Eight Ways to Run the Country: A New and Revealing Look at Left and Right

(Hardback)

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Political partisans want you to choose only between Left and Right, Red and Blue, Us and Them. But the reality is that Americans are deeply divided in more ways than one, and the savvy voter, no less than the savvy politician, must make more sense of things. Eight Ways to Run the Country explains what conventional political theory cannot, offering a profoundly illuminating look at our political past and our present differences. Eight Ways doesn't do away with Left and Right, but it defines them in better terms and adds a whole new dimension to explain what Left and Right can't. It correctly pegs the ideological poles and thus brings easy-to-understand order to the dizzying diversity of political perspectives. It places neoconservatives into historical context, illuminating both what they share with other conservatives and how their differences have wrought a change in the character of the Right. It explains the recurring attempts to define an independent, non-ideological center. It provides the best definition of populism to be found. Finally, it relates the political heritage of the American Founders to the politics of today.

Reviews

Whether a pro-politico, a C-Span junkie, or a political neophyte, Brian Mitchells Eight Ways to Run the Country is the best shortcut I have seen to really knowing what you are talking about when it comes to the complicated 21st century political landscape. power in these increasingly confusing political times. * Examiner.com/Washington Examiner *
Veteran reporter Mitchell refines current conventional wisdom about the Right and the Left in American politics. He begins by exploring the historical context for the current political positions and personalities, and the influence of economic and social contexts. Mitchell identifies four main political traditions (republican constitutionalism, libertarian individualism, progressive democracy, and plutocratic nationalism), that have been boiled down to the Left and the Right, in gross terms. These traditions have actually given rise to eight distinct political perspectives, and Mitchell devotes a chapter to each.Readers will enjoy trying to find themselves on the various scales provided. * Booklist *
Dissatisfied with prior schemes for categorizing political ideologies, Mitchell proposes his own typology. He begins by boiling down political differences down to support or opposition to arche (the concept of rank) and kratos (the use of force by the state and others) and then deriving from this distinction the four political traditions of the Anglo-American experience: republican constitutionalism, libertarian individualism, progressive democracy, and plutocratic nationalism. Further identifying intermediate steps between them, he argues that the contemporary American political scene can be characterized as consisting of eight political perspectives: individualist, paleolibertarian, paleoconservative, theoconservative, neoconservative, communitarian, progressive, radical, and individualist. He offers a chapter on each of these perspectives, detailing how they are the result of differing attitudes towards arche and kratos and the positions this leads them towards. * Reference & Research Book News *
What to my mind makes his book valuable is less its reconceptualization of the categories of left and right than its usefulness as a political and philosophical primer for those who would like to understand the ideological landscape in America.[i]f you'd like to understand and make sense of the various branches of conservatism and libertarianism, as well as the various divisions that exist to this day on the left, Brian Patrick Mitchell has written a useful and worthy introduction that will entertain and inform. Before you know it, you'll know all the lingo, the key people, and a brief history of all these schools of thought. Not bad for such a quick read. * LewRockwell.com *

Author Bio

Brian Patrick Mitchell is the former Washington Bureau Chief of Investor's Business Daily. As a veteran political reporter and author, Mitchell has appeared on dozens of television and radio shows, including Face the Nation, Larry King Live, Today, Crossfire, and Nightline. He also has been a guest speaker at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Connecticut, and Catholic University of America.