Two Cheers for Politics

May 16, 2022
Columbia Law School professor Purdy debuts with an unflinching yet hopeful study of democracy’s origins, shortcomings, and enduring importance. Rising economic inequality, unchecked climate change, political polarization, and other contemporary crises “are not evidence that democracy is failing,” Purdy argues, “but symptoms of our failure to be democratic.” Pushing back against “political nihilism” on both the right and the left, he contends that democracy is the only political system that “makes real” the belief that “people are equal and free and can shape our lives accordingly” and traces the development of democratic ideals and institutions from Aristotle to Thomas Hobbes to James Madison to 20th-century political theorist Robert Dahl, who argued that “American politics was founded on a deep consensus about the goodness of the country’s political and economic institutions.” Throughout, Purdy bolsters his counterintuitive claims—including that the Constitution, which is “exceedingly difficult” to amend, may be inimical to democracy—with erudite analysis of the law, philosophy, economics, and popular culture. Unfortunately, the path to his proposed solutions, including a single primary system in which the top two vote getters, regardless of party affiliation, proceed to the general election, remains unclear. Still, this stimulating defense of democracy provides much food for thought.

June 1, 2022
A nuanced prescription for a politics remade in the wake of the Trump era. "Our lives depend on the choices we make and those we are unable to make," writes Columbia Law School professor Purdy, who opens with a thought experiment that imagines four textbooks published in 2050. One tells the story of a triumphant authoritarianism, another of political fragmentation, yet another the surrender of functions of civic life to a technocracy. "These three futures are already with us," he notes, while the fourth and most desirable has yet to take shape: a movement of citizens who took charge of their own lives and made a history that addressed flaws in government, economic inequality, the climate change crisis, and other existential issues. Even though many of us claim that we are sick of politics, we all make demands of it: the left for reforms in policing and a stronger commitment to civil rights, for instance, and the right for nationalist trade policies and an end to immigration. A healthy body politic, writes the author, will recognize the plural, diverse nature of American society and the fact that "majority rule is not a license for the majority to do whatever it wants with everyone else." He goes on to examine various theories of democracy and its discontents, from Alexis de Tocqueville to Samuel Huntington, the conservative theorist whose "clash of civilizations" thesis was predated by his view that democracies in action often undermine the premises of democracy itself, proven by a "minority-rule president who led a minority-rule party"--i.e., Donald Trump and the GOP. Purdy argues convincingly that reforms must address issues such as economic and social inequality, predatory capitalism, and "systems of relentless, hierarchical pressure." The alternative is to lose democracy, he warns, which is to surrender any decision-making authority over our own lives. A thoughtful consideration of issues in sore need of solution by democratic means.

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July 1, 2022
Purdy opens his latest book by imagining four possible political/cultural scenarios in the year 2050. By then, the 2020s might be viewed as a period when America was at a crossroads, even a breaking point, with contrasting forces competing for dominance. Will strongmen take over, leading to extreme divisions and nationalist factions? Will citizens turn to scientist-leaders to combat threats of climate change? With positive reforms increasingly out of reach, collapse is a chilling third possibility. The fourth scenario is one in which democratic citizens "overcame their impasses and addressed their crises." The truth is, each of these possible futures is germinating today and although judicial, legislative, and executive powers are unpredictable and at times frightening, Purdy outlines why democracy is our best hope. An accomplished legal scholar and law professor, Purdy explores conditions that both reinforce and threaten democracy and with clarity and insight reviews the U.S. Constitution, capitalism, concepts of sovereignty, the electoral system, and fixes needed to avoid a downfall of our democracy and a consequently dark and oppressive future.

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