Abstract
It has been my argument in this book that the seemingly intractable struggle in the political and economic sphere today is at least partly, and perhaps fundamentally, a struggle between opposing views of human being: the “as if ” atomistic individualism of right-wing libertarians and the “as if ” relationalism of reform liberals. I have also argued that neither position aligns fully with core Christian teaching about human being—the teaching, implied in Scripture but often distorted in subsequent theological tradition, that human being is characterized by a dialectical tension between person and relations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944).
Saul Newman, “Anarchism, Poststructuralism and the Future of Radical Politics,” SubStance 36, no. 2 (2007): 7.
See Alain Badiou, “The Democratic Emblem,” in Giorgio Agamben et al., Democracy in What State? trans. William McCuiag (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 6–15.
Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, ed. and trans. Steven Corcoran (New York: Continuum, 2010), 59.
Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. Julie Rose (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 102.
“Democracy is not a type of constitution, nor a form of society. The power of the people is not that of a people gathered together, of the majority, or of the working class. It is simply the power peculiar to those who have no more entitlements to govern than to submit.” Jacques Rancière, Hatred of Democracy, trans. Steve Corcoran (New York: Verso, 2006), 46–47.
He says as much in a French-language interview, where he admits that his term post-democracy,” meaning the institutional form that consensus takes, “was for [him] a polemical concept denouncing the equation of democracy with consensus.” Jacques Rancière and François Noudelmann, “La communauté comme dissentiment,” Rue Descartes 42 (November 2003): 98. Translation mine.
Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (New York: Verso, 2000), 104.
Lee Harris, “The Tea Party vs. the Intellectuals,” Policy Review 161 (June–July 2010): 14.
Takis Fotopoulos, “Beyond Statism and the Market Economy: A New Conception of Democracy,” Democracy & Nature: The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy 3, no. 2 (1995), http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/dn/vol3/fotopoulos_beyond.htm.
Takis Fotopoulos, Towards an Inclusive Democracy (New York: Cassell, 1997), x.
Fotopoulos, “Liberal and Socialist ‘Democracies’ versus Inclusive Democracy,” International Journal of Inclusive Democracy 2, no. 2 (January 2006): 14.
David Schweickart, “Economic Democracy: A Worthy Socialism That Would Really Work,” Science and Society 56, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 19.
Robert B. Reich, Tales of a New America (New York: Vintage, 1998), 123–26.
George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 179.
William E. Hudson, The Libertarian Illusion: Ideology, Public Policy, and the Assault on the Common Good (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008), 13.
See Mike Dash, Tulipomania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused (New York: Crown, 1999).
See Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, “How Progressive Is the U.S. Federal Tax System? A Historical and International Perspective,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, no. 1 (Winter 2007): 22. On tax rates by income, the Congressional Budget Office reports that in 2007, the bottom quintile of households paid an average of 4 percent of their income in federal taxes while the top quintile paid an average of 25.1 percent and the top one percent paid an average of 29.5 percent. Congressional Budget Office, “Average Federal Tax Rates in 2007,” June 2010, p. 1, http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/AverageFedTaxRates2007.pdf. On effective tax rates, see “Warren Buffett Says the Super-Rich Pay Lower Taxes than Others,” PolitiFact.com, August 18, 2011, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/18/warren-buffett/warren-buffett-says-super-rich-pay-lower-taxes-oth.
Robert H. Frank, “The Problem with Flat-Tax Fever,” New York Times, November 5, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/business/flat-tax-doesnt-solve-inequality-problem.html.
Alan Richardson and John Bowden, ed., The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983), s.v. “Prophecy,” 473.
David R. Brockman, No Longer the Same: Religious Others and the Liberation of Christian Theology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Copyright information
© 2013 David R. Brockman
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brockman, D.R. (2013). Getting Past the Impasse. In: Dialectical Democracy through Christian Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342539_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342539_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46729-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-34253-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)