The rise of the special-interest state

George Will titled a recent column "Detroit's death by democracy," and noted that the collapse "pose[s] worrisome questions about the viability of democracy in jurisdictions where big government and its unionized employees collaborate in pillaging taxpayers." His point is apt but insufficiently gloomy. It skirts the real fear that is and should be on the collective American mind: that the interest-group capture and despoliation of Detroit has evil implications for the viability of American democracy as a whole, not just in a few cities, and that we are on the edge of serious, and perhaps even violent, upheaval.

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