Sarkozy's Lesson for America

Much like Sarkozy today, Sumner wanted to center society's policies on making that productive person more productive. He understood that a social contract that encouraged work led to a brighter future. But the meaning of that phrase forgotten man changed, as Shlaes demonstrates.

Franklin D. Roosevelt bought out constituencies in 1935 and 1936, spending billions on popular projects that created jobs. Nineteen thirty-six was the first peacetime year that the federal government was larger than state and local governments combined -- and it set a trend. The Depression was real, but it also was a pretext for this action.

By helping his groups of forgotten men, Roosevelt created another forgotten man, the individual left out by the groups. That forgotten man was the forgotten man of productivity, not redistributionist pity.

Shlaes's book is historical -- she is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. But the implication for today is that the interest groups are the problem. This is where we must begin -- and get back to the individual.

Washington now is like the corrupt Tory England that the Whigs reformed. Whig liberalism brought growth. Our own Jeffersonian forerunners, the Founding Fathers, also rejected the Crown and understood the importance of small government.

Sarkozy shows us how a courageous leader could translate Shlaes's call to liberalism into the boldest campaign in our lifetime.

The writer, a former speaker of the House, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of "Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8."