The Transformation of American Liberalism

"""...fresh, creative, and meticulously researched... Klosko s thoughtful and stimulating book offers many ingredients for the kind of discourse that could move US social policy in a more encompassing and caring direction."" --Current History ""George Klosko has produced an elegant blend of political philosophy and history that explains in an accessible but rigorous way how certain core ideas have affected the justifications for the programs that comprise the American welfare state. This process, he persuasively argues, has given our welfare state its distinctive shape."" --Edward Berkowitz, Professor of History and Public Policy, George Washington University ""The question George Klosko addresses in this absorbing book is why American social welfare programs are so different from those in other advanced countries and why some programs enjoy wide acceptance whereas others are under constant attack. The answer he develops is that the dominant political culture in the US has always been Lockean individualism, and that political leaders, when trying to justify new programs, never clearly and forthrightly presented an alternative perspective. His argument, presented in lucid, jargon-free prose and deeply researched, is compelling and illuminating. It was an eye-opener for me, as it will be for many others."" --Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology, Yale University and Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia ""Klosko should be applauded for being so forthright about the misleading arguments upon which the new American state has been built. He observes very early on that its founders were following the advice of Old Nick, Machiavelli, that ""he who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted and capable of maintaining itself to the satisfaction of everybody, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though they are entirely different from the old ones"" (7)."" - Paul Moreno, Hillsdale College, THE REVIEW OF POLITICS"