Edward C. Banfield
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Edward C. Banfield (1916-1999) was a distinguished political scientist, best known as the author of The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (1958), and The Unheavenly City (1970). One of the leading conservative scholars of his generation, Banfield was an adviser to Republican presidents (Nixon, Ford, and Reagan). Banfield began his academic career at the University of Chicago, where he was a friend and colleague of Leo Strauss. In 1959, Banfield went to Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his career, except for a brief tenure at the University of Pennsylvania.
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[edit] Biography
Banfield grew up on a farm in Connecticut, and attended the University of Connecticut, where he studied English and agriculture. He worked for several government agencies, traveled in the West, and observed the effects of government projects. Although he initially supported Roosevelt and the New Deal, he gradually became skeptical of government attempts to construct housing, support the arts, etc. Long before Johnson’s Great Society programs, Banfield had decided that government aid to the poor would make the givers of aid feel virtuous, but wouldn’t improve the lives of the receivers of aid. His views were controversial, and The Unheavenly City sparked much debate.
Banfield’s Harvard colleagues described him as “an individual with a strong and distinctive character that impressed itself on all who met him,” and as a man who enjoyed “the delights of humor, long meals, and friendly company[1]". Banfield had "a reputation as a brilliant maverick", and his "books and articles had a sharp contrarian edge. He was a critic of almost every mainstream liberal idea in domestic policy, especially the use of Federal aid to help relieve urban poverty.[2]"
Banfield taught many conservative scholars, including James Q. Wilson and Thomas Sowell. He also taught Christopher DeMuth and Bruce Kovner, leading figures at the conservative think-tank, American Enterprise Institute.
His wife, Laura Fasano Banfield, learned Italian as a child, and helped her husband with his book about a poor village in southern Italy (The Moral Basis of a Backward Society). She also collaborated with Harvey Mansfield on a translation of Machiavelli’s History of Florence.
Banfield’s son, Elliott, is an artist/designer/cartoonist in New York City; his daughter, Laura, is founding partner of law firm Hoguet, Newman, & Regal, LLP and the mother of three daughters, Laura Kosar, Helen LaCroix, and Marie Hoguet.
[edit] Published works
- Government Project (1951)
- Politics, Planning, and the Public Interest, with Martin Meyerson (1955)
- The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (1958)
- Government and Housing in Metropolitan Areas, with Morton M. Grodzins (1958)
- Political Influence (1961)
- City Politics, with James Q. Wilson (1963)
- American Foreign Aid Doctrines (1963)
- Big City Politics (1965)
- Boston: The Job Ahead, with Martin Meyerson (1966)
- The Unheavenly City (1970)
- The Unheavenly City Revisited: A Revision of The Unheavenly City (1974)
- The Democratic Muse: Visual Arts and the Public Interest (1984)
- Here the People Rule: Selected Essays (1985, reprinted with additional essays in 1991)
[edit] Further reading
Edward C. Banfield: An Appreciation (Henry Salvatori Center, 2002).
[edit] External links
- An Online Resource on Edward C. Banfield with biographies, bibliographies, and more.
- A former student recalls Banfield
- Recordings of Edward C. Banfield speaking on assorted subjects.
- Edward C. Banfield, American Foreign Aid Doctrines (Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, January 1963).
- 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.
