Political Man

Political Man, by Seymour Martin Lipset, is one of the best works of political analysis I have read. It is clear, incisive and sophisticated without resorting to methodological techniques that obscure, rather than illuminate the argument. It is brimming with detail, providing the historical, psychological and organizational context that make the work read like a description of flesh and blood citizens engaged in political action, rather than the dry, impersonal, almost clinical analysis of data that characterizes most published journal articles.

Lipset is upfront about his commitment to democracy and the book is a theory of the social bases of democracy. He does not hesitate to make bold generalizations, which he always backs up with carefully documented comparative data, usually presented in a simple tabular, but unmistakably clear, format. Economic development and democracy are correlated and mutually reinforcing is one of the few political science theses that has stood the test of time. Working class people are more likely to have authoritarian attitudes. Fascism is middle class extremism and is different from old-fashioned conservatism. Trade unions tend to be organized as dictatorships, but contribute to the democracy of the social system. It is a true social science classic. A simple replication of its analyses for the Philippines is likely to increase understanding immensely. The brave analyst, however, will be looking in vain for the class bases of political parties in a country were true political parties do not exist.

Faustian Spirit

Faust, like men my age, is impatient and restless. He has mastered all the major branches of knowledge and is not in any state of material want, yet he feels an insatiable thirst, a "boundless striving" for knowledge and power - the Faustian spirit. In a quest for the supreme moment of happiness so beautiful that he will wish for time to stop, he bets his soul with Mephistopheles in exchange for supernatural powers while on earth. The Faustian spirit, however, is ultimately doomed to failure. Indeed, he lives to a hundred years and dies without finding that moment of inner peace, and is, therefore, ultimately saved.

Does Goethe imply that man is condemned never to be happy and to always feel discontented? And is the lack of satisfaction the path to salvation?

In the Faustian spirit, I see what are likely to be the roots of Nietzsche's self-conquering overman. A perfect moment is perhaps an impossible dream, but that is as it should be for that is the end of the will to power; that is the end of the will to life.

Liberal Society in the Age of Experts

We live in a society, Stephen Turner observes in Liberalism 3.0, that is dominated by experts. This, he argues, undermines the idea of liberalism defined as government by discussion because the ordinary citizen cannot understand the expert, let alone presume to debate with him.

While I understand the dangers to political communication raised by Turner, I do not share the same level of concern with the viability of liberalism. The rise of the knowledge society has allowed experts to increase their standing, but the accompanying technological change - the information technology revolution - has also meant that it is that much harder to monopolize expertise. Indeed, in the age of Google, Wikipedia, and the home-made bomb assembled through downloaded instructions, it is much harder to delegate authority completely to the presumed sound judgment of the experts. Moreover, it is usually the case that one can find an expert willing to support one's preferred policy option.

In determining policy, it is more important to have informed judgment based on a combination of experience, intuition, strategic perspective, a sense of history, and sufficient but not exhaustive data rather than narrow expertise on a particular subject.

In the age of experts, we can't just leave it to the experts because it begs the question, "Which expert?"

Handbook of Political Science or How I Got Over Political Science

I read this 800 page work edited by Goodin and Klingemann in three weeks, along with three other books. This is ironic since I never managed to get past chapter 1 during my five and a half years as a political science major.

I came away with the impression that political science is a vast and growing field, but I am not sure at all whether what political scientists do ever matters to the real world. I still think that politics is too important to be left to the politicians, and is, therefore, a subject worthy of close study. However, I now realize that the greatest contribution I can make is not as a scholar crunching numbers and building formal models that no one understands, but as a public intellectual, up to date with the debates in the academe and engaged with the task of translating and articulating them in a language that can be understood by policymakers and the public. Or, in keeping with the ideas of Aristotle, I can lead the polity myself, hoping that my background in political analysis can be of some help.

Finishing this book allows me to put some closure to political science as a phase of my reading life. Henceforth, I will read political science books not with a lingering sense of a project that was left incomplete, but out of a genuine desire to understand a 21st century global society in constant, rapid change.

Politics and Economics of Power

This collection of articles edited by Samuel Bowles examines the power relations that underpin markets and presents analyses of politics from an economic perspective.

It is striking how it has taken so long for economists to realize that the assumptions of neoclassical economics are so far removed from the real world of raw, naked power. Instead of perfect competition, we observe oligopolies and monopolies dominated by rent-seekers who cozy up to, or are even sometimes, elected politicians. So much ink was wasted on stating the obvious.

I was also annoyed by the constant use of formal models for theories that can be explained by one or two sentences. Perhaps I just don't understand them, but rather than illuminate, I see them as exercises in obfuscation. If the point of inquiry is understanding, then models that only a select few can understand, and yield very few testable propositions, do not advance the cause of knowledge at all. It is doubtful, therefore, how economics has helped clarify the nature of power.

Imperialism

Lenin, supreme leader of the Soviet Union, wrote this pamphlet as a revolutionary intellectual. He argues that imperialism, far from being simply territorial conquest, is actually the highest stage of capitalism. Paradoxically, he sees capitalism as decaying from competition into monopoly capitalism as exemplified by the trusts that then dominated industry such as Standard Oil. He also observes that these cartels are usually controlled by very few financial magnates and contends that the impulse to monopoly is what drove the great powers to scramble for colonies beginning in the late 19th century.

Lenin's analysis, like that of Marx, is incisive and makes for interesting reading, not least because of his polemical style. And in the middle of a global financial crisis in 2008, perhaps there are lessons to be drawn about the excesses of finance capital. Yet much of his thesis has simply been dismissed by history: capitalism, though wounded, is alive and well; huge corporations exist, but it is hard to say there is no competition; decolonization brought an end to the era of imperialism; and the Soviet Union has long since ceased to exist.

Beyond Good and Evil

Nietzsche has been vilified for declaring that God is dead. His writings on the overman has been criticized as a precursor to Hitler's attempt to make the Aryan race master of the world.

Reading Nietzsche, however, I strangely find his work positive and empowering. Instead of a Christian morality that preaches acceptance of one's lot as God's will and an outlook that is centered on the afterlife, he reminds man of his innate will to power, the will to life and to growth, the will to master oneself and one's environment. The true philosopher, he argues, creates his own values. If these ideas sound similar to self-help books that tell us to be proactive rather than reactive, that we make our own choices and create our own lives instead of surrendering to circumstances, then perhaps that is the best proof that Nietzsche has triumphed.

A logical consequence of the will to power is the overman, one who is beyond good and evil. This idea is threatening for those reared with Christian and democratic concepts, which exalt equality, perhaps even mediocrity - brotherhood before God, equality before the law. Yet for those who do not settle and are never complacent, those who see no limits to their achievement, it is but a description of what they can become.