From The Crisis of American Self-Government - Harvey Mansfield, Harvard's 'pet dissenter,' on the 2012 election, the real cost of entitlements, and why he sees reason for hope:
'We have now an American political party and a European one. Not all Americans who vote for the European party want to become Europeans. But it doesn't matter because that's what they're voting for. They're voting for dependency, for lack of ambition, and for insolvency."
and
(The) project began at the turn of the previous century by "an alliance of experts and victims," Mr. Mansfield says. "Social scientists and political scientists were very much involved in the foundation of the progressive movement. What those experts did was find ways to improve the well-being of the poor, the incompetent, all those who have the right to vote but can't quite govern their own lives. And still to this day we see in the Democratic Party the alliance between Ph.D.s and victims."
and
Mr. Mansfield is optimistic. "The material for recovery is there," he says. "Ambition, for one thing. I teach at a university where all the students are ambitious. They all want to do something with their lives." That is in contrast to students he has met in Europe, where "it was depressing to see young people with small ambitions, very cultivated and intelligent people so stunted." He adds with a smile: "Our other main resource is the Constitution."
Is it possible that Harvard University, whose entire existence is dependent on capitalist benefactors, has only one non-Marxist on its faculty? Or is there a psychological issue about feeling dependent on the production of others which drives faculties to Leftism as a way to maintain a bit of pride? After all, it must be a little humbling to have to feel that one's career is built on the charity of others, however interesting or useful that career may be; "on the kindness of strangers" as it used to be said by, or of, high-class hookers like Blanche DuBois?
