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  Road to the Middle Class
Monday October 27, 2025 
by Christopher Chantrill Follow chrischantrill on Twitter

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 CHAPTERS

An American Manifesto

by Christopher Chantrill

  

Crisis of the Administrative State
  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  

Government and the Technology of Force
  If you scratch a reformer, you will likely discover a plan for more government  

Business, Slavery and Trust
  Business is all about trust and relationship.  

Humanity’s Big Problem: Freeloaders
  The modern welfare state encourages freeloaders.  

The Bonds of Faith
  No society known to anthropology or history has lacked religion.  

A Critique of Human Mechanics
  When governments tried to govern on mechanical principles.  

The Paradox of Individualism
  People that believe in individualism experience individualism as an advanced form of socialization.  

From Multitude to Civil Society
  Softening the hard edge of instrumental reason.  

The Answer is Civil Society
  Civil Society: the joint development of the market, civil society, and nationalism.  

The Greater Separation of Powers
  If you want to limit power you must limit power.  

Conservatism Three by Three
  Balancing tradition with adapting to changing times.  

Imagining a Culture of Involvement
  You must suggest an alternative.  

The Poor Without the Welfare State
  What would happen to the poor without a welfare state?  

The Middle Class Without the Welfare State
  Can the middle class thrive without the supervision of the welfare state?  

Liberals and the Welfare State
  Liberals ought to be equal to the task of living lives of creative endeavor without political power.  

From Freeloaders to Free Givers
  But are we too wedded to freeloading?  

The Real Meaning of Society
  Broadening the horizon of cooperation in the “last best hope of man on earth.”  

Why We Fight
  We must fight for our “shining city on a hill”


 

Books:

Road to the Middle Class from country to city. Price: $0.99 at Amazon. Or download for free. US Government Spending 2022, from usgovernment-spending.com. Price: $1.99 at Amazon. An American Manifesto about life after liberalism. Price: $0.99 at Amazon.
Or download for free.

To email the author, click here.

MANIFESTO

A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners of America Unite!

 TAGS


Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990


Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society


Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State


Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures


German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate. 
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West


Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities


Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.”  —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison


Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism


 

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