Menu Expand

Walter Lippmann: The Prophet of Liberalism and the Road not Taken

Cite JOURNAL ARTICLE

Style

Schliesser, E. Walter Lippmann: The Prophet of Liberalism and the Road not Taken. Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, 139(2–4), 349-364. https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.139.2-4.349
Schliesser, Eric "Walter Lippmann: The Prophet of Liberalism and the Road not Taken" Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch 139.2–4, 2019, 349-364. https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.139.2-4.349
Schliesser, Eric (2019): Walter Lippmann: The Prophet of Liberalism and the Road not Taken, in: Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, vol. 139, iss. 2–4, 349-364, [online] https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.139.2-4.349

Format

Walter Lippmann: The Prophet of Liberalism and the Road not Taken

Schliesser, Eric

Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Vol. 139 (2019), Iss. 2–4 : pp. 349–364

6 Citations (CrossRef)

Additional Information

Article Details

Author Details

Schliesser, Eric, Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15578, 1001 NB Amsterdam, Netherlands; Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy, Chapman University, USA.

Cited By

  1. The Palgrave Companion to Harvard Economics

    Thomas Nixon Carver (1865–1961)

    Levy, David M. | Peart, Sandra J.

    2024

    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52053-2_6 [Citations: 0]
  2. Novel externalities

    Cowen, Nick | Schliesser, Eric

    Public Choice, Vol. (2023), Iss.

    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-023-01072-x [Citations: 7]
  3. MILTON FRIEDMAN’S EMPIRICAL APPROACH TO ECONOMICS: SEARCHING FOR SCIENTIFIC AUTHORITY WHILE SHAPING THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT

    Orozco Espinel, Camila

    Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Vol. 44 (2022), Iss. 4 P.600

    https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837221000481 [Citations: 0]
  4. The Articulate State

    Cowen, Nick | Schliesser, Eric S.

    SSRN Electronic Journal , Vol. (2022), Iss.

    https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4178285 [Citations: 0]
  5. No Virtue Like Resilience: Machiavelli’s Realistic Justification of Democracy

    Burelli, Carlo

    Political Studies, Vol. (2023), Iss.

    https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217231191396 [Citations: 0]
  6. Ernest Nagel: Philosophy of Science and the Fight for Clarity

    Philosophy of Science as First Philosophy: The Liberal Polemics of Ernest Nagel

    Schliesser, Eric

    2022

    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81010-8_12 [Citations: 0]

References

  1. Allen, G. E. 2011. “Eugenics and Modern Biology: Critiques of Eugenics, 1910 – 1945.” Annals of Human Genetics 75 (3): 314 – 25.  Google Scholar
  2. Amable, B. 2010. “Morals and Politics in the Ideology of Neo-Liberalism.” Socio-Economic Review 9 (1): 3 – 30.  Google Scholar
  3. Biebricher, T. 2019. The Political Theory of Neoliberalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.  Google Scholar
  4. Biebricher, T. and F. Vogelmann, eds. 2017. The Birth of Austerity: German Ordoliberalism and Contemporary Neoliberalism. London: Rowman & Littlefield.  Google Scholar
  5. Blattberg, C. 2019. “Taking Politics Seriously – but Not Too Seriously.” Philosophy 94 (2): 271 – 94.  Google Scholar
  6. Buchanan, J. M. and G. Tullock. 1962. The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.  Google Scholar
  7. Buchanan, J. M. 1996. “Europe as Social Reality.” Constitutional Political Economy 7 (4): 253 – 6.  Google Scholar
  8. Dewey, J. 1925. “‘Practical Democracy’ – A Review of ‘The Phantom Public’ by Walter Lippmann.” The New Republic December 2: 52 – 4.  Google Scholar
  9. Dotson, K. 2018. “Accumulating Epistemic Power: A Problem with Epistemology.” Philosophical Topics 46 (1): 129 – 54.  Google Scholar
  10. Goodwin, C. D. 2013. “Walter Lippmann: The Making of a Public Economist.” History of Political Economy 45 (5): 92 – 113.  Google Scholar
  11. Goodwin, C. D. 2014. Walter Lippmann: Public Economist. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.  Google Scholar
  12. Gray, J. 1995. “Agonistic Liberalism.” Social Philosophy and Policy 12 (1): 111 – 35.  Google Scholar
  13. Hamburger, P. 2014. Is Administrative Law Unlawful? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  Google Scholar
  14. Hanley, R. P. 2011. “David Hume and the ‘Politics of Humanity.’” Political Theory 39 (2): 205 – 33.  Google Scholar
  15. Harrison, P. 2007. The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Google Scholar
  16. Hayek, F. A. 1938. “Freedom and the Economic System.” Contemporary Review April: 434 – 42.  Google Scholar
  17. Hayek, F. A. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. London: George Routledge and Son.  Google Scholar
  18. Hien, J. and C. Joerges. 2018. “Dead Man Walking? Current European Interest in the Ordoliberal Tradition.” European Law Journal 24: 142 – 62.  Google Scholar
  19. Jackson, B. 2012. “Freedom, the Common Good, and the Rule of Law: Lippmann and Hayek on Economic Planning.” Journal of the History of Ideas 73 (1): 47 – 68.  Google Scholar
  20. Knight, F. H. 1938. “Lippmann’s ‘The Good Society.’” Journal of Political Economy 46 (6): 864 – 72.  Google Scholar
  21. Kolev, S. 2018. “The Abandoned Übervater: Max Weber and the Neoliberals.” Working Paper 2018 – 21, Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University.  Google Scholar
  22. Levy, J. T. 2015. Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Google Scholar
  23. Levy, J. T. 2019. “Political Libertarianism.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Classical Liberal Thought, edited by M. T. Henderson, 153 – 75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Google Scholar
  24. Lippmann, W. 2015 [1914]. Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.  Google Scholar
  25. Lippmann, W. 1923. “A Defense of Education.” Century Magazine 106: 95 – 103.  Google Scholar
  26. Lippmann, W. 1929. A Preface to Morals. New York: Macmillan.  Google Scholar
  27. Lippmann, W. 1937. An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.  Google Scholar
  28. Mouffe, C. 1994. “Political Liberalism. Neutrality and the Political.” Ratio Juris 7 (3): 314 – 24.  Google Scholar
  29. Mouffe, C. 1999. “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?” Social Research 66 (3): 745 – 58.  Google Scholar
  30. Mouffe, C. 2005. On the Political. London: Routledge.  Google Scholar
  31. Niskanen, W. 1994. A Bureaucracy and Public Economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.  Google Scholar
  32. Pennington, M. 2010. Robust Political Economy: Classical Liberalism and the Future of Public Policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.  Google Scholar
  33. Pettit, P. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  Google Scholar
  34. Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press.  Google Scholar
  35. Rawls, J. 1997. “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” University of Chicago Law Review 64 (3): 765 – 807.  Google Scholar
  36. Rawls, J. 2005. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.  Google Scholar
  37. Reinhoudt, J. and S. Audier. 2018. The Walter Lippmann Colloquium: The Birth of Neo-liberalism. London: Palgrave Macmillan.  Google Scholar
  38. Riley, J. 2001. “Interpreting Berlin’s Liberalism.” American Political Science Review 95 (2): 283 – 95.  Google Scholar
  39. Sabl, A. 2019. “A Decent Party of Privilege.” https://niskanencenter.org/blog/a-decent-party-of-privilege/.  Google Scholar
  40. Schliesser, E. 2013. “Philosophic Prophecy.” In Philosophy and Its History: Aims and Methods in the Study of Early Modern Philosophy, edited by M. Lærke, J. E. H. Smith, and E. Schliesser, 209 – 35. New York: Oxford University Press.  Google Scholar
  41. Schliesser, E. 2015. “The Separation of Economics from Virtue: A Historical-Conceptual Introduction.” In Economics and the Virtues: Building a New Moral Foundation, edited by J. A. Baker and M. D. White, 141 – 64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Google Scholar
  42. Schliesser, E. 2018. “Jon Elster, ‘Sour Grapes.’” The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory (Oxford Handbooks Online), edited by J. T. Levy. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198717133.013.51.  Google Scholar
  43. Schliesser, E. forthcoming. “Adam Smith on Political Leadership.” In The Scottish Enlightenment: Human Nature, Social Theory and Moral Philosophy – Essays in Honour of Christopher J. Berry, edited by R. Mills and C. Smith. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.  Google Scholar
  44. Schmitt, C. 2007 [1932]. The Concept of the Political. Translated and with an Introduction by G. Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  Google Scholar
  45. Schudson, M. 2008. “The ‘Lippmann-Dewey Debate’ and the Invention of Walter Lippmann as an Anti-Democrat 1985 – 1996.” International Journal of Communication 2: 1031 – 42.  Google Scholar
  46. Simons, H. C. 1948. Economic Policy for a Free Society, edited by A. Director. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  Google Scholar
  47. Spivak, G. C. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, 271 – 313. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.  Google Scholar
  48. Steel, R. 2017. Walter Lippmann and the American Century. London: Routledge.  Google Scholar
  49. Stigler, G. J. 1971a “Smith’s Travels on the Ship of State.” History of Political Economy 3 (2): 265 – 77.  Google Scholar
  50. Stigler, G. J. 1971b. “The Theory of Economic Regulation.” Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science 2 (1): 3 – 21.  Google Scholar
  51. Stigler, G. J. 1974. “Henry Calvert Simons.” Journal of Law and Economics 17 (1): 1 – 5.  Google Scholar
  52. Sunstein, C. R. and R. E. Barnett. 2004. “Constitutive Commitments and Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights: A Dialogue.” Drake Law Review 53 (2): 205 – 29.  Google Scholar
  53. Waldron, J. 2002. God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke’s Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Google Scholar

Abstract

This article shows how in The Good Society Walter Lippmann argues that the very idea of a liberalism worth having is a spiritual project: it involves a spiritual transformation over extended historical time even if the true destination is unknown or uncertain. Along the way, I argue that Lippmann is also acutely aware of the dangers of theorizing that merely affirms an imperfect (or worse) status quo. He is, thus, attractive for those who wish to revive liberalism. In addition, Lippmann’s sensitivity to the role of power and technological change generates a potentially important philosophy of law. This article sketches his understanding of a liberalism that embraces a “spirit of adaptation” without too much deference to a status quo. The second part shows that despite his sensitivity to the risks of demagogues in politics, Lippmann did not turn away from democratic politics. In particular, he has an attractive conception of the vital nature of a pluralist politics inherent to liberalism. Along the way the key limitation of Lippmann’s political philosophy is diagnosed: his depoliticized, juridical conception of political representation and legislation.