Why we need a capital budget.
Politics
Posted inEconomic Policy
Liberalism, Socialism, and Democracy
What, if anything, can be usefully salvaged from the socialist tradition, now that communism lies in final disgrace? Paul Starr argued in these pages last fall that four developments — the implosion of communism, the collapse of efforts to reform communism from within, the failure of socialism in the Third World, and the shift of […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Pressure Elite: Inside the Narrow World of Advocacy Group Politics
Today’s advocacy groups are remotely democratic—all too remotely.
Posted inCivil Rights in America
A Lost Political Generation?
Meet the twenty-something generation: socially idealistic, politically cynical, economically worried, and longing for a leader worthy of respect.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Liberal Idea
Textbooks tell us that a great gap separates classical from modern liberalism—James Madison from Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some conservatives say modern liberals betrayed the earlier tradition, and some progressives agree. But the continuities are funda
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Electoral Detox: A Twelve-Step Cure for Donor Dependency
“Hi, I’m Congressman Bob, and I’ve got a problem. I’m hooked on campaign contributions.” That should be the first step.
Posted inBooks
From Crisis to Working Majority
Reports of the death of the Democrats are greatly exaggerated. Three new books, despite their author’s pessimism, suggest how to reconstruct the party’s middle-class foundations.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Liberalism After Socialism
Some have long wanted to blend socialism and liberalism in a “third way”; that idea is now in ruins. But the alternative to a socialist liberalism need not be conservative. There is a liberalism that is serious, realistic, and where necessary even ra
