A Manifesto I Can Sign!

In broad terms I agree with Will Wilkinson here:

Should you be a state-smashing radical or a milquetoast piecemealer? I don’t know. The debate over reformism versus radicalism is never-ending. For my part, I have a fairly radical ideal theory of a cosmopolitan liberal global order of trade, migration, and peace. I think the “nation state-as-primary-moral-community” assumption at bottom of most modern liberal arguments for the welfare state (and in many libertarianism-in-one-country arguments, for that matter) is morally backward. But I also have a fairly conservative theory of incremental social change. Whether or not all our institutions are legitimate — and certainly they are not — they are also very good in relative terms, both historically and contemporaneously. My immediate interest is in taking steps to make those institutions better in a way that opens up to the possibility of expanding liberty and thereby well-being the world over.