The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

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More About This Book

Overview

American democracy is informed by the 18th century’s most cutting edge thinking on society, economics, and government. We’ve learned some things in the intervening 230 years about self interest, social behaviors, and how the world works. Now, authors Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer argue that some fundamental assumptions about citizenship, society, economics, and government need updating. For many years the dominant metaphor for understanding markets and government has been the machine. Liu and Hanauer view democracy not as a machine, but as a garden. A successful garden functions according to the inexorable tendencies of nature, but it also requires goals, regular tending, and an understanding of connected ecosystems. The latest ideas from science, social science, and economics—the cutting-edge ideas of today—generate these simple but revolutionary ideas:

True self interest is mutual interest. (Society, it turns out, is an ecosystem that is healthiest when we take care of the whole.)

Society becomes how we behave. (The model of citizenship depends on contagious behavior, hence positive behavior begets positive behavior.)

We’re all better off when we’re all better off. (The economy is not an efficient machine. It’s an effective garden that need tending. Adjust the definition of wealth to society creating solutions for all.)

Government should be about the big what and the little how. (Government should establish the ideas and the goals, and then let the people find the solutions of how to make it happen.)

Freedom is responsibility. (True freedom is not about living some variant of libertarianism but rather an active cooperation a part of a big whole society; freedom costs a little freedom.)

The Gardens of Democracy is an optimistic, provocative, and timely summons to improve our role as citizens in a democratic society.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781570618239
  • Publisher: Sasquatch Books
  • Publication date: 11/8/2011
  • Pages: 192
  • Sales rank: 239
  • Product dimensions: 7.02 (w) x 4.86 (h) x 0.66 (d)

Meet the Author

Eric Liu

Eric Liu, twenty-nine, has been a speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and a commentator for MSNBC. A regular contributor to Slate,
he has also written for The Washington
Post Magazine and USA Weekend. After founding The Next Progressive, an acclaimed journal of opinion, he edited the anthology Next:
Young American Writers on the New Generation. He is a graduate of Yale College and is now enrolled at Harvard Law School.

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Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Posted December 14, 2011

    Chauncey Gardner in "Being There" needed Eric and Nick as his speech writers!

    I read it in one night! That's an accomplishment for me. I subscribe to much of this thinking & seeing it actually on paper and organized was terrific and made me feel better about my convictions. It will be a tough sale to right wing Baby Boomers but it's written in a way that even they might give it a second thought. Young People these days subscribe more and more to this type of thinking and the education system is integrating it more and more into their curriculums thank goodness. Now if you can just incorporate the thinking of Gene Roddenberry I'd be happy.

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 3, 2012

    This is a great book.

    This a book based on common sense. Something lost in our modern political system.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 29, 2012

    No text was provided for this review.

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