Abstract
The conclusion reviews the principal empirical findings of the book and explores their consequences for democracy. It identifies the rise of equality as a value and principle of justice as the underlying cause of the narrowing of self-interest. It in turn is a fundamental, although not exclusive, cause of the cultural and political crisis the United States currently faces.
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Notes
- 1.
Cited in Walter Mears, Associated Press, “How Nixon Will Handle America’s Problems,” University of Michigan Daily, 13 November 1968, p. 3.
- 2.
Watergate.Info, “Nixon’s First Watergate Speech,” 30 April 1973, http://www.watergate.info/nixon/73-04-30watergate-speech.shtml (accessed 22 April 2017).
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Kimberly Amadeo, “U.S. Debt by President: Dollar and Percent,” The Balance, 21 February 2007, https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296 (accesses 7 April 2017).
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Ibid.
- 5.
Peter Baker, “Trump Says He Has ‘Complete Power’ to Pardon,” New York Times, 22 July 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-jeff-sessions.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 (accessed 22 July 2017).
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James Madison, Number 10, “The Same Subject Continued,” in Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison, The Federalist Papers (New York: Modern Library, [1787–1788] n.d.), pp. 53–61.
- 7.
Madison, Federalist Papers, Number 51.
- 8.
Tocqueville, Democracy in America, I.2.9, p. 280.
- 9.
Pew Research Center, “Religious Landscape Study, Belief in God,” 2017, http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/belief-in-god/; Gallup Poll, “Most American Still Believe in God,” 29 June 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/193271/americans-believe-god.aspx (both accessed 17 April 2017).
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Jess Staufenberg, “Majority of Norwegian ‘do not believe in go’ for the first time in country’s history,” Independent, 21 March 2016, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norwegians-believe-in-god-majority-do-not-for-first-time-ever-a6943706.html (accessed 17 April 2017).
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Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Candy Gunther Brown, Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
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Harmon Leon, “Mitt Romney and the True Cult of Mormonism,” Huffington Post, 14 January 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harmon-leon/mitt-romney-and-the-true-_b_1045900.html (accessed 17 April 2017).
- 13.
Richard Ned Lebow, A Cultural Theory of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), ch. 2–3, for an elaboration of this understanding of the psyche and its political consequences.
- 14.
Ibid., I.2.8, pp. 251–258.
- 15.
Ibid., II.3.18, pp. 589–599.
- 16.
Vivian R. Gruder, The Royal Provincial Intendants: A Governing Elite in Eighteenth Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), pp. 168–173, 180–186.
- 17.
Ibid., I.2.2.
- 18.
On the Victorian era, see Henry S. Maine, Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society and its Relation to Modern Laws (New York: Dorset Press, 1896); A. V Dicey, Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion during the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1905).
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- 21.
Max Weber, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics,” in Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs, Weber: Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 130–271; Richard Ned Lebow, ed., Max Weber and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), ch. 2.
- 22.
Plato, Republic, 441d12–442b4, c6–8, 443c9–444a3, 472b7–d2, 580c1–4, 588c7–d5.
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Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005).
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Richard Ned Lebow, Why Nations Fight: The Past and Future of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), chs. 4 and 7 for elaboration and critique.
- 25.
Among the most famous is Harold Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1952). Although Lasswell, unlike many other students of American politics, acknowledges other human motives.
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Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960); Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).
- 27.
Madison, Federalist Papers, Number 10.
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Thilo Sarrazin, Deutschland schafft sich ab: Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen ab (Frankfurt: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2010); David Engels, Le Déclin: La crise de l’Union Européenne et la chute de la république romaine, analogies historiques (Paris: L’Artilleur, 2013); William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy—What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny (New York: Broadway Books, 1997); Breitbart News for a blog.
- 29.
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
- 30.
Leo Strauss, An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays by Leo Strauss (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, [1981] 1989).
- 31.
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, [1979] 1984), pp. xxiii–xxiv; Jean-François Lyotard, “Tomb of the Intellectual,” in Political Writings, trans. Bill Readings and Kevin Paul (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press [1983] 1993), p. 6; Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, [1975] 1979), pp. 200–209.
- 32.
Tocqueville, Democracy in America, II.3.17, pp. 587–588.
- 33.
Letter to Reeve, 22 March 1837, Alexis de Tocqueville, Oeuvres complètes, ed. J-P Mayer 4th ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1951–), VI, no. 8, pp. 37–38.
- 34.
Richard Ned Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 26–34, 284–304, for an elaboration of this theme.
- 35.
Democracy in America, II.2.1, p. 482.
- 36.
Russell Heimlich, “Jesus Christ’s Return to Earth,” Pew Research Center, Fact Tank, 14 July 2010, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/07/14/jesus-christs-return-to-earth/ (accessed 19 April 2017).
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Lebow, R.N. (2018). Self-Interest and Democracy. In: The Politics and Business of Self-Interest from Tocqueville to Trump. International Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68569-4_6
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