In this profound and incisive work, Angelo M. Codevilla introduces readers to the Ruling Class, the group of bipartisan political elites who run America. This Ruling Class, educated at prestigious universities and convinced of its own superiority, has everything to gain by raising taxes and expanding the reach of government. This class maintains that it knows what is best and continually increases its power over every facet of American life, from family and marriage to the environment, guns, and God.It is becoming increasingly apparent that this Ruling Class does not represent the interests of the majority of Americans, who value self-rule and the freedom on whose promise America was founded. Millions of Americans are now reasserting our right to obey the Constitution, not the Ruling Class. This desire transcends all organizations and joins independents, Republicans, and Democrats into The Country Party, whose members embody the ideas and habits that made America great. The majority of Americans feel that the Ruling Class is demeaning us, impoverishing us, demoralizing us, and want to be rid of it.
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About the Author
Angelo M. Codevilla is professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University. Educated at Rutgers, Notre Dame, and the Claremont graduate university, Codevilla served in the US Navy, the US Foreign Service, and on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He taught philosophy at Georgetown, and spent a decade at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He has written 10 previous books.
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103 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Political Elite Versus The People,
By anarchteacher (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It (Paperback)
For thirty years I have been hammering away about the crucial importance of understanding "power elite analysis" or "libertarian class analysis" in order to make sense of how American society operates. Historic events are not random and unconnected but fall within an intelligible political/economic context.
This is clearly something our Founding Fathers knew well. They spelled this out for all the world to see and reflect upon in the Declaration of Independence. (See my Amazon.com Listmania! "Libertarian Class Analysis" for more book titles on this vital subject.) I have never seen this stated in such a clear and eloquent manner than in Angelo M. Codevilla's new book, The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America And What We Can Do About It. It should be read by everyone concerned with the future of our nation, and shared with friends, family, colleagues, etc. Dr. Codevilla's original article which forms the heart and soul of this volume was published in the July-August edition of The American Spectator. It is the most important essay I have ever read. He has expanded upon this initial article in this compact but concise paperback. For the first time I have begun to understand how generations of leftist intellectuals and activists were passionately moved and inspired by the Communist Manifesto of 1848, or how our own American Revolutionaries were motivated in 1776 by Tom Paine's stirring Common Sense, clearly elucidating the case for American independence from British tyranny and oppression. Codevilla has written a true American manifesto for our time, a brilliant analytical framework and dramatic call to action that will motivate millions in the Freedom Movement, the Tea Parties, and in the general society at-large. His work draws on the pioneering scholarship of Bernard Bailyn (The Origins of American Politics, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution) and Murray Rothbard (Conceived in Liberty, The Ethics of Liberty) in seeing American politics as two adversarial classes at war with each other -- an arrogant elite ruling class and "the country class" -- the rest of us held at bay. It deserves the widest possible readership and distribution possible.
109 of 116 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Declaration for Independence,
By
This review is from: The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It (Paperback)
Codevilla thesis divides the country into two halves to make his case. These are not the typical talking points that the left drones on about: the haves and the have nots (John Edwards two Americas garbage), rather Codevilla's two classes are those who feed the political elites and the political elites themselves.
According to Codevilla remarkable thesis the keys to power and becoming an elite has little to do with wealth. A Texan oilman or a Missouri real estate developer may be worth tens of millions of dollars, as much if not more than the top tier of Codevilla elites. It's the elites and their functionaries' ability to expropriate the wealth of the non-politically connected that makes them powerful, comfortable and provides them with wealthy. The elites through their control of government determines who gets to put his hand in the till and who pays into that till. This explains why the majority of careerists who rely on the tax dollars of others so readily and willingly vote democrat. The keys of power are also bestowed to those who belong to the right circles. The right circles include the nation's elite ivy league universities, think tanks and journalistic outfits. These, as Codevilla illustrates with Clarence Thomas, doesn't guarantee you a seat at the table of the elites but they are most certainly required. As with the example of Lawrence Tribe, all sins can be forgiven if you belong and talk the talk. The original vision of America was and still is one of the crowning achievements in human history but its core principles have been eroded by Codevilla's elites. These United States has been replaced with The United States indicating a shift from federalism to federal authority. Equality of opportunity has been supplanted by equality of outcome. A Republic has been replaced with an Oligarchy. The rule of law has become the rule of man. Leaders have been replaced with rulers. Americans don't appreciate being "ruled" by our betters and are not pleased that our meritocracy has been replaced with nepotism. Codevilla thesis is long overdue and should have a significant impact.
58 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A 'Country Class' Insight,
By
This review is from: The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It (Paperback)
What a refreshing change from the fare we're used to seeing from the academy. The book's title suggested a thesis of Marxist class dichotomy, but Professor Codevilla handles what I call America's "predator class" in far more thoughtful, nuanced analysis.
His discussion of the 'home-schooling' movement is particularly welcome. Ours is a second-generation homeschooling family, and I find this author's characterization of home-based learning (history's preferred venue) a breath of fresh air. I also appreciate the proper framing of urban-vs-rural worldview and folkways: nearly antithetical. The media has long portrayed urban life as normative and rural life as 'flyover country'. Professor Codevilla brings us back to the reality of the ages. Bravo. Where I would disagree with this otherwise superb treatise is in the somewhat false class dichotomy. By James Madison's plan -- which is after all our Supreme Law -- 'We The People' are the sovereigns over every governmental tool of ruse and plunder that the mercantilists may dream up. This is what the author is describing: the predator class, who for 150 years has used Congress to soak the working man. But the very act of calling them a 'ruling class' only exacerbates the problem of citizen abdication of duty. In Chapter 12 of my book This Bloodless Liberty, I expose the dizzying array of parasite classes who exist in symbiosis with the predator class and with "America's Illegals", the U.S. Congress. The domestic enemy of the American Dream is far more extensive than the monied class. But in that book, I also explain that AmericaAgain! -- a three-pronged citizens' self-governance mechanism -- is the end of politics and the beginning of informed self-government. The 'Country Class' can have a solution without having to do battle directly against wealthy, powerful folk. Simply cut their illicit puppet-strings to Congress. This is explained at JoinAmericaAgain (dot) com. Professor Codevilla's us/them dichotomy of a 'ruling class' stands against James Madison's ideal in designing the constitutional republic where by Supreme Law, We The People are the 'ruling class' -- all of us. We have only to take up our long-neglected duties of oversight and law enforcement. In this Internet Age, we have now found a way to do so with withering effectiveness, for the rest of history. That said, I highly recommend Codevilla's book for grasping the lay of the land as it is today.
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