Government Works

What is the proper role of government in American life? This is the principal controversy in contemporary American politics. Milton J. Esman believes that the United States suffers not from too much government but from too little. Most Americans today proclaim pride in their democracy, but they do not trust Washington. Esman shows how American conservatives have, for the last quarter-century, hammered away at the federal government, attacking its size, its inefficiencies, the limits it places on personal freedom, and its intervention in what conservatives believe should be free and untrammeled market transactions. Such commentators have effectively seized the initiative, and their antigovernment viewpoint now dominates the public discourse on politics. "This bias runs contrary to the main thrust of American political experience," Esman writes, "and is detrimental to the well-being of the nation on the brink of the new millennium." His book includes a historical study of public attitudes toward government and an analysis of the functions that only government can perform to ensure a healthy future for the American people and to check the negative effects of economic globalization. He proposes a set of political tactics to address the unchallenged trashing of a central institution of American democracy and restore public confidence in government.Plainspoken, straight-shooting, wide-ranging, Government Works draws on the progressive tradition in American thought to deal with the central predicament in contemporary public affairs.

In the long-running debate on the proper role of government in American life, Esman... enters his arguments that the nation suffers from too little rather than too much government., Rooseveltian in its vigor and forthrightness. Esman's book is an eruption of outraged eloquence after what must have been years of frustration over the flaccidity of moderate progressives in the face of a conservative Republican assault on liberal achievements.... It might serve the Democratic party well if Esman's compact, forceful book were to be found on the seats of every one of the delegates to the convention in Los Angeles, simply as a reminder of the kind of principles the party once stood for.

Milton J. Esman is John S. Knight Professor Emeritus of International Studies at Cornell University. His books include Ethnic Politics and Administration and Development in Malaysia, both from Cornell, and Introduction to Ethnic Conflict.