Well, I just finished reading what will undoubtedly go down as one of the most difficult 468 pages of my life. This book is intense, complicated, at times illegible, thoroughly incomprehensible to those not steeped in economic jargon and thinking (which I am not), and completely unenjoyable.However, I have been meaning to read it for a year or so and having knocked it off my list of books to read before I die I have an intense feeling of satisfaction. I'll undoubtedly need to read it again when I get a doctorate in smart thinking or something but for now I shall brag to all and say that I have read a book far beyond the normal purview of the average reader. Yay me.
Some good quotes from this book,
"....the 19th and 20th century fallacy in political thought was embodied in the presumption that electoral requirements were in themselves sufficient to hold government's Leviathan-like proclivities in check, the presumption that, so long as there were constitutional guarantees for free and periodic elections, the range and extent of governmental action would be controlled."
"To the individual member of the effective majority, the political process provides a means through which he may secure private gain at the expense of other citizens....In the calculus of the individuals effectively making the final collective decision, marginal private benefits will tend to exceed marginal social benefits and/or marginal private costs will tend to fall short of marginal social costs....In essence, the value of a political vote in this model lies in its potential power to impose external costs on other members of the group. Externalities must be present in any solution reached by the voting process under all less-than-unanimity rules." (I thought that was a profound point. Your vote enables you to band with the majority to make someone in the minority pay for something disproportionate to their gain. hmmm....)
"Man wants liberty to become the man he wants to become....Man does not want liberty in order to maximize his utility (perceived gain), or that of the society of which he is a part. He wants liberty to become the man he wants to become."
The book is a methodological stepping towards justifying why men need to be free and have their freedom set in a constitutional manner, free of the arbitrary dictatorship of the majority. Its very very very complicated, so I'll definitely need to read it again at some future time when I am much smarter, but I must admit I learned something and it was worth the time spent reading.
5 comments:
What? What? Just reading those quotes from your book made me want to cry myself to sleep? What? Wow, Kenneth. That's all I have to say. Wow.
If that just so happens to be the language he uses in the Calculus of Consent, I want nothing to do with that book. The only explanation for this author to receive a noble peace prize would be the fact that he talks jabberish(that is for Luke).
A very cool lady once told me a story about a Harvard professor that came and spoke at the U. He or she I don't recall (I think it was actually a she), was quite offesive and insited on using the most confounding language. When the wise lady's students questioned her about the experience with the speaker, why the speaker chose to present like that, make them feel like idots, and that they hadn't understood much, she responded that the person was overly wordy because they were hiding the fact that they had very little to say. That in fact a small and disregardable message had been packaged in fancy talk. The two lessons we learn here from Martha Sontag Bradly (Take her intro to Architecture class if ever you find yourself at the U), is 1: Sometimes people cloak their own insignificance in a sea of big words,(I back this up with a quote from John Taylor found in Preach My Gospel, something about taking the most mistifying thing and making it understandable to a child as true inteligence), and 2: Just because someone stands behind a lecturn and pontificates doesn't mean what they say is the way it is, question it! Just because Dr. appears at the first of their name or PHD. at the back doesn't mean they know what they're talking about.
but for all you guys say, buchanan was right. and he's smart.
I am certainly not disputing the fact that Buchanan was an intelligent person. I am, however, going to suggest that some traumatic experience in his life forever stunted him and robbed him of all his effective communication skills.
Probably, he was once trapped in an elevator for a prolonged period of time with nothing but a few political-type magazines and a copy of "The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart" to occupy his long, lonely hours. When the brave firemen finally chopped the doors down with their mythical fire-axes, it was too late. Poor Buchanan would never lead a normal life again. The only thing left for him to do was write almost-nonsensical books on politics that leech the will to live away from those who read them.
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