comes this short work from Cass Sunstein. With the dominance of conservativism since Reagan (including during the Clinton presidency) liberal thought has been fasting in the same desert where the Conservatives of the 60’s languished for so long. Cass Sunstein seems to be one of the intellectual lights of the left that is trying to lead our country back to the path of social responsibility that characterised this country’s “mission statement” from the presidency of Roosevelt until Reagan broke with the idea of a social contract, replacing it with 80’s style laissez faire. Sunstein attempts to remind us of the social contract that used to exist between the government and the people. At one time it was taken for granted that government’s function was to protect both negative and positive rights. These positive rights included the right to work, the right to a living wage, the right to leisure, medical care, and security in old age. In FDR’s view, government acted to regulate the predatory nature of capitalism, thus effectively protecting capitalism from itself. Sunstein describes how the contract evolved, and also presents an argument for the modern reader trying to pursuade us to reclaim that view of government. Sunstein is somewhat weak as a historian (at least in this book) but he argues very strongly in favor of restoring this functionality to government. It’s worth reading if you like progressive political theory.