The Rise and Fall of a Government-sponsored Cooperative Farm

If you’ve never been a resident of the Washington egghead-osphere, you’re probably not familiar with the 20th-century political scientist Edward Banfield. But Kevin Kosar—a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and noted KISS fanatic—thinks that you should be. In 1951, Banfield published Government Project, an account of the U.S. government’s attempt to remake the lives of some of its citizens by establishing a cooperative farm in Arizona during the Great Depression. The project didn’t go so well, and Kevin believes it holds vital lessons about the limits of government planning that Americans across the political spectrum would be wise to recall today. Tune in for neocon nerdery, but stick around for some more contemporary wonkery on what’s gone wrong with Congress.

Show Notes:

- Kevin’s page at AEI

- Kevin’s podcast, Understanding Congress

- Edward Banfield’s Government Project, reissued with a new introduction by Kevin

- Kevin on Banfield’s The Unheavenly City

- Banfield’s The Moral Basis of a Backward Society

- Kevin and Phil Wallach: “The Case for a Congressional Regulation Office”

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