Bob P.'s American Life

Yes, it's seventeenth century time. Back in 1689, the English philosopher John Locke published his two Treatises of Government. I bring up a writer who's been dead for more than 300 years because I believe that his understanding of government is more relevant today than ever. For those of you who care, Locke has recently come into the limelight as the result of Steven Pinker's new book on the Enlightenment and the resulting criticisms of it (one, in fact, in last week's Wall Street Journal). I'm happy to go into this in more detail if you would care to do so. For the moment, however, let's stick to Locke's essays and their current relevance. Ok, so way back when, Locke argued that human beings, whereas they may have tendencies to selfishness and egotism, are generally reasonable, endowed with goodwill toward others. In other words, like you and I think of ourselves. This being so, people established governments to cooperate with each other and facilitate s...