Why Politics Fails
Why Politics Fails: The Five Traps of the Modern World & How to Escape Them | By Ben Ansell
Democracy: we all want a say in how we're governed, but it's impossible to have any true 'will of the people'. Equality: we want to be treated equally, but equal rights and equal outcomes undermine each other.
Solidarity: we want a safety net when times are tough, but often we care about solidarity only when we need it ourselves. Security: we want protecting from harm, but not if it undermines our freedoms. Prosperity: we want to be richer tomorrow, but what makes us richer in the short run makes us poorer over the long haul.
You've probably noticed a pattern here, which is that our self-interest undermines our ability to deliver on our collective goals. And these traps reinforce one another, so a polarized democracy can worsen inequality; a threadbare social safety net can worsen crime; runaway climate change will threaten global peace. Drawing on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit and using his own counterintuitive and pathbreaking research - on why democracy thrives under high inequality, and how increased political and social equality can lead to greater class inequality - Ansell vividly illustrates how we can escape the political traps of our imperfect world.
He shows that politics won't end, but that it doesn't have to fail.
Why Politics Fails: The Five Traps of the Modern World & How to Escape Them | By Ben Ansell
Democracy: we all want a say in how we're governed, but it's impossible to have any true 'will of the people'. Equality: we want to be treated equally, but equal rights and equal outcomes undermine each other.
Solidarity: we want a safety net when times are tough, but often we care about solidarity only when we need it ourselves. Security: we want protecting from harm, but not if it undermines our freedoms. Prosperity: we want to be richer tomorrow, but what makes us richer in the short run makes us poorer over the long haul.
You've probably noticed a pattern here, which is that our self-interest undermines our ability to deliver on our collective goals. And these traps reinforce one another, so a polarized democracy can worsen inequality; a threadbare social safety net can worsen crime; runaway climate change will threaten global peace. Drawing on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit and using his own counterintuitive and pathbreaking research - on why democracy thrives under high inequality, and how increased political and social equality can lead to greater class inequality - Ansell vividly illustrates how we can escape the political traps of our imperfect world.
He shows that politics won't end, but that it doesn't have to fail.
Why Politics Fails: The Five Traps of the Modern World & How to Escape Them | By Ben Ansell
Democracy: we all want a say in how we're governed, but it's impossible to have any true 'will of the people'. Equality: we want to be treated equally, but equal rights and equal outcomes undermine each other.
Solidarity: we want a safety net when times are tough, but often we care about solidarity only when we need it ourselves. Security: we want protecting from harm, but not if it undermines our freedoms. Prosperity: we want to be richer tomorrow, but what makes us richer in the short run makes us poorer over the long haul.
You've probably noticed a pattern here, which is that our self-interest undermines our ability to deliver on our collective goals. And these traps reinforce one another, so a polarized democracy can worsen inequality; a threadbare social safety net can worsen crime; runaway climate change will threaten global peace. Drawing on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit and using his own counterintuitive and pathbreaking research - on why democracy thrives under high inequality, and how increased political and social equality can lead to greater class inequality - Ansell vividly illustrates how we can escape the political traps of our imperfect world.
He shows that politics won't end, but that it doesn't have to fail.
