Franke Book Review: Mansfield
by Mark Franke
“There is no vacant space left in the world today; founding something new requires destroying something old.” — Harvard Professor Harvey C. Mansfield
I ran across this quote in Mansfield’s recently released book “The Rise and Fall of Rational Control: The History of Modern Political Philosophy.” Mansfield, sometimes called the last conservative standing at Harvard, lectured on political philosophy for more than 60 years. This book is taken from those lectures.
His point, I think, is that new ideas take hold by replacing earlier ideas previously held by its new adherents. He traces the rise of the conceit that the human race is rationally in control of its destiny, and for the better. He calls this conceit “modernism.”
It is nearly impossible to summarize great thoughts by great thinkers like Mansfield in a few paragraphs but here goes. Beginning with Machiavelli and progressing through Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche, he describes each philosopher’s theory of how mankind left a state of nature and entered into civil society with a sovereign government. Modernism gives way to postmodernism with Marx and Nietzschke and a rejection of liberal values in the classical sense of the Founding Fathers.
Mansfield’s thought process is well above my pay grade but I do see applicability to the state of America in 2026.
The success of extremists in controlling party primary elections is a documented fact, to the chagrin of the old-line party leadership. Today it is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA); a decade or so back it was the TEA Party. Are these two movements siblings, just from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum?
A recent op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal offered an analysis of these two movements which presented a compelling case that they are demonstrably different in strategy and tactics. The DSA is much better organized at the national level and quite willing to use violence in furtherance of its ultimate goal — the overthrow of American republicanism based on individual liberty and free market economics.
That may sound like a partisan observation when coming from a conservative like me. But the WSJ article was written by ex-Democrat Congressman Daniel Lipinski, who does not like what he sees.
His description of the TEA Party movement aligns with what I was told in its early days. I asked a local Republican operative what the TEA Party’s platform was, and he told me it varied by county. One county’s committee was pro-life; another was focused on Second Amendment rights; still another on lower taxes and so forth. It was a local, grass-roots organization to the extent that it was organized at all. The foundational ideal of our nation’s creation was not challenged.
The DSA movement, on the other hand, is clear in its goal of destroying what America is and always has been. The Declaration of Independence is irrelevant and the Constitution is an impediment to be removed. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The 18th century classical liberals spoke of happiness within a construct of limited government and personal freedom, freedom of conscience and of property.
So what does the appeal of an extremist platform such as these self-identified socialist politicians offer?
The only explanation I can suggest is a growing discontent among the populus, a pessimism that opens voters to listening to extreme rhetoric and promises of free stuff paid for by other people. It’s always other people who will pay for it all, of course. Never underestimate the political coin that can be earned by appealing to humankind’s envy. I think there is a commandment or two warning us against that.
It’s not that socialism can offer an historical success story. I’m still waiting for even one example of a socialist society that allowed individual freedom while achieving a high level of economic well-being.
The Soviet Union was described by Lincoln Steffens as a future that works. It’s now on Ronald Reagan’s trash heap of history. In my lifetime Sweden was the poster child for social democracy, assumed to be the logical transition to full socialism. But Sweden has repented of its flirtation with socialism as a former minister of finance admitted: “What we believed in as young socialists simply turned out to be impossible in practice:” In fact, Sweden has risen above the U.S. on the libertarian Cato Institute’s Freedom Index.
So are we reduced to a zero-sum game as Prof. Mansfield claims? If American voters play out their frustration by electing DSA candidates, what will disappear? Individual liberties such as freedom of speech and worship? The right to accumulate and enjoy property?
I’m not the only one concerned about where our election results might take us. Lipinski concluded his op-ed column on the threat presented by DSA candidates with this clarion call: “This isn’t a prediction. It is a warning.”
We have been warned.
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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