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sidhes_reading_again's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
tsharris's review
2.0
I really wanted to like this book, but in all honesty it was a slog to the very end. It was incredibly repetitive, laden with footnotes to newspaper articles and glib references — it would have been much better as a long magazine article (which it may well have been originally). I also think Wolin was too focused on coining phrases than on providing coherent analysis. That said, I agree with his fundamental thesis: American democracy is increasingly "managed democracy." Citizens are encouraged to be apathetic or distracted or otherwise disengaged from political life, elites are pretty much capable of doing whatever they want between elections (and are rarely if ever punished when they screw up), and there is little daylight between big business and government, even after the Great Recession. His argument that this is somehow a new system of government is undermined by his extensive discussion of the anti-democratic tendencies of the American Founding. If anything, he has shown how tension between democracy and republicanism fluctuates over time, and that we're in a particularly strong republican (or anti-democratic) period. The question is whether the American people are capable of pushing back against republican elitism — that could be what's different about the present, unfortunately. Another problem is that I think Wolin mistakenly attributes far too much intentionality to the emergence of "managed democracy," to the extent that his account verges on conspiracy theory. Even if the system functions as Wolin describes, it is another matter entirely to attribute the system to the intentions of scheming elites.
bakudreamer's review
5.0
I could have written this ( except for the off-kilter chapter nine ) < which should be removed or conpletely reconstructed > A lot of typographical / punctuationaly errors ( using voice dication software ? ) Overall however, ' inverted totalitarianism ' is what I was calling ' Fascism lite ' , ' Nerf Fascism ', or ' I Can't Beleive It's Not Fascism ! '.
socraticgadfly's review
5.0
A great overview of how capitalism and republicanism, even though modern republicanism and capitalism arose separately, intertwined in America to give us a corporatized republican government. This is about far more than something like "regulatory capture"; rather, its about how governing elites, primarily Republican but including ever-more Democrats, are fine with corporations calling the tune on what constitutes "desirable" levels of citizen participation in the modern republic. And, it's more than just neoliberalism, too, which ultimately is about driving everything by the dollar.
Rather, as Wolin notes repeatedly, it's ultimately about issues of power, namely, who controls it, who distributes it, who makes the power distribution decisions and more.
This is not full-blown leftism, but rather, sits somewhere in the lefter edges of the left-liberal world.
Rather, as Wolin notes repeatedly, it's ultimately about issues of power, namely, who controls it, who distributes it, who makes the power distribution decisions and more.
This is not full-blown leftism, but rather, sits somewhere in the lefter edges of the left-liberal world.
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