The Wire, The Sopranos, Rome--has everybody but me noticed how the three hottest shows on HBO are about state failure? I concede they do it in different ways: on The Sopranos, aside from Tony and the gang,there is the FBI, and they might even win--though what, exactly, you win by turning the game over to a bunch of guys in polyester behind Steelcase desks probably does not bear thinking about. Rome--yeh, funny about Rome, so admired by the founders, but it turns out there never was much res publica there to begin with. I've seen less of The Wire than the other two, but I don't think it's a model your high school civics teacher would enjoy. In all three we seem to lack what Ed Banfield (I think) called "the luxury of politics." This is the sort of stuff we were supposed to have put behind us a long time ago, not so?
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