Gordon Arlen
Biographic Data
| ID | 955405 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gordon Arlen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gordon |
| FAMILY NAME | Arlen |
| SIGNATURE | ARLEN G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3558-7070 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 39 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy
New perspectives on the legitimacy of international institutions and power
In democracies around the world, political forces calling for a rollback of globalization are on the ascendancy. Longstanding consensus about the benefits of free trade and human rights and around the legitimacy of the international institutions enabling these goods has been questioned by successful populist politicians on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Some even claim that the entire liberal international order has become contested, per…
Liberal Plebeianism: John Stuart Mill on Democracy, Oligarchy, and Working-Class Mobilization
How should democratic societies address inequality in an age of plutocratic encroachment and populist indignation? What role should popular movements play in progressive reform efforts? This article turns to the nineteenth-century liberalism of John Stuart Mill for insights on an essential challenge facing democracy today: how to mobilize social movements against intensifying oligarchic threats while safeguarding liberal-democratic values. I adva…
Is this what democracy looks like? (Never mind epistocracy)
This essay is a critical study of Jason Brennan's Against Democracy. We make three main points. First, we argue that Brennan's proposal of a right to competent government only works if one considers the absence of government a viable proposition, something most of his opponents are not prepared to do. Second, we suggest that Brennan's account of competent decision-making is blind to forms of oligarchic power that work against the very ideals of j…
Getting Real about Taxes: Offshore Tax Sheltering and Realism's Ethic of Responsibility
This article tackles the issue of offshore tax sheltering from the perspective of normative political realism. Tax sheltering is a pressing contemporary policy challenge, with hundreds of billions in private assets protected in offshore trusts and shell companies. Indeed, tax sheltering produces a variety of empirical dilemmas that render it a distinctive challenge for global governance. Therefore, it is crucial for normative political theorists …
Citizen Tax Juries: Democratizing Tax Enforcement after the Panama Papers
Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant …
Must Realists Be Pessimists About Democracy? Responding to Epistemic and Oligarchic Challenges
In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decisi…
Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it can do Better
Aristotle and the problem of oligarchic harm: Insights for democracy
This essay identifies ‘oligarchic harm’ as a dire threat confronting contemporary democracies. I provide a formal standard for classifying oligarchs: those who use personal access to concentrated wealth to pursue harmful forms of discretionary influence. I then use Aristotle to think through both the moral and the epistemic dilemmas of oligarchic harm, highlighting Aristotle’s concerns about the difficulties of using wealth as a ‘proxy’ for virtu…
Cold War Prophecy and the Burdens of Comparative Thought: A Case for Revisiting Louis Hartz
This article revisits Louis Hartz's distinctive contribution to American political thought. Pushing against his reputation as an overly complacent consensus historian, I highlight Hartz's forceful critique of America's liberal blindness, a critique reaching back to the Founding and culminating in an engagement with the politics of his own Cold War moment. Alarmed by the rise of McCarthyism, Hartz warned against an intensifying Americanism at home…
Aristotle and the problem of oligarchic harm: Insights for democracy
This essay identifies ‘oligarchic harm’ as a dire threat confronting contemporary democracies. I provide a formal standard for classifying oligarchs: those who use personal access to concentrated wealth to pursue harmful forms of discretionary influence. I then use Aristotle to think through both the moral and the epistemic dilemmas of oligarchic harm, highlighting Aristotle’s concerns about the difficulties of using wealth as a ‘proxy’ for virtu…
Citizen Tax Juries: Democratizing Tax Enforcement after the Panama Papers
Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant …
Liberal Plebeianism: John Stuart Mill on Democracy, Oligarchy, and Working-Class Mobilization
How should democratic societies address inequality in an age of plutocratic encroachment and populist indignation? What role should popular movements play in progressive reform efforts? This article turns to the nineteenth-century liberalism of John Stuart Mill for insights on an essential challenge facing democracy today: how to mobilize social movements against intensifying oligarchic threats while safeguarding liberal-democratic values. I adva…
Getting Real about Taxes: Offshore Tax Sheltering and Realism's Ethic of Responsibility
This article tackles the issue of offshore tax sheltering from the perspective of normative political realism. Tax sheltering is a pressing contemporary policy challenge, with hundreds of billions in private assets protected in offshore trusts and shell companies. Indeed, tax sheltering produces a variety of empirical dilemmas that render it a distinctive challenge for global governance. Therefore, it is crucial for normative political theorists …
Cold War Prophecy and the Burdens of Comparative Thought: A Case for Revisiting Louis Hartz
This article revisits Louis Hartz's distinctive contribution to American political thought. Pushing against his reputation as an overly complacent consensus historian, I highlight Hartz's forceful critique of America's liberal blindness, a critique reaching back to the Founding and culminating in an engagement with the politics of his own Cold War moment. Alarmed by the rise of McCarthyism, Hartz warned against an intensifying Americanism at home…
Cold War Prophecy and the Burdens of Comparative Thought: A Case for Revisiting Louis Hartz
This article revisits Louis Hartz's distinctive contribution to American political thought. Pushing against his reputation as an overly complacent consensus historian, I highlight Hartz's forceful critique of America's liberal blindness, a critique reaching back to the Founding and culminating in an engagement with the politics of his own Cold War moment. Alarmed by the rise of McCarthyism, Hartz warned against an intensifying Americanism at home…
Aristotle and the problem of oligarchic harm: Insights for democracy
This essay identifies ‘oligarchic harm’ as a dire threat confronting contemporary democracies. I provide a formal standard for classifying oligarchs: those who use personal access to concentrated wealth to pursue harmful forms of discretionary influence. I then use Aristotle to think through both the moral and the epistemic dilemmas of oligarchic harm, highlighting Aristotle’s concerns about the difficulties of using wealth as a ‘proxy’ for virtu…
Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it can do Better
Must Realists Be Pessimists About Democracy? Responding to Epistemic and Oligarchic Challenges
In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decisi…
Is this what democracy looks like? (Never mind epistocracy)
This essay is a critical study of Jason Brennan's Against Democracy. We make three main points. First, we argue that Brennan's proposal of a right to competent government only works if one considers the absence of government a viable proposition, something most of his opponents are not prepared to do. Second, we suggest that Brennan's account of competent decision-making is blind to forms of oligarchic power that work against the very ideals of j…
Getting Real about Taxes: Offshore Tax Sheltering and Realism's Ethic of Responsibility
This article tackles the issue of offshore tax sheltering from the perspective of normative political realism. Tax sheltering is a pressing contemporary policy challenge, with hundreds of billions in private assets protected in offshore trusts and shell companies. Indeed, tax sheltering produces a variety of empirical dilemmas that render it a distinctive challenge for global governance. Therefore, it is crucial for normative political theorists …
Citizen Tax Juries: Democratizing Tax Enforcement after the Panama Papers
Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant …
New perspectives on the legitimacy of international institutions and power
In democracies around the world, political forces calling for a rollback of globalization are on the ascendancy. Longstanding consensus about the benefits of free trade and human rights and around the legitimacy of the international institutions enabling these goods has been questioned by successful populist politicians on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Some even claim that the entire liberal international order has become contested, per…
Liberal Plebeianism: John Stuart Mill on Democracy, Oligarchy, and Working-Class Mobilization
How should democratic societies address inequality in an age of plutocratic encroachment and populist indignation? What role should popular movements play in progressive reform efforts? This article turns to the nineteenth-century liberalism of John Stuart Mill for insights on an essential challenge facing democracy today: how to mobilize social movements against intensifying oligarchic threats while safeguarding liberal-democratic values. I adva…
The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy
Law (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (7 works) · Democracy (6 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Law and economics (4 works) · Economics (3 works)