THE FUTURE: Needed for America: Fewer Claims, More Growth

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Education has not helped curb the swollen claims on society, argue several of the authors in a critical assessment of the American elite, which they call "the New Class." The New Class is professionals—lawyers, city planners, social workers, educators, civil servants—who have been educated to expect too much of their government and feel betrayed when it fails to meet their demands. In a biting historical analysis, Seymour Lipset, professor of government at Harvard, finds this attitude to be an outgrowth of the exaggerated moralism in American politics. Social movements, he writes, have "sought to attain their ends regardless of the damage caused by their tactics and rhetoric to the society. The moralists typically react in horror to the corrupt and illegal—sometimes extreme —tactics of their opponents, unaware that they themselves are engaging in similar illegal behavior."

Irving Kristol, Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban Values at New York University, maintains that the crusade for more social programs and Government intervention masks a striving for power: "Though they continue to speak the language of Progressive-reform," writes Kristol, "in actuality they are acting upon a hidden agenda: to propel the nation from that modified version of capitalism we call 'the welfare state' toward an economic system so stringently regulated in detail as to fulfill many of the traditional anti-capitalist aspirations of the Left." Kristol fears that under the clothing of "public interest" the New Class is trying to introduce national economic plans and other "neosocialist themes" that will radically transform society.

One of the more unexpected theses of the issue is that, in face of the increasing demands on Government, the powers of the presidency have diminished, not increased, as the critics of the "imperial presidency" allege.

For example, Samuel Huntington makes a persuasive case that Harry Truman governed with the assistance of a small band of influential Wall Street lawyers and bankers. Now the upheavals of the '60s and '70s have so weakened the authority of Government that this New York establishment has been overwhelmed by other power groups —environmentalists, consumerists, feminists, blacks, etc.—reflecting antagonistic special interests. It is much harder now for the President to put together the coalition of key groups and individuals that he needs to govern effectively.

Groping for ways to revive American confidence in government, the writers suggest the revival of compromise in politics. Huntington urges the depolarization of issues in favor of more civility; Bell urges "a policy of inclusion whereby disadvantaged groups have priority social policy." Though the authors offer an admittedly gloomy prognosis for democracy in America, the vitality of their analyses suggests that cures for at least part of the distemper of the times may be on the way.

ECONOMIST: Democracy's Go-Getters