I first heard of Henry Sumner Maine and his book Popular Government several years ago, back when Neoreaction was a growing, relevant school on the Right. Indeed, Popular Government was reviewed by such NRx stalwarts as Foseti and Radish, both obscure now but highly regarded in their own niche, not long ago in the grand scheme of things, but in internet terms they may as well have been contemporaries of the presocratics.
I bring up these older blogs because they’re from a time when the Right had a more theoretical focus than now. Much of the discussion in Reactionary circles was on precisely how states operate and how to design a state than functions well – and, for that matter, what it means for a state to be well-functioning. Today there’s much more focus on contemporary events, for better and worse, but it’s still worthwhile to consider the fundamentals of political thought. Maine’s primary value to current readers is assistance in thinking clearly about government, and about democracy in particular. Perhaps the key line in the whole book is something that sounds extremely obvious:
Democracy is a form of government.…