmente al ser un libro que trata básicamente de economía, no quedan reflejadas las tan manidas como manipuladas "guerras culturales" tan de nuestro tiempo, siendo estas una consecuencia del devenir económico y no al revés.
July 23, 2025
3.5 Recomiéndame libros de historia y economía estadounidense🦄
BIBLIOTERAPIA
Disciplina, disciplina, disciplina, no fue un audiolibro fácil de seguir 🩷
HÁBITO LECTOR
Libro 91 del 2025 🤓
COMPRENSIÓN LECTORA
Complejo // +18 🧠 Ideal si quieres aprender que hay detrás de la gran potencial mundial👌🏼
WEIRD FACT
Pensé que era de política pero me encontré con la historia evolutiva de la economía americana 👽
NICO SOTO
@LectorNicolas
BIBLIOTERAPIA
Disciplina, disciplina, disciplina, no fue un audiolibro fácil de seguir 🩷
HÁBITO LECTOR
Libro 91 del 2025 🤓
COMPRENSIÓN LECTORA
Complejo // +18 🧠 Ideal si quieres aprender que hay detrás de la gran potencial mundial👌🏼
WEIRD FACT
Pensé que era de política pero me encontré con la historia evolutiva de la economía americana 👽
NICO SOTO
@LectorNicolas
June 30, 2018
This book is still relevant to American politics 20 years after its publication. Maybe we should have listened to him.
December 10, 2021
You talk about a very sensitive topic in a good way
August 24, 2023
Interesting, but WAY too long. The main ideas could have been introduced and supported in a much more succinct manner.
October 18, 2023
A really good read and an interesting take on how American politics got to be in the mess it’s in. No real solutions of course. Time to buy a fiddle.
January 5, 2024
Klug und Interessant, auch die letzten Kapitel zur Situation mit Trump ergeben neue Ansätze
January 31, 2025
Self government , no oligarchy and yet... here we are!!
February 26, 2025
Análisis pq crece la ultraderecha, Trump, Brexit. Tecnocracia
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