Thomas Paine's social-contract theory, which asserts the protection of individual rights as the sole end of civil society and the consent of the majority of individuals as the sole source of government's authority, may seem to be better suited to the democratic Constitution of the United States than Edmund Burke's theory of prescription of government. Burke's theory is based on the rational moral goals of civil society, not on the supremacy of the people's or any other will. It asserts that the natural ends of society are prior to rights as Paine and other radical democrats conceived of them and that natural obligation is prior to and controls consent. Burke can therefore afford us a more realistic interpretation of popular consent and of the Constitution as the political form that makes us a people. He also offers a useful corrective to the currently popular view of the Supreme Court's function as being primarily to protect an ever-expanding array of constitutional rights. Burke was no democrat but he may help democrats to overcome the limitations of the liberal contractarian model of society.

Contrary to Arendt's claims, totalitarianism is not unique to the modern world. It is found occasionally in past ages and is exemplified in Shaka's rule over the Zulu. It is not clear whether the ideological “logic” of modern dictators differs from the seemingly paranoid behavior of Shaka or of certain ancient despots. Indeed, if Aristotle's account is accurate, certain extreme despots, by definition, treated citizens as slaves or household laborers. They thus projected the private realm into the public, effectively abolishing both; Arendt is wrong to say that modern dictators were the first to do so.

After World War II bitter controversy broke out in the United States between Catholics, on the one hand, and Protestants and liberals on the other. Although important issues were involved, these controversies have attracted almost no scholarly attention. Donald Crosby's book on Catholics and McCar-thyism is the only full-scale monograph dealing with any aspect of the controversies of which I am aware. My intention here is to draw attention to two additional aspects of the controversy which touch on matters that are still of interest and in need of much more study by historians. These are: (1) ambiguities in the concept of pluralism; and (2) a tendency that emerged in the critique of Catholic authoritarianism to treat democracy as a civil religion. But before taking up these issues we must look briefly at the development of “the Catholic issue” between the A1 Smith campaign of 1928 and the end of World War II.

If democracy in the sense of popular rule is to have a significant degree of realization in the modern world, it will have to mean popular control of cultural meaning and cultural change rather than public policy. While the impact of cultural values on public policy is problematic, there is more at stake in political struggle than specific policies. In fact, the most important personal consequences of politics are thoroughly symbolic, and the symbolic rewards of “cultural democracy” are likely to be more meaningful than the tangible rewards of distributive policies. Although popular control of these meaningful symbolic rewards is possible, such control could occur only through the mediation of charismatic leaders.

Many poor and oppressed people wish to leave their countries of origin in the third world to come to affluent Western societies. This essay argues that there is little justification for keeping them out. The essay draws on three contemporary approaches to political theory — the Rawlsian, the Nozickean, and the utilitarian — to construct arguments for open borders. The fact that all three theories converge upon the same results on this issue, despite their significant disagreements on others, strengthens the case for open borders and reveals its roots in our deep commitment to respect all human beings as free and equal moral persons. The final part of the essay considers communitarian objections to this conclusion, especially those of Michael Walzer.