Alternative Perspectives on Work: David Frayne, The Refusal of Work (Bloomsbury: New York, 2015)

David Frayne, a sociologist, has written a fascinating book on the nature of work, titled The Refusal of Work. In the book Frayne engages with a number of theorists who have criticized contemporary work culture and then interviews a number of people who, for various reasons, chose to either reduce their work hours or completely leave the world of paid employment. The book is worth engaging with because it is a well-written provocation arguing for a fundamental rethinking of the nature of work. 

In Frayne’s words, “work represents a highly naturalized and taken-for-granted feature of everyday life.” Yet “consider the woeful failure of today’s labour market to keep pace with the desire for jobs that allow for self-expression and creativity.” (p. 5) Frayne goes on to say that “the world of paid employment” is often defined by “drudgery, subordination, and exhaustion.” (p. 5).

As Frayne asks simply, “What is so great about work that sees society constantly trying to create more of it?” (p. 13). This leads to the following question.

Why do people work? For many reasons. “The social system of advanced industrial societies is constructed so that working is often the only way that most people can meet their needs. This includes material needs—for food, clothing, shelter—and also more complex psychological needs, such as the need for social recognition and esteem.” (p. 21).

Frayne rightly says that we shouldn’t be criticizing workers as dupes or idiots. Work can be very meaningful and rewarding at its best. Even mediocre jobs bring some forms of meaning and pleasure, as well as social recognition and camaraderie. Rather, what is needed is a “critique of work, and specifically not a critique of workers, i.e. what is offered is a critique of the moral, material, and political pressures that bear down on the worker, and not a set of judgments about the attitudes of workers themselves.” (p. 22).

Frayne considers other societies where work was less central and the many transformations in law, cultural norms, and economic need that led to work taking such a prominent place within capitalism (he mentions key works by Max Weber and E.P. Thompson). “Work has not always been at the center of society’s moral, cultural, and political life” and so the question becomes whether we can move towards a future in which people work much less than they do now” (29). The goal in reducing work time is to increase time for “autonomous self-development.” (p. 29).

Drawing on social critic Andre Gorz, Frayne suggests that there could be multiple benefits to everyone working less. More time with friends and family, more time for self-development and pursuit of whatever projects we happen to find interesting as individuals, more time outdoors, and more time not under the direction of someone else. In addition, Gorz thought that more time under our own control would improve conditions at work—workers would demand more democratic control of their workplaces and would also likely be happier and more productive during shorter days. This rings true. Anyone who has worked eight hour shifts, day after day, knows that there can be enormous lulls in energy and productivity.

Shorter work, shared more equally, could also help relieve unemployment. “One of the goals of a policy of shorter working hours would be to remedy the maldistribution of work by sharing the available work more equitably among the population. Everyone should work less so that everyone may work, and so that all may benefit from an increase in free-time.” (p. 38). 

If such steps could reduce the experience of unemployment they would mark a dramatic improvement in the quality of life for many. In an economy and culture where work is necessary, both materially and symbolically, the costs of unemployment can be enormous. As Frayne says, “in the context of a work-centered society, unemployment represents a kind of no-man’s land: a dead time, degraded by financial worries, social isolation, and stigma.” (p. 38).

Why doesn’t this just happen by default as technology advances and the economy becomes more productive? In other words, what happens to savings in work time, i.e. productivity increases in capitalism? They are reabsorbed “into the economy via the creation of more work. Free-time in which citizens are neither producing nor consuming commercial wealth is useless to capitalism.” (p. 39).

Another key reason to shift how we think about work and how it is structured is the hyper-competitive, ineffective labor market found in wealthy countries today. As Frayne points out in this lengthy, depressing passage: “For those attempting to insulate themselves from the shifting currents of the labor market by investing in education, the old guarantee that educational credentials ensure a future of secure, well-paid  and interesting work is also being eroded. An extensive analysis…suggests that a combination of factors—the rapid expansion of higher education, the globalization of job competition, and the deskilling of work—are leading huge numbers of graduates into an opportunity trap, as they fail to find a home for their specialized skills in the labor market.” (p. 42). Indeed, in wealthy countries like the United States or United Kingdom there are far more educated college graduates seeking favorable employment than there are good jobs available.

This is depressing. Let’s move on to the more positive aspect of the book. What would more genuine work look like? “We can define true, meaningful work as work in which people are allowed to carry out tasks in accordance with their own technical, aesthetic, and social criteria, i.e. to work in accordance with their own ideas of efficiency, beauty, and usefulness.” (p. 63). But too few people find work that lives up to this ideal.

Frayne notes that the corollary of a work-focused society is that we have little genuine leisure time. The number of self-help books on how to slow down and enjoy life combined with the constant reporting on how to achieve work-life balance suggest that people want more leisure and a slower pace. And when does work end? When so much of our time outside of work is spent traveling to and from work, preparing for work, doing chores, etc, when are we truly free to just slow down and enjoy life? As Frayne asks, when do we “become truly free to experience the world and its culture?” (p. 69).

To reiterate, what are some valuable things we can do if we work less, i.e. why would it be good to work less? If we have more free time we have more time for activities that “are intrinsically valuable, i.e. because they develop our personal capacities, or enrich our friendships, or simply because we love to do them.” (p. 75).

The second half of the book then shifts to interviews with people who have intentionally reduced the role of paid work in their lives. Some of them moved from full time to part time jobs, others left the workforce completely. Why? The answers of course varied but in general “the purpose of switching to a part-time role was to feel less exhausted, and hopefully rediscover a thirst for creative activities.” (p. 123).

“In each case the interviewees expressed a strong desire to live with intention.” (p. 128). “People were motivated by a sense of genuine utility: a desire to create, help others, and avoid ethically dubious work…all balked at the idea that the most noble way to contribute to the wider community is to perform paid work.” (p. 155). The profiles are fascinating as are the communities that people found as they moved away from work-centered life and the professional rat race.

Frayne says a goal of his book, and one of its accomplishments, I would add, is to “dispel the false dichotomy which says that a person is either working or doing nothing of any value.” (p. 233). His interviews demonstrate that people often chose to work less so that they had more time to do a range of other things they found valuable, from volunteer work to time with friends and family to writing and other creative endeavors. They certainly didn’t reduce their hours of paid work so that they could “do nothing.” 

In The Refusal of Work Frayne is not attempting to provide a detailed, technical blueprint for how to construct a world with far less (but more meaningful) work. Rather, he is offering a provocation and a guide for thinking big. And in this he succeeds dramatically. 

Perspectives on Foreign Policy Part Two: Noam Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson, The Myth of American Idealism (New York: Penguin Press, 2024)

Let me restate what I’m doing here. My last blog post was a review of Walter Russell Mead’s Special Providence. Today I will discuss Noam Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson’s The Myth of American Idealism. Why bring together Mead and Chomsky-Robinson? To facilitate a discussion between different perspectives and hopefully produce some insight. Mead represents the thoughtful articulation of a more or less mainstream, relatively positive appraisal of American foreign policy, while Chomsky-Robinson offer a thoughtful leftist critique. 

For those unfamiliar with him, Noam Chomsky is a famous linguist, philosopher, and critic of American foreign policy, whose major works date back to the 1950s and 1960s. Nathan Robinson is the editor in chief of Current Affairs, a left-leaning magazine. Why did they write this book? In the preface to The Myth of American Idealism, Robinson explains the origins and purpose of the book, namely to coauthor a work that would bring together “into a single volume” Chomsky’s “central critiques of U.S. foreign policy.” (Preface, xii). Chomsky’s lifetime of commentary can be daunting, as it ranges across decades of books, articles, and interviews. For those unfamiliar with Chomsky’s critique of American foreign policy it is worth the time to set out the basic principles guiding his argument. This is what Chomsky and Robinson set out to do.

As a starting point, and contrary to what many critics of Chomsky think, he does not claim that the U.S. is uniquely bad or oppressive. Far from it. Rather, the U.S. acts in a manner similar to previous dominant powers. “The United States is very much like other powerful states. It pursues the strategic and economic interests of dominant sectors of the domestic population.” (4-5).

This lack of uniqueness is key to the Chomsky and Robinson critique. Yes, leaders in the US often use the language of Wilsonian idealism (as Mead discusses in his book). But consider the British Empire. Does anyone doubt that its leaders often used lofty, benign, and sweeping rhetoric to defend their decades of global rule? And how seriously do we take those proclamations now?

Many imperial actors, and even leaders of aggressive states actively making war, declare benign intentions—witness Putin today or the heads of the Axis powers during World War II. The authors run through a gamut of world leaders offering lofty language to defend acts of violent conquest. Thus, declarations of benign intent are almost universal and should therefore be seen as largely meaningless. As Chomsky and Robinson bluntly put it, “sensible people pay scant attention to declarations of noble intent by leaders, because they are a universal. What matters is the historical record.” (4).

As Chomsky and Robinson suggest, once you look beneath the public rhetoric and dive into the archive of classified conversations among American statesmen you generally find appeals not to high-minded ideals but to that concept known as the “national interest.” It is a fairly vague concept but one that mainstream accounts tend to take for granted. Again, the authors argue that this is a universal trait of powerful states, both now and in the past.

According to the authors this is precisely where we should start asking questions. For the “term national interest is itself a euphemism, for what is usually meant is the interest of a small sector of wealthy domestic elites.” (7).

This is an essential part of their analysis. Mead, representing a more mainstream perspective in my previous blog, doesn’t really offer a detailed account of how American foreign policy gets made. He discusses prominent policy-makers and gestures as national security elites, but his overall account generally presumes that American democracy works more or less as it should and thus policy tends to reflect the diverse mix of perspectives among the American public. In an insightful chapter late in his book Mead suggests that the foreign policy elite are becoming disconnected from the wider public. What for Mead is a concerning new development is for Chomsky and Robinson a basic, longstanding feature of American politics.

What exactly has this elite-dominated foreign policy looked like? Chomsky and Robinson focus primarily on American foreign policy in the past century, especially since World War II when the U.S. fully embraced its role as successor to the British Empire. Starting during World War II and continuing to today the United States has sought global “military and economic supremacy.” (10).

Why might this be a problem? They note that “discussions of foreign policy are often cool, abstract, and antiseptic.” (12). Yet in practice the stakes are often life and death for real human beings. This is a valuable contribution of the book. By focusing on American interventions abroad, whether overt wars or covert CIA actions, they draw our attention to the real, lived consequences of these policies. A coup in Guatemala leads to decades of brutal military dictatorship and civil war. Real human beings die by the thousands.

But why focus on the United States? Because, “as the global superpower, the U.S. poses unique risks; it is more consequential if a powerful country departs from a moral standard than if a weak one does” (16). This connects to the basic moral standard guiding their analysis: We should focus on American crimes because a) the United States is the global hegemon, so its actions have major consequences, b) we should hold ourselves to the same or higher standards that we hold others, and c) because as Americans we have the most ability to effect the actions of our own government. In their words, “it is helpful, when assessing U.S. conduct, to ask a simple question: How would we judge a given act  if it were performed by a rival power rather than ourselves?” (17).

Their guiding argument is that as Americans we should focus on our own policies. As Americans, we can exercise the most influence on our own government. Yes, we should unequivocally condemn the tyranny of the Chinese Government as it suppresses dissent, and likewise the grotesque imprisonment of anti-war protesters in Russia. But the government we have the most ability to influence is our own. Though oligarchic, America is remarkably free and we have the ability and responsibility to focus our attention on its actions.

In Mead’s typology this is a very Jeffersonian impulse and one that I fundamentally share. We should focus on making America more democratic and draw down our imperial commitments abroad. Unfortunately, as Mead notes in his book, the Jeffersonian perspective is not a dominant one in American foreign policy.

Internal policy documents also reveal a hubristic mindset that should be horrifying in any democracy—namely the assumption that we have the right to interfere anywhere, anytime, for any reason, all across the world. “It is simply assumed that it is U.S. prerogative to decide which leaders we will put up with.” (30). The book is replete with examples of Presidents and Senators simply assuming that we have to right to invade any country we want, whenever we want.

Chomsky and Robinson then provide detailed examples of key moments and elements in the history of American foreign policy. The chapter on the Vietnam War is a horrifying and damning example of what an unjust war looks like. There are also chapters on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Latin American intervention. These chapters in Part One of the book serve as a series of case studies in empire—this is what empire actually involves when you get past anodyne phrases about “intervention” and “regime change.”

Chapter nine examines the domestic power structure in the US and how it produces foreign policy. As they say, “the broad American public has little influence over U.S. foreign policy. In fact, divergence between public opinion and state action is frequently sharp.” (235).

Why? According to Robinson and Chomsky, “in highly unequal countries, the public’s role in decision-making is limited. In the United States, as elsewhere, foreign policy is designed and implemented by small groups who derive their power from domestic sources.” (239). Indeed, there is considerable social science literature on how a small set of wealthy, well-connected elites have the most domestic power. This research ranges from Mills and Domhoff writing in the mid-century to Gilens and Page, Winters, Hacker and Pierson, Ferguson, and other mainstream scholars writing today. It is all well-worth reading. 

The most simple way of stating the principle is that “concentration of wealth yields concentration of power” and, as Piketty and many others have demonstrated, the US is an extraordinarily unequal society with massive concentrations of private wealth. (239). Therefore, public opinion tends to be far removed from foreign policy.

This is a strength of Robinson and Chomsky relative to Mead’s account—they have a much more clear, explicit theory for how foreign policy gets made. It is of course contestable. But compared to Mead’s work, which is vague and impressionistic on this score, Chomsky and Robinson are remarkably concrete and cogent.

Chapter 11 deals with media coverage of American foreign policy. They note that in the US we have tremendous freedom to say what we want. Unfortunately, mainstream media coverage does not actually give voice to a particularly wide range of perspectives. “Major media corporations…reliably reflect the assumptions and viewpoints of U.S. elites. They contain spirited criticism and debate, but only in line with a system of presuppositions and principles.” (272). This is merely a brief introduction to the media critique Chomsky offers in other works like Necessary Illusions and Manufacturing Consent (coauthored with Edward S. Herman). 

The kind of critique undertaken by Chomsky and Robinson can be grim work. They realize that “to ask serious questions about the nature and behavior of one’s own society is often difficult and unpleasant.” (293). But it is necessary, as they argue at the outset of the book. The more common path, however, is just the opposite. “It is cheap and easy to deplore the crimes of others, while dismissing or justifying our own. An honest person will choose a different course.” (294). Chomsky has in other interviews and essays mentioned a famous passage from the New Testament to defend this perspective, in which Jesus says that we should focus on removing the “mote” from our own eyes rather than pointing out the “stick” in someone else’s eye. This is, frankly, a very different impulse from that which tends to guide mainstream foreign policy debate. But in its humility and decency, it is the right one.

Connecting to the previous post on Mead’s Special Providence, are Chomsky and Robinson Jeffersonians, in Mead’s sense? Overall, yes, not in the mild sense that Mead himself endorses but in the more radical Jeffersonian tradition dating back to Mark Twain. Chomsky and Robinson think that Americans, both statesmen and citizens, should focus on making American democracy more democratic, more peaceful, and more humane, setting a positive example for the rest of the world. This is how you promote and improve democracy, not by attempting to impose order on the rest of the world. 

One key point of difference between Mead and Chomsky-Robinson is that Mead thinks the American public is fairly hawkish. I’m skeptical of this point, as are Chomsky and Robinson. Indeed, they cite a large number of opinion polls that demonstrate widespread public support for diplomacy, negotiation, resolving disagreements through the UN, and so on. Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that American policymakers pursue wars because they are under intense public pressure to do so. The truth seems to be closer to the opposite, which is exactly what Chomsky and Robinson argue. Namely, politicians engage in concerted publicity campaigns in an effort to drum up popular support for war. And this “support” is often very shallow. In the run up to the Iraq War in 2003 polls showed that a majority of Americans supported military action. But as soon as the war became costly, and the reasons for war were exposed as deceptive, this support collapsed. The lasting unpopularity of the Iraq War not only impacted the elections of 2006 and 2008 but continues to exercise a substantial influence over both parties and the broader culture in America. 

Chomsky and Robinson’s book can make for depressing reading and there are many more components that could be examined. But they end on a hopeful note, that democratic movements, led by ordinary citizens, can change the world for the better. In the case of US foreign policy this would involve a radical rethinking of our role in the world, one that serves the cause of democracy not by force but by example.

Perspectives on Foreign Policy Part One: Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001)

In this two part book review I will first focus on Walter Russel Mead’s Special Providence before turning in part two to Noam Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson’s new The Myth of American Idealism. Why bring together Mead and Chomsky/Robinson? To facilitate a discussion and hopefully produce some insight. Mead represents the thoughtful articulation of a more or less mainstream, relatively positive appraisal of American foreign policy, while Chomsky/Robinson offer a thoughtful leftist critique. 

First, Mead’s book. Mead is a foreign policy scholar who has taught at several universities, written for many journals and magazines, and held positions at the mainstream Council on Foreign Relations. He is also cofounder of the centrist New America Foundation. Although his book Special Providence was published in 2001, and thus does not tackle such fundamental issues as 9/11, the Iraq War, and the more recent global populist turn, it is both a powerful overview of the history of American foreign policy and a remarkably prescient look at developments that were just starting to percolate at the turn of the twenty-first century.

To begin with, Mead says, “The United States has had a remarkably successful history in international relations.” (8). He gives examples of successful maneuvering with and against European powers that date back to the American Revolution and on through the Civil War. Mead notes that “within a generation after the Civil War, the United States became a recognized world power while establishing an unchallenged hegemony in the Western hemisphere.” (8).

This culminates, according to Mead, in a situation where in 2001 “the United States is not only the sole global power, its values inform a global consensus, and it dominates to an unprecedented degree the formation of the first truly global civilization our planet has known.” (10). He then goes on to compare this to many of the failed foreign policies of other powers, from misguided follies to immoral conquests. And this raises important questions: What counts as a successful foreign policy? How might one measure this? What counts as a moral foreign policy? We will return to these evaluative questions later. For now we must ask: Why has American foreign policy been so successful, according to Mead?

Mead sees four traditions of American foreign policy, each named after a key figure in American history: Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, and Jacksonian. Mead’s thesis is that American foreign policy has been remarkably successful through the effective debate, confrontation, and collaboration between these four competing perspectives. Each of the four have made valuable contributions to American successes and have helped to correct for the shortcomings and blindspots of their rivals. What defines each school?

Hamiltonian: This school, named for Secretary of the Treasury and Federalist Papers coauthor Alexander Hamilton, is focused on using American power to maintain a stable international order for trade and free commerce. Historically Hamiltonians used protectionist policies to build strong American industries but over the course of the twentieth century became the key group in American foreign policy pushing for establishing an international capitalist order, through force if necessary.

Wilsonian:  This school, named for President Woodrow Wilson, focuses on spreading democracy and human rights to the countries and peoples of the world, partly through the framework of international law and human rights, partly through armed intervention. Both the Wilsonian and Hamiltonian perspectives are more than willing to bring these imperatives about through military force. They are, more or less, the dominant mainstream perspectives of American foreign policy and empire. 

The Hamiltonian and Wilsonian perspectives are internationalist in focus and built around regular armed intervention in service of their goals. In Mead’s words, “politically the first 140 years or so of American independence were not a quiet time in American foreign relations. Virtually every presidential administration from Washington’s to Wilson’s sent American forces abroad or faced one or more war crises with a great European power.” (17).

In the early pages of the book Mead effectively shows how an active, interventionist foreign policy has been a defining feature of American history, even during the supposedly more isolationist 19th century. And of course in the 20th century, as the US became a great power, it famously intervened in Latin America and elsewhere with regularity.

So what about the other two schools? The Jeffersonian and Jacksonian perspectives are more internally focused and as such have been less dominant within the mainstream of American foreign policy. To simplify, one could say that the Jeffersonian perspective is a sort of leftist view and the Jacksonian a right-populist one, whereas the Hamiltonian and Wilsonian perspectives are both centrist. 

Jeffersonian: This school, named after President Thomas Jefferson, is concerned primarily with expanding democratic freedom at home and harbors considerable worries over the concentration of state and corporate power, not to mention a skepticism of militarism and empire. As Mead says, “Jeffersonians have worried about the ability of large economic concentrations to infringe on popular liberty.” (179). This means they tend to be focused on reducing corporate power at home and promoting more authentic democracy in the United States. Initially Mead resists categorizing the Jeffersonian school as left-wing. After all, there are right and left Jeffersonians but all are anti-authoritarian and anti-interventionist. Think of the Iraq War of 2003 (which began after Mead’s book): it was opposed both by leftists and right-wing libertarians. Jeffersonian’s fundamentally focus on preserving the American experiment in self-government. He calls it a “defensive spirit.” (181). Indeed, “fewer things were clearer to the Jeffersonians than that the growth of the American republic into an intercontinental empire was a bad business all around.” (184). Yes, and this is why Jeffersonians tend to be left-leaning critics of the foreign policy consensus.

Jacksonian: This school, named after soldier and President Andrew Jackson, is generally a folksy, populist perspective of the right, embodied by figures like Pat Buchanan (and now Donald Trump). Whereas conventional Republicans often combined elements of Hamilton and Wilson, the Trump-friendly right is more Jacksonian. He also says it “is less an intellectual or political movement than it is an expression of the social, cultural, and religious values of a large portion of the American public.” (226). The whole chapter, but especially pages 238-240, offers powerful insight into the history of the populist Jacksonian impulse in American life—indeed, it is a stunning depiction of Trump’s populist appeal today.

But as for foreign policy, Mead characterizes it is a form of realism, not overly concerned with international law, norms, or human rights, but rather focused on “honor, concern for reputation, and faith in military institutions.” (245). Jacksonians believe the US “must be vigilant, strongly armed. Our diplomacy must be cunning, forceful, and no more scrupulous than any other country.” (246). They are not isolationists; however, “in the absence of a clearly defined threat to the national interest, Jacksonian opinion is much less aggressive.” (245-246). 

Thus, Jacksonians are not particularly interested in constructing and maintaining a world order. Mead points to opposition to American intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s among both Jeffersonians on the left and Jacksonians on the right. Jeffersonians worry that democracy is undermined by the military and corporate imperatives of empire; Jacksonians worry that we will spend unnecessary blood and treasure mucking about in some place we don’t belong—hence they sometimes team up to oppose action abroad. 

But Jacksonians are not pacifistic. If the US is attacked, like at Pearl Harbor or on 9/11, they can become the most supportive force for military action. In the aftermath of 9/11 neoconservatives were able to mobilize Jacksonian support for the War on Terror. But two decades later Jacksonian opinion seems to have moved back to a reluctance to waste American lives intervening directly in the Middle East.

What is the upshot of this analysis? For Mead, the debate and competition between these four perspectives has led to considerable success in American foreign policy. Here is, in sum, what Mead sees as the fundamental triumph of 20th century American foreign policy: Winning the Cold War and presiding over the international political and economic system as its undisputed leader. “It contained the Soviet Union and brought about the collapse of the European communist system without fighting a nuclear war.” (54). In a sense Mead’s praise of American foreign policy sounds similar to that of David Runciman in The Confidence Trap. Democratic policy can often be complex and look like a mess but democracies tend to muddle through even the worst crises and on to success after success.

What are some criticisms of Mead? The biggest, at least for those of us on the left, is that he too often euphemistically passes over the realities of empire, which sound mild enough when seen through the lens of words like intervention, order, regime change, and the like. The reality is a fair bit uglier. Nearly constant war-making, support for murderous dictators, and interference in other country’s elections are just some of the realities of empire when you peel back the rhetoric of “stability” and “interventions.”

Mead, to his credit, criticizes many elements of European imperialism and certain American injustices, like supporting Pinochet in Chile. But this points to a fundamental difference between the mainstream and the leftist perspective—are these features of American empire, like supporting dictators, overthrowing democracies, etc., regrettable aberrations or systemic features of American foreign policy?

According to Mead, the idealistic Wilsonian perspective, but really all mainstream parts of American foreign policy, “see Wilsonian ideals as defining the norm of American foreign policy, and interpret its other aspects as unfortunate and temporary deviations from it.” (171). Yes, this does seem to be the dominant narrative in the US. But how does it relate to reality? When you actually start to run through the many military interventions in American history they start to look less like aberrations and more like fundamental features of maintaining imperial order. And if overthrowing governments we dislike (including democracies), waging regular wars, nurturing a massive national security state, sending weapons abroad, and occupying countries, are the everyday cost of empire, they demand a serious (and morally informed response). This Mead largely fails to do. And it is here that the leftist critique of American foreign policy makes it case. (We will explore these questions in detail in the Chomsky/Robinson book review).

How does Mead see foreign policy? His account of American foreign policy is generally idealist, in that competing schools of thought seem to be the biggest drivers. Yes, he recognizes that there may be economic factors, competing interests, elite machinations, and so on, but seems to suggest American foreign policy is primarily the outcome of a pluralistic competition of ideas among elites.

In his words, “each of the four schools that together represent the American foreign policy debate makes distinct contributions to national power, and each is well matched with the others—capable of complementing one another and of flexibly combining in many ways to meet changing circumstances.” (311). And this is a powerful and evocative way to explain and understand that history.

He finishes with an assessment of how the foreign policy elite has become increasingly out of touch with ordinary Americans and how this may have consequences in the future. For a book published in 2001 it has some prescient insights into the budding populist rebellion that was then still lurking beneath the surface.

It’s a well-written and thoughtful assessment throughout. But as mentioned above, the account is also somewhat amoral. Mead recognizes that the US makes some strategic mistakes but this in itself is not a moral critique. When he does recognize that the US has done something morally wrong it seems like these policies are dismissed as minor departures from a broader trend of (relatively unproblematic) success. But the critique from the left presses much harder here: Was the Vietnam War, for instance, a regrettable mistake or an unjust war? How one answers the question is not a trivial matter.

A different concern, regarding his typology:  Where do neocons fit into his four-part scheme? How about the broader category of national security hawks? These seem to combine elements of Hamilton, Wilson, and Jackson, but is this the most helpful way to see them? These questions matter, though I leave them hanging for now.

Overall Mead is most interested in an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the four schools he identifies and less in a condemnation or celebration of any school. As for his own opinion, he concludes by defending a sort of chastened, non-leftist Jeffersonian perspective, one that embraces American world dominion but seeks to do so at the least possible cost and with as little military intervention as possible. 

In part two I will turn to Chomsky and Robinson’s new book, which offers a leftist alternative to Mead. In that review I will also consider whether their perspective can fit into Mead’s four-part schema, most likely as a radical left Jeffersonian argument, one very distinct from Mead’s.