Entry 1:

Dear John,

Good grief, a Dear John letter. Somehow "Dear John" doesn't seem a suitably innovative beginning for Slate's first two-author "Book Club." Nor, I suppose, would it be entirely appropriate to begin by mentioning, however justifiably, that both our books are riveting and inspirational from first page to last, to say nothing of reasonably priced.

Instead, let me lay out why I think our two books are worth discussing together. As it happens, we're published simultaneously (though your book is completely new, whereas mine revises and rethinks my 1994 book Demosclerosis), and we both begin with more or less the same question. Why has ambitious reform become so difficult in Washington, even when the voters and the "national interest," however one defines that, seem to demand it?

Though at times we sound similar themes, our approaches cut into the problem at right angles to each other. And this particular difference of viewpoint goes, I think, to the very heart of the contemporary dispute about government, so let me try to schematize it. (Warning and apology: In doing so, I necessarily oversimplify both our theses.)

In your view (if I read you right), the state of government and politics at any given time reflects the balance of power in a long-term struggle between several large sectors of American society: left vs. right, labor vs. business, and national or encompassing interest vs. private or parochial interest. As a liberal, you ally yourself with the first of each pair, but your analysis could apply even if you took the other side. Going back to the Progressives of a century ago, you argue that periods of change happen when labor and public-interested reformers team up with enlightened elites--business leaders, leading intellectuals, the media, and so on--to champion reform in the public interest.

So what went wrong? As I understand your view, in the 1960s the progressive forces made a lot of headway and business fought back. This time, however, corporate interests not only lobbied for bills they wanted; they also opened conservative think tanks, bought sympathetic research, and went on the warpath against media "liberalism." "The conservatives rejected the very idea of a dispassionate and disinterested elite that could focus on the national interest," you write. "Instead of creating a new elite, they undermined what it meant for the country to have one. The new groups, in contrast to the old, did not seek to be above class, party, and ideology. On the contrary, they were openly probusiness and conservative."

By buying out elites and swamping the political system with money, business interests were able to stymie needed reform. The result has been "continued stalemate." I mean no insult to your book when I say that I regard it as an excellent statement of a familiar liberal critique. Your emphasis on the role of elites strikes me as fresh and significant, but mostly I think Ralph Nader would find little to disagree with in your thesis. A cruder formulation, commonly heard among folks like the ones who protested the World Trade Organization ministerial last year in Seattle, is: "Corporate America hijacked the process."

My book argues that this sort of critique isn't so much wrong on the facts as an outmoded way of thinking. It's as though I looked at a traffic jam and said, "Too many black cars--that's what's causing this!" I'd be misunderstanding the problem in a way that hinders coping with it. It seems to me that corporate influence is a secondary player in Washington's problems. The really big story is the fantastic proliferation of interest groups of every sort since the 1960s--including business lobbies--and a dizzying multiplicity of liberal activist groups, such as environmental and consumer and civil-rights lobbies, and also including an ever growing spectrum of narrowly targeted groups (such as the National Association of Development Organizations) that don't fit in the old-style business/labor, left/right boxes. No side can dominate; in fact, there aren't clear-cut "sides" anymore but a bewildering and growing profusion. As more groups form and lobby, they draw in still more groups, each defending against all. Washington is now a giant casino in which you can't win if you don't play--but boy, can you lose. Naturally, everybody plays.

As groups accumulate, each colonizes some program or other piece of the government, which it defends to the death. The result is that policy-makers, unable to get rid of anything old, have less and less room to innovate, and Washington loses its ability to adapt and solve problems. Who wins? Not liberals, whose reforms are stymied, or conservatives, who can't significantly scale back government; not business, which watches as government takes back with one hand what it gives with the other. The only consistent beneficiary is the professional lobbying and politicking class, which always wins no matter who else loses.

A substantial body of both theory and experience suggests that the accumulation of lobbies and permanent programs is not reversible, even in principle. It can be managed--in my book, I try to consider how--but never unwound. The modern left--and, for that matter, the modern right--have yet to take on board this new reality. Their calls for a nimbler Washington guided by enlightened reformists, or for a smaller Washington returning its powers to the states, are wishful thinking.

Unlike you, I welcome the diversification of elite opinion since the 1960s; I see the rise of openly conservative (and liberal) think tanks, for instance, as a healthy broadening of debate. But even if I shared your view that a disinterested, public-spirited elite has been corrupted by money, I'd also have to say that the re-emergence of such an elite would make little or no difference today. There are just too many other players in the game.

Over to you ...