Assumptions about the nature of human beings and about the purposes of social life are
fundamental building blocks of political thinking. The political assumptions and economic beliefs
Write a paper on political economy held by a society about the relationship between the state and the individual, and the
state and the market, provide the boundaries of acceptable and viable political and policy options.
Additionally, our politics is defined and shaped by personal and family experience, group identity, as
well as by religion and culture. In fact, these are often much stronger factors than systemic ideology.
American political history can be understood as developing in response to a series of American
crises the rise of wage labor, the Civil War, rampant industrialization, severe wealth inequality, the
Great Depression, the culture war of the Sixties, the culture war of the today!, the threat of
terrorism, the environmental crisis, racial, gender and civil rights issues … and, now, COVID,
conspiracy theory run amok, an assault on truth and reason, extreme tribalism, and, extreme polarization
and Trumpism.
The American political system is under assault.
American political culture and history has been informed by four dominant belief systems
republicanism, liberalism, conservatism and radicalism.
Republicanism holds that political activity must be carried on in the spirit of republican virtue.
Citizens must be willing, often heroically, to undertake political action on the basis of a commitment to
the common good. Essentially, republicanism places the public good above the private good and
advocates for a political economy wherein the common good and communal rights are preeminent to
individual rights.
Liberalism takes the individual as the basic unit of politics and sees the individuals development
as the central criterion for the success or failure of any political system. Liberalism assumes that people
are self-interested, rational, and protecting individual liberty and property rights should be the
preeminent goal of a social order.
Conservatism posits that society comes first that it exists apart from the individuals who
happen to make it up at any particular time. People have no claims prior to those of society except those
that society gives them in furthering their own needs. Similar to republicanism, conservatism, however,
tends to view human nature in less favorable terms.
Radicalism argues that true democracy requires even greater equality than has been achieved,
especially in social and economic matters as well as through the fuller and more meaningful
participation or ordinary citizens in public affairs. Radicalism assumes that people are generally good,
and that the status quo is not insurmountable.
Therefore,
Your assignment is to write a 5-6 page, double-spaced, 1-inch margined, 12cpi persuasive
analytic essay that presents your prescription for the American political system and the future
American government and politics. This is your chance to describe and defend your ideal version of
an American political system as we move forward in time.
Specifically, you are to:
1.) address and defend what you believe American political culture should be.
2.) identify and defend your version of a political system that addresses our contemporary crises,
yet does so in a way that is consistent with your American system.
