"One of the most important lessons Smith teaches us in this book is that the satisfactions of democratic living are not experienced and achieved when experts, however well meaning, do things for people. Nor are they achieved though work that is coerced or scripted, that offers no real rewards, or is experienced as duty-bound drudgery. They're achieved through hard work, for sure gritty, difficult, and at times full of conflict and disagreement. But work that is also joyful, artistic, productive, improvisational, and spirited, the expression of a free people engaged in the pursuit of public...