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As we note in the preamble to this site, we regard everything that concerns politics in the perspective of the political philosophy known as Progressivism. That choice isn't accidental; it is, rather, driven by the logic of the even more fundamental philosophy known as Humanism.
All Humanists are committed to rationalism, which is just to say that they are committed to grounding their beliefs primarily in reason and evidence. They also regard politics as an elaboration and formalization of ethics. They believe in genuine democracy, which is as much as to say that they believe that the only legitimate society is the just society, and that there must therefore truly be liberty and justice for all—not merely for a handful of CEOs and other wealthy businessmen. Humanists believe that economic systems exist solely to serve the common good, and that whenever economic insititutions fail to serve the common good they must be abolished and replaced with legitimate institutions. Finally, they believe that justice trumps individual liberty. As the old saw goes, except where some wrong has been done, my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.
We maintain that Progressivism, and Progressivism alone, is consistent with all of these beliefs. We maintain, in particular, that only Progressivism is both rationally consistent and genuinely just. Libertarians go wrong in allowing personal liberty to trump justice, and in ignoring the profound lessons history has to teach us about the gross injustices of laissez-faire economics. Plutocracy, our contemporary aristocracy of wealth, goes wrong in allowing economic privilege to trump economic justice, national sovereignty, and democratic self-governance. Communists go wrong by subsitituting authoritarian rule by the state for authoritarian rule by the aristocracy. Many conservatives go wrong by imagining that we can have weak government and powerful corporations without inevitably destroying democracy.
In short, the pendulum of history has been swinging for some time now, and all of the pins have been knocked to the ground — all of them, except Progressivism.
The books reviewed below aren't offered haphazardly. Our general format here and in most other field guides is this: we begin with books that state as clearly and accurately as possible the way things ought to be. Next, we offer books that offer a diagnosis of the way things actually are; and finally, we end with books that offer a prescription for how we might get to where we ought to be from where we presently find ourselves. It's also not an accident that we begin here with books. As much as we might wish otherwise, the contemporary world isn't easily understood, and there have been few periods in American history when so much misinformation and so much disinformation has been disseminated. A few minutes of nightly news doesn't serve to provide the depth of perspective that citizenship demands. Good citizens are reading citizens.
The
Common Sense of Politics
by Mortimer Adler
Progressivism is in the enviable position of having been developed and defended by some of the ablest minds of the 20th century. Unfortunately, however, even most Progressives haven't read the foremost Humanistic and Progressive writers. Among these we would have to include Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, author, editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica for many years, and one of the wisest and most well-read human beings who has ever lived.
Adler's exceptionally clear and forceful statement of the ideological basis of Progressivism can be found in his book "The Common Sense of Politics."
The great virtue of this book is the manner in which Adler systematically goes about the business of developing politics from its proper foundation in ethics, making explicit the connections among values, economics, and democracy. Works of this nature are almost non-existent today, and yet the need has never been greater. When we regard politics as nothing but a popularity contest, or a random assortment of hot-button issues, we lose all sense of what it is that a society is supposed to do for its citizens, and of what it is that its citizens are supposed to do for society, in each case as a matter of moral obligation. Adler:
"In The Time of Our Lives, I commented on the decline of moral philosophy in the twentieth century . . . . When we turn from ethics to politics, we find that the decay of moral philosophy has gone even further."
And:
"The word 'ethics' in everyday discourse usually connotes the consideration of what is good and bad, or right and wrong, for the individual in the conduct of his life. The word 'politics' is rarely used in a parallel fashion to connote the consideration of what is good and bad, or right and wrong, in the institutions of society. On the contrary, it is for the most part used in a variety of other senses."
Apart from developing politics from its foundation in ethics, Adler also goes about systematically clarifying other concepts that lie at the very foundation of politics. He asks, for example, what we mean by the state, and addresses the issue of the justification for the authority of the state. He clarifies the relationship of individual freedom to that authority. The role of economics and its relationship to politics is also discussed in enlightening fashion. Then, with this foundation in place, he goes on to discuss a host of other issues, ranging from the problems of overpopulation and environmental destruction, to the question of the meaning of economic justice.
Finally, and on a par with these issues, Adler points up the fact that all democracies require a well-educated citizenry, and that democratic education must be of a very specific nature: it must provide not only a collection of skills for the purpose of securing employment, though that is certainly essential, but also a sufficiently broad understanding of the world, of history, and of human nature, to make wise political decisions. An education of that nature is a large part (though not the entirety) of what is meant by a liberal education. Adler:
"Antecedent [to the restoration of politics] is the restoration of our faith in politics; and that . . . is dependent both on the restoration of liberal education and the revival of philosophy." Adler quotes Robert Hutchins in agreement when Hutchins says that "the decay of political philosophy means that politics is nothing but the exercise of power." But this is an inversion and corruption of the very aim of politics, namely, to secure the conditions of the best possible life for all of the citizens of a society.
The reader who wants further elaboration of Adler's position will find it in the wealth of other books that he has authored. In all, this is probably the most comprehensive, thorough, and well-justified argument for Progressivism that has been advanced to date.
Who
Rules America?
by G. William Domhoff
Domhoff is a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He studies power; specifically, political power in the United States. His book Who Rules America? is a mandatory read for anyone who wants to understand who really has power in the US, and how that power is actually exercised. Be forewarned that you will never be able to look at the US in the same light after reading this.
Some representative quotations: Who Rules America?
When
Corporations Rule the World
by David C. Korten
Globalization is the most important social, political, and economic trend at work in the world today, and Korten's book is perhaps the most important book dealing with that trend.
The corporate media have created the widespread impression that opponents of globalization are a lot of wild-eyed, stone-throwing radicals. That's not the case. Korten is a Vietnam War vet, holds an MBA in international business and a PhD from Stanford, and taught at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business for five years. He also worked for the Ford Foundation in Southeast Asia for a number of years, and was a senior advisor on development management for the U. S. Agency for International Development (the U.S. foreign aid program).
What he has to say about globalization, the world economic system, and the political influence of transnational corporations is, to put it mildly, dismaying. For a corrective to the endless cheerleading of the corporate media and the business community, Korten is indispensable. For a link to the People-Centered Development Forum, to which all the proceeds of Korten's book go, follow this link.
Some representative quotations:When Corporations Rule the World
The Common
Good
by Noam Chomsky
"People don't like the system. . . . 95% of Americans think corporations should lower their profits to benefit their workers and the communities they do business in, 70% think businesses have too much power, and more than 80% think that people don't have enough say in what goes on, that the economic system is inherently unfair, and that the government basically isn't functioning, because it's working for the rich."
Chomsky is always incendiary. The Common Good makes it clear why he isn't quoted on the 6:00 news. Here's an extremely easy to read and easy to understand introduction to his thought on subjects such as corporate welfare, globalization, postmodernism, and political activism.
While we occasionally disagree with Chomsky, it's always worth hearing what he has to say.
Some representative quotations: The Common Good
Democracy
for the Few
by Michael Parenti
Possibly the single most infuriating book I've ever read, Parenti's Democracy for the Few is a searing indictment of the American plutocracy (rule by a wealthy elite in the interests of that wealthy elite). Like Who Rules America?, it's a book that will irreversibly transform your view of American society.
Coming up in the near future: reviews of Alternatives to Economic Globalization and The Divine Right of Capital
Koyaanisqatsi (from the Hopi language): 1. Crazy life. 2. Life in turmoil. 3. Life disintegrating. 4. Life out of balance. 5. A state of life that calls for another way of living.
A large number of Americans are profoundly bored by politics. I've never seen an extensive poll of the views of those who don't vote, but I suspect that ignorance, inertia, indifference, cynicism, complacency, and uninformed satisfaction with the status quo would all be well represented. And perhaps there might even be some principled refusal to participate in a system that is not now and never has been sufficiently democratic, whatever the professed principles of America to the contrary may be.
But the fact remains that informed political participation is a civic responsibility that is abandoned only at the risk of a complete atrophying of democracy. In just a little more than two hundred years, Uncle Sam has grown powerful, arrogant, and corrupt on a Roman scale, and he needs authentic patriots desperately. The prevailing circumstances amount to the moral equivalent of war on ordinary people, and on democracy itself, and require a vigorous evaluation and response, not so much from an activist few, as from a better informed, and much more concerned and responsible many.
The most fundamental civic responsibility is, of course, voting, but many other forms of involvement are also possible. For a great resource on corporate reform, see Ralph Nader's Citizen Works site at: http://www.citizenworks.org. There are also valuable resources at: http://www.essential.org
For an important briefing on globalization: http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/jan2000albert.htm
In order to vote responsibly, one must stay well informed. Unfortunately, in the US, and most of the rest of the world too, the mass media are dominated by a handful of conglomerates. All of the media cartels are beholden to the corporate community for advertising revenues, and all of them are owned by individuals who are themselves immensely wealthy, and whose interests are implicitly in conflict with those of the middle class and poor. Moreover, since readership and viewers determine advertising revenues, the media are driven to least-common-denominator stories about sex and violence, typified by such "infotainment" as the O. J. Simpson trial, the Columbine High School tragedy, and the Ramsey murder incidents. This means that while Americans are exposed to staggering amounts of media, the content is thin and sugary, the intellectual equivalent of junk food. Indeed, even to call it "infotainment" is too complimentary: when it isn't distraction from the real issues facing America, when it isn't the dumbing-down of democracy, it is outright corporate propaganda.
PL isn't subject to such commercial distortions here, though as middle-class Americans we do have an implicit conflict of interest ourselves, of the opposite sort. However, this interest is the interest of the majority of Americans, and goes grossly under-represented in the media, so rather than being a danger we suspect it lends a little balance.
Following are sources of news or information that present a perspective seldom or never found in the most pervasive corporate media. If you want to know what's really going on in America, if you want to know the way things really ought to be, you'll have to find out there. We've also included some international sources of news, so that you can check the US perspective from other viewpoints.
Sure, you already know American politics are corrupt. But you probably have no idea just how grossly corrupt; and you probably can't name names, or specify the corporations responsible. Having a browse through the sites linked below may well stagger you, no matter how cynical you already are, and there is other good material to be found there as well. So we suggest that you begin your political journey with a stiff dose of reality.
Open Secrets
The Open Secrets site provides what is probably the best single guide to the sources of political corruption. An indispensable resource.
The Center for Public Integrity
CPI has a more investigatory mission than Open Secrets, and a broader focus. You can do a lot worse than the keep an eye on their site.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx
Common Cause
Common Cause has been carrying the torch for political reform for years now. If you don't like what you see at Open Secrets and CPI, you might consider supporting CC.
As we noted above, US newspapers are mostly owned by a handful of chains, and the majority suffer from all the same problems as cable and broadcast TV. As one might expect, the primary news dialect is corporatespeak.
While its coverage often leaves something to be desired, the British newspaper The Guardian and its website Guardian Unlimited provide a different perspective from the US media:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Also providing a different perspective is The Independent (also British):
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/
A list of international newspapers in English can be found here:
http://www.world-newspapers.com/
The UN rates the nations of the world against a set of criteria that produces results that feel intuitively correct to me. (The annual report in which these results are published is the UN Human Development Report.) Currently the top three rated nations (in order) are Norway, Australia, and Canada. To get the news from Norway in English, follow this link: http://www.norwaypost.no/
News and commentary from Australia is available here: http://www.arena.org.au/
And for news from Canada, see:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/international/
and: http://www.cbc.ca/news/
The HI index (see below), which combines the HDI with a measure of foreign aid given, indicates that Belgium and Sweden are currently the overall international leaders.
Swedish news in English may be found at: http://www.sweden.gov.se/
Belgian news in English may be found here: http://www.world-newspapers.com/belgium.html
Pacifica radio provides daily progressive news coverage and editorial opinion: http://www.pacifica.org/
Radio Sweden International provides another perspective, and has an interesting weekly summary that can be heard on-line: http://www.sr.se/rs/red/ind_eng.html
Populist Jim Hightower has his own web site and a radio talk show broadcast nationally: http://www.jimhightower.com/
Inexpensive shortwave radios can provide you with access to broadcasts in English from around the world. A fascinating guide to international shortwave can be found here:
international shortwave stations
If you can only afford one source of alternative views, I'd recommend that you invest in:
The Progressive Populist, P. O. Box 487, Storm Lake, Iowa 50588. 1 (800) 732-4992. http://www.populist.com. It's $29.95 for a year, or $15.95 to give it a try for six months.
TPP is lively, tolerant of dissent, and provides a soapbox for such All-American heavy-lifters as Jim Hightower, Ralph Nader, and Howard Zinn, as well as a host of lesser luminaries. It's the single best source for editorial insight available, but you won't find a lot of news here.
You can get a little more of that from:
The Nation (a weekly) http://www.thenation.com/ P. O. Box 55149 Boulder, CO 80322-5149 1 (800) 333-8536 24 issues for $15.97
Week after week, The Nation shoulders the responsibility for doing the job that the vastly better funded corporate media lacks the conscience and courage to do, which is to cover the news from a perspective that regards people as more important than corporations. If everyone read it, the US, and the world, would be a different—and better—place.
Multinational Monitor
http://multinationalmonitor.org/
P. O.
Box 19405
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 387-8030
10 issues for $29.95
Increasingly, both domestic and foreign policy simply cannot be understood unless one understands the political and economic agendas of the large, multinational corporation. Such corporations control more wealth than most nations, and have enormous political influence. Their agendas can't be understood unless you read Multinational Monitor (founded by Ralph Nader). Don't watch the news without it.
The progressive web site Common Dreams provides a wealth of editorial perspective: http://www.commondreams.org/
It also provides further links to a vast array of sources of internet news and commentary.
Tom Paine often offers incisive commentary, and has served up one incisive diagnosis of the crises of American society after another, as well as some good solutions. Well worth a look. We especially like this editorial:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6139
And for a particularly good solution to corporate corruption, see this editorial:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6081
The UN has its own news center and radio station. See:
http://www.un.org/News/ (the link is rather slow)
Being well-informed is only half the battle. The other half is doing something about injustice and the degradation of life. Political activism is synergistic, in that doing things that promote the common well-being also advances your own. Moreover, it provides a good role-model to those of us who have children.
The world has gotten into the awful mess that it's in in two ways: first, we've produced too many people — we're already past sustainable, still less desirable levels of population; and second, we've consumed in thoughtless ways. We've invested in, worked for, and purchased from corporations that have systematically blighted the world. It follows that one of the most powerful ways of reforming the world is to consume and invest thoughtfully.
That's what Co-op America Quarterly is all about. (Co-op America, 1612 K Street NW, #600, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 872-5307. New memberships: $20.) This publication provides sustainable living tips, points the way to buying from corporations that are environmentally friendly and committed to social justice, to investing in responsible ways, and to boycotting criminally irresponsible companies (there are lots to choose from). These are all critically important ways of influencing the quality of life, as the American political process is at present utterly corrupt. Web link: http://www.coopamerica.org/
Unfortunately, the bad news doesn't stop there. Today, corruption has gone global, reaching into virtually every corner of the planet, courtesy of powerful transnational corporations. This means that it doesn't pay to keep your nose too close to grindstone of the American scene. There's a whole world out there. New Internationalist aims to keep you appraised of that world, and provides a deeply refreshing international perspective so utterly lacking in corporate junk-news. (New Internationalist, PO Box 1143, Lewiston, NY 14092, (800) 661-8700, magazines@indas.on.ca. Individual subscriptions $35.98.) Web link: http://www.newint.org
See also our section on progressive economics at this link.
I mentioned above that the UN has produced a Human Development Index, which provides a broad measure of human well-being in each country of the world. It's the closest thing we have to a national report card. If we conjoin that measure with foreign aid, which is probably the closest thing we have in the way of a report card for international good will, we arrive at what we might call the "humanistic index", or HI. We believe this provides a good sense of which of the world's nations are the greatest and most successful. Here's how countries measure up on the HI:
1 Norway
2 Sweden
3 Belgium
4 Netherlands
5 Finland
6 Switzerland
7 Luxembourg
8 France
9 UK
10 Denmark
We suggest that the world attempt to obtain more of its news from these countries (see above), and devote greater study to their cultures. We also suggest that all discussions concerning the nature of ideal political systems be viewed in light of those existing systems which have actually demonstrated the greatest success to date, namely, these countries. We further suggest that Americans take heed of this measure. Because of its poor showing with regard to foreign aid, the US doesn't show up in the top 10, and that strikes us as being a significant indictment of American society, or, rather, the leadership of American society, likely due to the fact that it's headed up primarily by businessmen. (For the record, if we strike the the foreign aid measure, the US shows up sixth.)
"The perfect unit of self-government is a familiar environment in which, as Aristotle would say, people can know one another’s character. In villages, townships or communes, autonomy reproduces the advantages of direct democracy, rousing civic patriotism, lifting the individual beyond himself, encouraging habits of cooperation, training the judgement and imparting administrative experience to millions who cannot hope to enter representative assemblies or services at a distance. Local self-government in towns or districts lightens the burden of central legislatures and administrations. In the big states of the modern world, it has the sovereign merit of preventing the individual from being submerged in huge electorates. These tend to inspire a sort of awe, a sense of individual impotence like that which people feel when they contemplate the majestic and eternal forces of the inanimate world. The resulting fatalism of the multitude is best corrected by local self-government."
—Dr. Beni Prasad
It isn't enough to offer criticism of existing political systems, though this is an important first step, since it's difficult to effect a cure if we don't first have a good diagnosis of the disease. What's also needed is a clear sense of what sort of political and economic system would be better than the one we currently have.
Among the most attractive, persuasive, and clearly envisioned alternative polities to date is that offered by political theorist A. Allen Butcher. He has graciously consented to present his ideas here in his brilliant little essay "Democracy and Capitalism: Are They Critical Elements of a Climax Human Culture?" Here Butcher argues for what he calls an "egalitarian commonwealth," which preserves the best features of what we have come to think of as democratic capitalism, but which corrects its various social pathologies, among them the dangerous drift in America toward plutocratic oligarchy (rule by a wealthy few in the interests of a wealthy few).
Mr. Butcher begins by clarifying what is properly meant by democracy and capitalism, and shows that our usual understanding is clouded. He goes on to develop a classification scheme for polities which makes the possible alternatives far easier to grasp than ever before, identifies his "egalitarian commonwealth" as the best of these, explains why it is the best, and concludes with brief discussions of the overall tendencies of political evolution, and ways in which his ideal polity might begin to be implemented.
In all, we think it's among the most important and provocative pieces of political writing we've ever seen, and we're honored to present it here. To read the essay, proceed to this link.
To see his analysis of the main political alternatives, go to this link.
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