Stay updated with breaking news from Samuel Fleischacker. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
<p>The political scientist considers a new book on Adam Smith's thought, and the role it played in posing questions about the purpose of the economy, and its relationship to individuals a selves embedded in society. </p>
Charles W. Mills. (Photo by Sam Alcoff) Arguably no contemporary scholar has thought more deeply about how liberalism as a political tradition and philosophy has been historically and structurally biased towards the socioeconomic interests of white people than the political philosopher Charles W. Mills. In works such as The Racial Contract and Black Rights/White Wrongs, he has sought to show the reality of an ongoing system of white domination in which liberalism—both as a philosophy and as a system of governance—is complicit. Mills traces the problem back to the origins of modern libe...
© Thinkstock The most urgent resolution we need for 2021 is simple: Americans need to learn to hate each other less. It will sound paradoxical, but that means we need to cultivate pity and contempt. We increasingly regard each other as malign fiends. Over 80 percent of Republicans say that the Democratic Party has been taken over by socialists, and almost 80 percent of Democrats say that the Republican Party has been taken over by racists. In today’s America, one study finds, “as many as half of the members of each party despise the other party.” A healthy democracy requires that ci...