From Entangled Political Economy to Civil Association: A Difficult Journey

The purpose of this chapter is to outline realistic but also prudent approaches to restoring the primacy of classical liberal principles. Realistic in the sense of acknowledging the self-interested motivations that drive decisions in most domains but prudent insofar as this paper pays attention to the multiplicity of values that balance self-interest, thereby creating obstacles in the path of optimally rational solutions to current challenges. Utopian ideals often mask more sinister intentions, as Burnham reminds us, but it is also a mistake to ignore the contribution of “sentiments” to social arrangements. The paper argues that the realist outlook of the “Machiavellians” ought to be informed by “enlightened” rather than crude self-interest. I suggest that (1) a politics of moderation informed by scepticism toward rationalism; and (2) an exploration of how to make virtue ethics relevant to politics are the most promising avenues for answering that question. These concerns about the political process that is appropriate for gradually disentangling an excessively entangled political economy ought also to lead to a reflection on the sort of substantive policies that could legitimize this process. In this regards, I briefly sketch out an argument for shifting from redistribution to “predistribution,” i.e., asset-based approaches to mitigating the very inequalities that result in democratic entanglements.