Churchill and the Two Variants of Democracy

IF 1.8 4区经济学 Q3 ECONOMICS

American Journal of Economics and Sociology Pub Date : 2026-03-08 Epub Date: 2026-01-06 DOI:10.1111/ajes.70026

Fred Harrison

引用次数: 0

Abstract

In his early political career, before World War I, Winston Churchill was a radical. His first campaign was based on a promise to deliver authentic democracy by establishing economic rights to share wealth broadly. At the hustings, he fought the good fight. When it came to drafting the legislation on fiscal reform, however, he dissembled. This allowed for the continuation of a variant of democracy in which free riders (the idle rich) exercise veto power over tax policies. Statecraft remained compromised. Churchill's vision of a politics funded out of society's net income (rent) remained unfulfilled. Why Churchill failed needs to be understood if we are to enhance the prospects of reshaping statecraft in the 21st century.

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《丘吉尔与民主的两种变体

在他早期的政治生涯中，在第一次世界大战之前，温斯顿·丘吉尔是一个激进分子。他的第一次竞选是基于承诺通过建立广泛分享财富的经济权利来实现真正的民主。在竞选活动中，他打得很好。然而，在起草财政改革法案时，他却故作掩饰。这使得一种变种的民主得以延续，在这种民主中，搭便车者（无所事事的富人）对税收政策行使否决权。治国方略仍然受到损害。丘吉尔关于建立一个由社会净收入（租金）资助的政治的设想仍然没有实现。如果我们想要在21世纪重塑治国方略，就必须理解丘吉尔失败的原因。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

American Journal of Economics and Sociology Multiple-

CiteScore

1.90

自引率

12.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (AJES) was founded in 1941, with support from the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, to encourage the development of transdisciplinary solutions to social problems. In the introduction to the first issue, John Dewey observed that “the hostile state of the world and the intellectual division that has been built up in so-called ‘social science,’ are … reflections and expressions of the same fundamental causes.” Dewey commended this journal for its intention to promote “synthesis in the social field.” Dewey wrote those words almost six decades after the social science associations split off from the American Historical Association in pursuit of value-free knowledge derived from specialized disciplines. Since he wrote them, academic or disciplinary specialization has become even more pronounced. Multi-disciplinary work is superficially extolled in major universities, but practices and incentives still favor highly specialized work. The result is that academia has become a bastion of analytic excellence, breaking phenomena into components for intensive investigation, but it contributes little synthetic or holistic understanding that can aid society in finding solutions to contemporary problems. Analytic work remains important, but in response to the current lop-sided emphasis on specialization, the board of AJES has decided to return to its roots by emphasizing a more integrated and practical approach to knowledge.