Before Edward C. Banfield left the University of Chicago for Harvard University, he was feted. The famed political philosopher, Leo Strauss, who thought well of Banfield, delivered these remarks.
Kevin R. Kosar Reviews Edward C. Banfield’s Government Project
Public Administration Review published my retro-review of Banfield’s first book, Government Project:
A Nearly Forgotten Classic in Public Administration: Edward C. Banfield’s Government Project, Public Administration Review, September/October, 2009.
As the neo-progressive wave in politics rises higher and higher, Banfield’s Government Project provides a cautionary tale of the challenges that well-intended policymakers and public administrators face in tackling social problems.
It is an easy reading book that nearly anyone can read and enjoy. (Dry, academic treatise it most certainly is not.)
So what’s the book about? Well, it describes and analyzes one of the federal government’s attempts to help poor farmers during the Great Depression.
But that’s not all it is about. As Banfield put it:
The most characteristic feature of modern society, perhaps, is the great and increasing role of formal organizations of all kinds. Primitive societies were (and are) held together chiefly by the nonlogical bounds of custom and tradition; in modern society the relations of individuals are to a large extent consciously and deliberately organized by the use of intelligence, and the rules of logic. . . . This attempt to organize society along rational lines is a stupendous experiment. Nothing in history promises that it will succeed. But like Faust we are bound by our bargain, and so the study of formal organization and planning—of the techniques by which control may be exerted deliberately and intelligently—is a matter of profound importance. If it is placed in the widest possible framework, then, Government Project may be regarded as a study of one of mankind’s countless recent efforts to take command of his destiny.
How’s that for a subject of import?
Citation: Kevin R. Kosar, A Nearly Forgotten Classic in Public Administration: Edward C. Banfield’s Government Project, Public Administration Review, September/October, 2009.
Christopher DeMuth Reviews The Unheavenly City Revisited
Christopher DeMuth, “Banfield Returns,” The Alternative, November 1974.
The AEI-Christopher DeMuth-Edward C. Banfield Connection
See John J. Miller, “The Man Who Saved AEI,” National Review, January 26, 2009.
Articles and Speeches by Edward C. Banfield
Edward C. Banfield, “The City and the Revolutionary Tradition,” (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1974), speech delivered, April 11, 1974.
Edward C. Banfield, “Policy Science as Metaphysical Madness,” in Robert C. Goldwin, ed., Statesmanship and Bureaucracy (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1977), pp. 1-35.
Edward C. Banfield, “The Zoning of Enterprise,” Cato Journal, vol. 2, no. 2, Aut. 1982, pp. 339-349.
“The Pursuit of Happiness: Then and Now: A Conversation with Edward Banfield, Allan Bloom, and Charles Murray,” Public Opinion, May/June 1988, pp. 41-44.
For a full list of Edward C. Banfield’s articles, see James Q. Wilson, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: A Biography,” Charles R. Kesler, ed., Edward C. Banfield: An Appreciation (Claremont, CA: Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World, 2002), pp. 31-80.
Fiction by Edward C. Banfield
Edward C. Banfield, “The Case of the Handcuffed Sheriff,” (Chicago, IL: American Foundation for Continuing Education, 1957).
Edward C. Banfield, “The Growing Problem,” (Chicago, IL: American Foundation for Continuing Education, 1959).
Edward C. Banfield, “The Case of the Blighted City,” (Chicago, IL: American Foundation for Continuing Education, 1959).
Archives with Materials on On Edward C. Banfield
Edward C. Banfield Collection, City Planning and Landscape Architecture Collection, University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana. Repository of Edward C. Banfield, ed., Reports on American Cities, (Center for Urban Studies at MIT and Harvard: 1960-1963).
[Additional information to come.]
Audio Recordings of Edward C. Banfield
In late 1977, Stephen Smith, a journalist, interviewed Edward C. Banfield and many persons who knew him, for an article intended for Esquire magazine. Smith kindly gave the tapes of his interviews to the Banfield family. Below are selections from these tapes.
Recording #1 (32+ minutes)
With the family dog, Sashi, at his side, Edward C. Banfield speaks of his farm, his childhood, neighbors, early employment, how he ended up attending the University of Chicago and studying planning and cities, Rexford G. Tugwell, Martin Meyerson, James Q. Wilson, and his first books.
Recording #27 (22+ minutes)
Edward C. Banfield speaks of his Harvard colleagues, problems America may face (hedonism, loss of virtue, nihilism), liberalism as theory and policy, human nature, “Policy Science as Metaphysical Madness,” free markets, his desire to research new topics, and Bonnie Bluestein (a student who disrupted his classes at both Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania).
A List of Biographies/Obituaries/Remembrances of Edward C. Banfield
James Q. Wilson, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: A Biography,” Charles R. Kesler, ed., Edward C. Banfield: An Appreciation (Claremont, CA: Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World, 2002), pp. 31-80.
Richard Bernstein, “Edward C. Banfield: Maverick on Urban Policy Issues,” New York Times, October 8, 1999.
Robert J. Samuelson, “The Gift of a Great Teacher,” Washington Post, October 14, 1999.
Harvard University, “Memorial Minutes: Edward C. Banfield: Faculty of Arts and Sciences,” October 17, 2000.
Senator Daniel Moynihan, “Remarks in the Senate, Congressional Record,” October 18, 1999.
James Q. Wilson, “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” Weekly Standard, October 18, 1999.
Charles R. Kesler, “Edward C. Banfield, R.I.P.,” National Review, November 8, 1999.
Editor, “Edward C. Banfield, 1916-1999,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Autumn 1999.
James Neuechterlein, “The Unheavenly Urban Philosopher,” First Things, 1999.
James Q. Wilson, “The Independent Mind of Edward C. Banfield,” Public Interest, January 1, 2003.
Banfieldisms
“Do no good and no harm will come of it.”
“Those who cannot learn cannot be taught; those who can learn don’t need to be taught.”
“If you don’t want people to find out about something, don’t do it.”
“Social scientists should never try to predict the future; they have trouble enough predicting the past.”
“A Unitarian is an individual who believes in one god–at most.”
“A Unitarian is a lapsed Christian. I’m a lapsed Unitarian.”
Edward C. Banfield, An Online Resource 