Freedom in America

by Muir, William Ker, Jr.

• ISBN13: 9781608718443
• ISBN10: 1608718441
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-08-01
• Publisher: Cq Pr

Summary

If you want students to really understand the concept of power, moving beyond a survey book'¬"s quick discussion of Laswell'¬"s '¬Swho gets what and how,'¬ Muir'¬"s thoughtful Freedom in America might be the book for you. Exploring the words and ideas of such thinkers as Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Tocqueville, Muir discusses the nature and limits of three types of power-coercive, reciprocal, and moral-and then uses this framework to explain how American political institutions work. If looking for an alternative to a long survey text-or itching to get students grappling with The Federalist Papers or Democracy in America with more of a payoff-Muir'¬"s meditation on power and personal freedom is a gateway for students to take their study of politics to the next level. His inductive style, engaging students with well-chosen and masterfully written stories, lets him draw out and distill key lessons without being preachy. Read a chapter and decide if this page turner is for you.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
Machiavelli and the Notion of Personal Freedom	p. 3
Law and Order	p. 10
Freedom and Power	p. 15
Anarchy	p. 17
Chaos in Marysville	p. 17
Disorder in Today's Inner Cities	p. 21
Coercive Power	p. 25
The Paradox of Dispossession	p. 26
The Paradox of Detachment	p. 27
The Paradox of Face	p. 28
The Paradox of Irrationality	p. 29
The Role of Politicians	p. 31
Summary	p. 31
Tyranny	p. 35
The Balance of Power	p. 35
The Shortcomings of Nonviolent Resistance	p. 37
The Police Power	p. 39
A Division of Labor	p. 39
Weak Police and the Rise of Warlords	p. 40
Police Tyranny in the South	p. 43
"How Do You Control Power?"	p. 45
The American Constitution	p. 49
The Articles of Confederation	p. 50
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison	p. 52
The Principle of Popular Sovereignty	p. 54
The Necessity of internal Checks	p. 55
The Consequences of Internal Checks	p. 57
Summary	p. 59
The Declaration of Independence	p. 63
Thomas Jefferson	p. 64
"The Pursuit of Happiness"	p. 66
Erik Erikson and His Theory of Identity	p. 67
Revolutionary Implications	p. 68
Tocqueville and Marx	p. 73
Individualism and Aristocracy	p. 73
Alexis de Tocqueville	p. 74
Karl Marx	p. 75
Who Was Right?	p. 76
Reciprocal Power	p. 81
The Problem of Collaboration	p. 82
The Marketplace	p. 83
The Paradox of Scarcity	p. 84
The Paradox of Abundance	p. 86
The Paradox of Equality	p. 86
The Paradox of Freedom	p. 87
A Paradise, Not Perfect but as Good as It Gets	p. 88
A Material Foundation for the Golden Rule	p. 89
Summary	p. 90
Moral Power	p. 95
What Is an Idea?	p. 96
Emotional, Balanced, and Interconnected	p. 96
The Paradox of Perception	p. 98
The Paradox of Responsibility	p. 99
The Paradox of Social Order	p. 100
The Dangers of Moral Disorder	p. 102
Demagoguery	p. 105
The Speech	p. 106
The Resolution of Anomie	p. 109
Social Pluralism	p. 113
The American "Tumult"	p. 114
Essential Characteristics of Moral Organizations	p. 115
The Law Profession as a Moral Institution	p. 117
The Religious Community as a Moral Organization	p. 118
'The Consequences of Social Pluralism	p. 121
Political Democracy	p. 125
Political Parties	p. 126
"50 Percent plus One"	p. 127
The Liberal idea of Equality	p. 128
The Conservative Idea of Personal Freedom	p. 128
Political Democracy and The Federalist Papers	p. 130
Institutions of Freedom	p. 135
The Presidency	p. 137
Creating a Unitary Presidency	p. 138
The President's Nine Powers	p. 138
A Uniter and a Divider	p. 140
The Pre-1933 Presidency	p. 140
The Modem Presidency and the Welfare State	p. 142
Mediated Information	p. 144
The Coercive Power of the Presidency	p. 147
The Personal Nature of the Presidency	p. 148
Coercive Power and the National Security Council	p. 149
The Presidency's Reciprocal and Moral Powers	p. 155
Instituting Clearance Procedures	p. 156
The Council of Economic Advisers	p. 157
The Bully Pulpit	p. 158
Eisenhower's Achievements	p. 160
The Lingering Effects of Abraham Lincoln	p. 160
Legislatures as Schools	p. 165
What is a Legislature Like?	p. 167
Madison's Vision of a Legislature as a School	p. 167
The Modem Congress	p. 170
The Effect of the Vote	p. 174
"Study Hard"	p. 175
Congress as Defender of Freedom	p. 181
Where Madison and Tocqueville Diverge	p. 182
Reciprocity	p. 186
The Paradox of Scarcity, Redux	p. 186
When Information Becomes Easily Accessible	p. 187
An Abundance of Information	p. 189
Steps to Reform	p. 190
The Supreme Court as Freedom's Protector	p. 197
Getting to the U.S. Supreme Court 198 John Marshall, Chief Justice	p. 199
Marbury v. Madison	p. 200
Creating a Conflict of Laws	p. 201
The Power of Judicial Review	p. 203
The Moral Power of the Courts	p. 207
The Due Process Revolution	p. 208
Moral Power with Little Forethought	p. 217
Political Parties: Machines, Coalitions, Churches	p. 221
A Competitive Two-Party System	p. 223
Parties as Machines	p. 224
Parties as Coalitions	p. 227
Parties as Churches	p. 229
American Newspapers and Ideas	p. 235
The Arrival of Abundance	p. 237
The Return of Partisanship	p. 239
The Conservative Response	p. 240
Behind the Partisanship of the Left and the Right	p. 241
Belief Systems Have Consequences	p. 242
Free-Market Capitalism	p. 247
An Important Distinction	p. 248
Capitalism and Socialism Compared	p. 249
Hamilton and Tocqueville on "Commerce"	p. 250
Capitalism's Power to Distort?	p. 257
Capitalism and Personal Freedom	p. 260
The Moral Effects of Taxation	p. 267
Americans Pay a Large Amount of Taxes	p. 268
The Effect of Taxes on Habits of Behavior	p. 269
The Laffer Curve	p. 270
The Moral Effects of the American Tax Code	p. 271
Five Cautions	p. 276
Federalism and Freedom	p. 279
What Is Federalism?	p. 281
The Advantages of Federalism	p. 282
Tocqueville's Insights	p. 283
States as Public Policy Laboratories	p. 284
Four Potential Dangers of Federalism	p. 285
Federalism and Freedom	p. 286
American Society	p. 291
We the People	p. 293
Americans by the Numbers	p. 293
Diversity of Americans	p. 295
Tocqueville's America, Contemporary America	p. 296
The Humanity of Americans	p. 298
The American Electorate	p. 305
Low Turnout: Little Schooling, Youth, Mobility	p. 306
High Turnout: Working for or in the Shadow of Government	p. 308
The Candidates	p. 309
The Convention System	p. 311
The Importance of Party Identification	p. 312
The Transformation of the Electorate	p. 314
Tocqueville's Warnings	p. 319
Habits of the Mind	p. 321
Habits of the Heart	p. 323
A Short-Sighted Materialism	p. 324
Summary	p. 326
Equality	p. 329
The Pursuit of Equality	p. 330
Whither American Society?	p. 332
Feelings toward the Wealthy	p. 333
Possibility, Not Equality	p. 334
Summary	p. 334
Racial Equality	p. 339
Constitutional Concessions	p. 340
The Dred Scott Cas	p. 341
Abraham Lincoln's Response	p. 343
Social Anomie and the Black Community	p. 343
The Unexpected Effects of Brown	p. 345
The Resilience of the Black Churches	p. 346
Americans and Foreign Relations	p. 353
Inconstant Policies	p. 354
A Steadfast Foreign Policy	p. 355
"Containment" of the Soviet Union	p. 356
A Unitary Executive	p. 358
The Anchor of Public Opinion	p. 359
The Democratic Vision	p. 365
America's Mission	p. 366
Objections	p. 368
The Social Values of Freedom	p. 371
Four Questions	p. 371
Epilogue	p. 377
The Eleven Paradoxes of Politics	p. 379
The Constitution of the United States	p. 381
Federalist Nos. 10, 51, and 70	p. 403
Index	p. 423
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.