America at Risk / Part 4: Dilemmas of Self-Government
EXCERPTS from America at Risk, a new collection of writings by eminent thinkers and writers asked to address the question that must be addressed by the Obama Presidency: What are some of the greatest dangers facing America today and what might be done to meet them?
The End of Savings / p. 217
by Peter Rodriguez
"Rich as we are, particularly relative to world standards, we have put most of our borrowing toward rather uninspired uses--larger homes, second homes, consumption goods that make life easier, all of which are enjoyable creature comforts. Observing our spending patterns, it is hard to argue that our growing indebtedness has served to enhance our nation's financial stability or its long-term productive capacity. Rich as we are, a brighter future still requires steady investments in our technological capabalities, and we continue to provide that through loans readily financed by foreigners...the real risks we face due to our debt dependence seem to carry with them the uncomfortable reminder that we need not have faced them at all."
Rational Control, or Life Without Virtue / p. 238
by Harvey C. Mansfield
"Reason, which is above virtue, makes friends with interest, which is beneath virtue. In itself proud and innocent, reason conceals something innocent-looking and bland but sinister. Modern reason has an agenda and an accomplice, with which it will expose our virtue as incompetent and naive."
The Corruption of Democratic Leadership / p. 249
by Hugh Heclo
"The great danger this chapter discusses is an organized decay that I will call the corruption of democratic leadership. Given the political scandals recurring in the daily news, this phrase immediately invites a very natural misunderstanding. The bribery and similar vices found among political leaders are important and certain worthy of correction, but these do not rise to the level of greatness... In the following account, corruption is to be understood in the sense that would have been familiar to our Founding Fathers...first defined as the principle by which bodies tend to the separation of their parts."
Full Contributor List:
- Traci Burch
- James W. Ceaser
- Robert Faulkner
- Niall Ferguson
- William A. Galston
- Hugh Heclo
- Pierre Manent
- Harvey C. Mansfield
- Peter Rodriguez
- Kay Lehman Schlozman
- Susan Shell
- Peter Skerry
- James Q. Wilson
- Alan Wolfe
Full Excerpts List (click to read):
- Part 1: Wages of Empire
- Part 2: Creeds and Parties
- Part 3: A Divided People?
- Part 4: Dilemmas of Self-Government
Read more about America at Risk HERE.
Other University of Michigan Press Titles Related to this Section of America at Risk:
- ARE WORKER RIGHTS HUMAN RIGHTS? by Richard P. McIntyre
- IMAGINING AMERICA IN 2033: How the Country Put Itself Together After Bush, by Herbert J. Gans (blog entry: "A List of Actual Ideas for a New America")
- INTEGRITY AND AGREEMENT: Economics When Principles Also Matter, by Lanse Minkler
- GOOD MONEY: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, by George Selgin
- DYING INSIDE: The HIV/AIDS Ward at Limestone Prison, by Benjamin Fleury-Steiner
- CAPITOL INVESTMENTS: The Marketability of Political Skills, by Glenn R. Parker
- TO SHAKE THEIR GUNS IN THE TYRANT'S FACE: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement, by Robert H. Churchill, (available March 2009)
EDUCATORS: Request exam copy HERE.
