The novice picture of politics is a children’s book: voters choose leaders, leaders choose policies, policies shape society. It flatters the citizen as sovereign, the politician as statesman, and the debate moderator as priest of Reason. It also inverts the causal arrow. Politics is downstream. Downstream of what? Not “the people,” not “the issues,” not…
Tag: Legitimacy
The Revolution Nobody Requested
People argue about communism as if it were mainly an economic doctrine. This is like arguing about a computer virus as if it were mainly a disagreement about typography. In practice it is more useful to treat communism as a method of governance. The doctrine is the justification layer, a marketing wrapper that promises moral…