This book provides a selective history of political philosophy from its origins in ancient Greece to the present day. It is a “selective” history in that Wolin intends to present an argument not provide a comprehensive summary of political philosophy.

I was able to follow two major threads through the course of the book. The first thread was a changing view of the relationship between the State and the individual. Early thinkers believed that the State could and should be an instrument for improving its citizens, while contemporary thinkers see the State as reactive to the interests of the sovereign individual. The second thread relates to how political organizations confront contention between different interest groups. Wolin sees this contention as the central fact of political life, and shows how different eras have tried to deal with it or evade it.

The first political philosopher of whom we have a record is Plato. Plato believed that there was a universal Truth, and that the goal of political organization is to drive toward that Truth. Striving toward the Truth is in everyone’s interest, so a philosopher-ruler who brings the community into conformity with the Truth is not a tyrant even if his rulings go against the apparent interests of citizens: their true interests are preserved. He believed that the goal of political philosophy was to put an end to politics, where ‘politics’ means the contention for scarce resources. The community improves its citizens by bringing them into conformity with the universal Good.

Greek political thinking was intimately tied up with the modest size of Greek city-states. Their ideas had limited applicability during the Macedonian and Roman empires. The far-flung empires lacked a polis (community) that shared common interests. The Romans took a pragmatic approach to managing the empire, and did not produce any significant political philosophers. When philosophy began to catch up around 100 BC, the specific political ideas of the Greeks had been largely generalized, with a focus on their universal moral force.

The early Christian church, and Saint Augustine in particular, co-opted the morally instructive role of the Platonic philosopher-king. The congregation was the important social community with shared interests; the sole role of the state was to provide a peaceful environment in which Christians could pursue salvation. The separation of Church and State acknowledged the central role of conflict and conflict resolution as the province of politics. As an illustration of the continued relevance of this distinction, compare the connotations of the words “social” and “political,” both of which refer to shared actions within a community.

Machiavelli and Hobbes completed the process of separating the political from the social by attempting to identify purely political system of rules separate from any larger social context. Hobbes in particular was influenced by the example of natural science. Wolin also claims for Hobbes a very advanced view of philosophy as being primarily concerned with the proper definition of words, and the role of the monarch as “the sovereign definer.” Politics as a formal system.

With Locke and his successors in liberalism, society takes clear precedence over politics. In fact, they see politics as an epiphenomenon of social interactions. Liberals looked askance at general principles and were skeptical of the ability of political organizations to help improve its citizens. In the liberal view, “society” takes on many of the roles of the government in previous theories, including the monitoring of proper behavior. Economics comes to dominate politics — with important consequences, because economic and corporate interests are inherently competitive and non-communal. (Cf. Marx, who defined his “social” classes in economic terms.)

From this time forward, philosophers show a distinct preference for impersonal authority rather than an identifiable authority figure. Without a “sovereign definer” or single point of authority, a liberal society needs a new way to deal with contending definitions and interests. A pure democracy with majority rule does not satisfy all liberal thinkers, partly because it undermines the individualism and ambition that liberalism promotes. Some thinkers noted the latent totalitarianism in democracy, the ways in which the passions of the “mass” could be inflamed and manipulated. (Nietzsche saw democracy as a triumph of the weak, because it replaced a ruling elite with the common mass.)

From liberalism onwards, theorists take it for granted that men are selfish and restless and incorrigibly consumed with self-interest. The goal of constitutionalism is to design a bureaucratic system that diverts and directs self-interest. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” as the Federalist Papers say. In the idealistic Platonic society, the State molds and improves the citizen; in the realistic constitutional society, the State ameliorates the citizen’s basest tendencies.

In the first half of the twentieth century, liberal theory began to focus more on private freedom and on the politics of interest rather than on common action and shared advantages. This emphasis was a reaction against totalitarianism regimes, which had effectively harnessed the shared nationalism of their people. The emphasis on individual freedom has had repercussions through to the present day.

Wolin characterizes recent and contemporary political theory as “the age of organization.” All types of organizations, from corporations to churches to governments, are seen to have political elements. A key liberal idea — the primacy of economics — dominates our view of the proper role of the State.

Wolin would say that current American society is more liberal (in the original sense of the term) than democratic. A liberal society sees good policy as the principal agent of equality, where a democratic society sees active participation as the means to equality. A liberal society has particular goals that it wants to achieve, where a democratic society demands only that the goals be shared. In contemporary society, “the citizen [has been] shrunk to the voter” (p 565); that is, voting is the only demand made on the individual.

The current world stage is dominated by supranational organizations, both economically and politically. The central conflict is between two supranational entities, Superpower and Terrorism. A key difference, perhaps the key difference, is that Superpower grew out of a national entity and therefore can claim a legitimate use of violence. The legacies of liberal thought — lassez-faire economics, interest-based politics, policy-based government, indifferent political participation — have ensured relatively little resistance to the global reach of corporations and the concomitant growth of supranational States.