Thoughtful and temperate in the duller sense, this is a companion
to Adler's Ethics of Common Sense (1970). It employs the same
commonsensical Aristotelian categorizations, with rather less
Pollyannaish results, but with much the same elaboration of common
sense into ponderous commonplaces. "We" have to retrieve faith in
politics and wither the seductions of anti-institutional anarchism.
Adler tackles the job by rising above crass specific
Machiavellian-to-Laswell treatments, ascending to "normative"
levels. He discusses man as a political animal, the formal equality
possessed by all normal adult human beings in virtue of all being
normal adult human beings, and he takes off after oligarchic and
conservative positions. Then there are excursions from the
Aristotelian mode: Adler refers to "reluctant democrats" like Mill,
and along roughly Millian lines deals with "democracy and
socialism" in a section which has no provocations, unless
insipidity still provokes you by chapter 12. Adler begins with the
notion that for true political equality a classless society is
required, and proceeds to dilute the claim to a need for
"indispensable minimum" economic guarantees, while discovering that
communism equals state capitalism equals "New Class" rule; he then
prescribes either a mixed economy or a shareholders' democracy.
With a warning against technological elites. Adler presents a
Kantian windup of world government and universal liberal education.
It's another fearless stand against sin. (Kirkus Reviews)
The first edition of The Common Sense of Politics described itself
as a "just in time tonic for those of us who have given up on
common sense as well as on politics and can no longer see the
connection between the two." One has only to scan the pages of this
1996 edition to recognize that this book is just as appropriate and
important, if not more. With the development of a European
Community, the upcoming American presidential election, and in
light of the recent celebration of the U.N.'s 50th anniversary, it
is crucial that we, as citizens of the world, approach politics
with common sense and a universal desire to improve our
institutions toward managing and administering to a greater
mankind. This book, built upon universal principles of a politics
of common sense and for the purpose of restoring faith in the
reform and improvement of our institutions, is the way toward
perfect society and toward the bettering of the condition of man on
earth.
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