The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward Bruce Bartlett Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 There ought to be a special place in the pantheon of heroes for people who think for themselves and who, though they have convictions, allow themselves to be beholden to no fixed interest group or faction. Bruce Bartlett, an economic historian and widely published author, has long been associated with the Reagan legacy in the United States, but that association has been of the sort one would expect for an independent thinker. In the 1970s, he served on the staffs of Congressmen Jack Kemp and Ron Paul; and in the following years was a domestic policy adviser to President Reagan and then a treasury official in the administration of George H. W. Bush. It tells a lot about him, though, that in 2006 he authored what to many of his erstwhile associates would seem an heretical book, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, and accordingly was fired by a Republican-aligned think tank. Now he challenges a long-held cornerstone of free market, limited government thinking by arguing that John Maynard Keynes was actually a conservative who sought a realistic way to combat the Great Depression and thereby to save the capitalistic system. Further, Bartlett supports a Value Added Tax (VAT) for the United States, a position that he says political leaders privately tell him is sound but that has been too politically risky for them to embrace. It is both a weakness and a strength that in this book he focuses almost entirely on monetary/fiscal policy to the exclusion of all else. The strength is that he has much valuable to say about those policies, but it would seem that today's economic conundrum goes far beyond them, so that the "real economy" and manifold predicaments of the society need to be considered as part of the economic condition. If the fiscal deficit is a problem, this suggests that the immense cost of foreign wars, of military undertakings throughout the world, and of overall global meliorism as supported by both neoconservatism and neoliberalism simply have to be taken into account. Further, Bartlett continues the vogue among most economic commentators of disregarding the hollowing-out of the American manufacturing system and of employment through offshoring, out-sourcing, vast imports, and immigration (both legal and illegal). Nor does he discuss the historic shift of the American economy into financialization, an emphasis on finance that brought with it the many structural pathologies that were so instrumental in producing the crisis of 2007 and beyond. All of this, and more, is part of the economic fix the United States is in today, so that a preoccupation with monetary and fiscal policy hardly covers the ground. It is incongruous that Bartlett doesn't reach out to include these things, because not doing so runs directly contrary to his basic methodology. Throughout the book, he argues effective
{"title":"The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward","authors":"D. D. Murphey","doi":"10.5860/choice.47-6370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.47-6370","url":null,"abstract":"The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward Bruce Bartlett Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 There ought to be a special place in the pantheon of heroes for people who think for themselves and who, though they have convictions, allow themselves to be beholden to no fixed interest group or faction. Bruce Bartlett, an economic historian and widely published author, has long been associated with the Reagan legacy in the United States, but that association has been of the sort one would expect for an independent thinker. In the 1970s, he served on the staffs of Congressmen Jack Kemp and Ron Paul; and in the following years was a domestic policy adviser to President Reagan and then a treasury official in the administration of George H. W. Bush. It tells a lot about him, though, that in 2006 he authored what to many of his erstwhile associates would seem an heretical book, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, and accordingly was fired by a Republican-aligned think tank. Now he challenges a long-held cornerstone of free market, limited government thinking by arguing that John Maynard Keynes was actually a conservative who sought a realistic way to combat the Great Depression and thereby to save the capitalistic system. Further, Bartlett supports a Value Added Tax (VAT) for the United States, a position that he says political leaders privately tell him is sound but that has been too politically risky for them to embrace. It is both a weakness and a strength that in this book he focuses almost entirely on monetary/fiscal policy to the exclusion of all else. The strength is that he has much valuable to say about those policies, but it would seem that today's economic conundrum goes far beyond them, so that the \"real economy\" and manifold predicaments of the society need to be considered as part of the economic condition. If the fiscal deficit is a problem, this suggests that the immense cost of foreign wars, of military undertakings throughout the world, and of overall global meliorism as supported by both neoconservatism and neoliberalism simply have to be taken into account. Further, Bartlett continues the vogue among most economic commentators of disregarding the hollowing-out of the American manufacturing system and of employment through offshoring, out-sourcing, vast imports, and immigration (both legal and illegal). Nor does he discuss the historic shift of the American economy into financialization, an emphasis on finance that brought with it the many structural pathologies that were so instrumental in producing the crisis of 2007 and beyond. All of this, and more, is part of the economic fix the United States is in today, so that a preoccupation with monetary and fiscal policy hardly covers the ground. It is incongruous that Bartlett doesn't reach out to include these things, because not doing so runs directly contrary to his basic methodology. Throughout the book, he argues effective","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77413613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2010-12-01DOI: 10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim280020428
D. D. Murphey
The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World Alan Greenspan Penguin Books, 2008 This is in effect a memoir of Alan Greenspan's professional life. Only in part (and by virtue of an Epilogue) does it deal with the financial crisis that hit in August 2007, some nineteen months after he retired from his position as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. But because Greenspan was a leading figure in world central banking during his eighteen-plus years as chairman, and because those years included the period leading up to the financial crisis, this book deserves a prominent place among those that discuss the crisis and its causes. The main portion of this book was published in June 2007, just weeks before the crisis became evident. The Epilogue, written a year later but still three months before the crisis reached its apex, was added for later editions. Although it does not appear in the book, Greenspan's testimony before the U. S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in late October 2008 provides still a third window into his thinking. It was in that testimony that he acknowledged trepidation about some of the premises that had long guided his economic philosophy. There is much to be mined from this book - far more than we will be able to discuss in this review. The main stem, as just indicated, is a memoir, but it also surveys a number of topics for their own sakes. For example, there is a chapter on the fall of Communism, another on the Clinton administration's economic policies, and chapters on the situations of China, Russia, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Australia, the "Asian Tigers" and India. Greenspan was born in 1926. His parents' families, Jewish and lower middle class, had immigrated to the United States from Romania and Hungary at the turn of the century. He attended New York City's George Washington High School, which he describes as "one of the city's largest and best public schools," after which he obtained his undergraduate degree in economics summa cum laude from New York University in 1948, followed by an M.A. there two years later. His brilliance became apparent early, manifesting itself in his love of math and music, and his ability to master data. He studied under later-Fed chairman Arthur Burns at Columbia, but became so busy working in various aspects of economic data analysis and econometric model-building that he didn't follow up with his doctorate (again in economics and from NYU) until the 1970s. He wound up serving on the JPMorgan board, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Gerald Ford, and headed a commission on Social Security reform for President Reagan. He was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve in 1987, retiring in January 2006. Greenspan's personal characteristics provide a fascinating mixture. He immersed himself splendidly in the details of industries and firms, from which he found substantial guidance about the economy as a whole
动荡的年代:在一个新的世界里的冒险艾伦·格林斯潘企鹅出版社，2008年这实际上是艾伦·格林斯潘的职业生涯的回忆录。在2007年8月，也就是伯南克从美国联邦储备委员会主席的位置上退休大约19个月之后，这本书只涉及了金融危机的部分内容。但由于格林斯潘在其18年多的主席任期内是世界中央银行的领军人物，而且这些年包括导致金融危机的时期，这本书应该在讨论危机及其原因的书中占有突出地位。这本书的主要部分出版于2007年6月，就在危机变得明显的几周前。《后记》写于一年后，但仍在危机达到顶峰的三个月前，被添加到后来的版本中。虽然这本书中没有出现，但格林斯潘2008年10月底在美国众议院监督和政府改革委员会的证词仍然为了解他的想法提供了第三个窗口。正是在那次证词中，他承认对长期指导其经济哲学的一些前提感到不安。这本书有很多值得挖掘的地方——远远超过我们在这篇评论中所能讨论的。正如刚才所指出的，它的主干是一本回忆录，但它也为自己的利益调查了一些主题。例如，有一章是关于共产主义的垮台，另一章是关于克林顿政府的经济政策，还有几章是关于中国、俄罗斯、英国、德国、法国、意大利、日本、澳大利亚、“亚洲四小龙”和印度的情况。格林斯潘出生于1926年。他父母的家庭是犹太人和中下层阶级，在世纪之交从罗马尼亚和匈牙利移民到美国。他曾就读于纽约市的乔治华盛顿高中(George Washington High School)，他形容这是“纽约市最大、最好的公立学校之一”。1948年，他以优异成绩获得纽约大学(New York University)经济学学士学位，两年后又获得了该大学的硕士学位。他的才华很早就显露出来，体现在他对数学和音乐的热爱，以及他掌握数据的能力上。他曾在哥伦比亚大学(Columbia)跟随后来的美联储主席阿瑟•伯恩斯(Arthur Burns)学习，但由于忙于经济数据分析和计量经济学模型构建的各个方面的工作，直到20世纪70年代才继续攻读博士学位(还是在纽约大学获得经济学学位)。他后来在摩根大通(JPMorgan)董事会任职，在杰拉尔德•福特(Gerald Ford)总统任内担任经济顾问委员会(Council of Economic Advisors)主席，并在里根总统任内领导了一个社会保障改革委员会。1987年，他被任命为美联储主席，2006年1月退休。格林斯潘的个人特征提供了一个令人着迷的混合体。他出色地沉浸在行业和公司的细节中，从中他找到了关于整个经济的大量指导，并将其与强烈的意识形态倾向结合在一起，首先是作为自由意志主义哲学家安·兰德(Ayn Rand)的信徒，然后，尽管他放弃了一些兰德式的热情，作为一个“终身自由意志主义共和党人”，他信奉“不受约束的市场竞争”。这种混合还包括，也许是不协调的，一种与不同信仰和政治的主要人物和谐相处的天赋:他和电视名人芭芭拉·沃尔特斯交往了几年，他们是在副总统纳尔逊·洛克菲勒主持的茶会上认识的。当他结婚时，仪式是由美国最高法院大法官鲁斯·巴德·金斯伯格主持的。与这种普世主义一致，他持有一些传统观点。(即便是他对“不受约束的市场竞争”的支持，在20世纪70年代中期福特政府开始放松管制后的几十年里，也成为了传统观点。)然而，我们对这篇评论的兴趣与其说是对格林斯潘的个人历史，不如说是对他的书中出现的政策和意识形态问题。．．．
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A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent Robert W. Merry Simon & Schuster, 2009 Robert Merry's lucid new biography of James K. Polk, the eleventh president of the United States who served from 1845 to 1849, combines the virtues of an experienced journalist and perceptive historian. His 35 years as a journalist and publishing executive included several years as a Wall Street Journal correspondent and a long stint as the president and editor-in-chief of Congressional Quarterly. This is his third book that relates to America's place in the world (which, as we will see, is something that a biography of Polk inevitably does). Historians have given Polk a high place among American presidents, but, as Merry notes, he hardly exists today in the American public's memory. We can well surmise that the reason for his obscurity lies in the course American history took after his presidency. Just twelve years after he left the White House, the country was torn by a civil war that arose out of a cauldron of passions and that established, for at least this past century and half, the perception of heroes and villains. Andrew Jackson, James Polk and Millard Fillmore were among the presidents who sought to tame those passions (especially over the burgeoning slavery issue), consciously giving priority to the preservation of American unity as the more important value. Neither pole before the Civil War would honor these peace-keepers' seeming passivity; and after that war the praise inevitably went to the victors and to the cause they had championed. Polk went into office with a commitment to serve only a single four-year term, but during that brief period was able to accomplish each of his four objectives: to settle the dispute with Britain about the gigantic "Oregon" territory (which included not only what is today the state of Oregon but also lands far to the north), to acquire California from Mexico, to institute a "tariff for-revenue-only" (as distinguished from a protective tariff), and to create an "independent treasury" not tied to the banking system. Although it was not within his original aspirations, Polk's tenure also saw the acquisition from Mexico of the immense "New Mexico" province, resulting in a total extension of the United States to include not just Oregon, Washington, Texas and California, but also the present-day states of "New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada..., as well as parts of... Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming." The term "Manifest Destiny," coined by New York editor John O'Sullivan in 1845, fittingly described this extension of the United States to become a continental power reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The nomination of Polk by the Democratic Party in 1844 resulted from a compromise among the competing factions that had supported formerpresident Martin Van Buren and Senator Lewis Cass. In the ensuing election, Polk narrowly defeated the Whig Party nominee, Sen
罗伯特·w·梅利(Robert W. Merry)，西蒙与舒斯特出版社，2009年，罗伯特·w·梅利为1845年至1849年任职的美国第11任总统詹姆斯·k·波尔克(James K. Polk)撰写了一本清晰的新传记，结合了一位经验丰富的记者和敏锐的历史学家的优点。他在35年的记者生涯和出版业高管生涯中，曾担任《华尔街日报》记者数年，并长期担任《国会季刊》(Congressional Quarterly)的总裁和主编。这是他第三本与美国在世界上的地位有关的书(正如我们将看到的，这是波尔克传记不可避免要做的事情)。历史学家在美国总统中给波尔克很高的地位，但是，正如梅里所指出的，他在今天美国公众的记忆中几乎不存在了。我们可以很好地推测，他默默无闻的原因在于他担任总统后美国历史的进程。在他离开白宫仅仅12年后，这个国家就被一场内战撕裂了，这场内战爆发于各种激情之中，至少在过去的一个半世纪里，它确立了英雄和恶棍的概念。安德鲁·杰克逊(Andrew Jackson)、詹姆斯·波尔克(James Polk)和米勒德·菲尔莫尔(Millard Fillmore)等总统都试图抑制这些情绪(尤其是在迅速发展的奴隶制问题上)，有意识地把维护美国的统一作为更重要的价值来优先考虑。南北战争之前，任何一方都不会尊重这些维持和平人员表面上的被动;战争结束后，赞美不可避免地归于胜利者和他们所拥护的事业。波尔克上任时承诺只做一个四年任期，但在这段短暂的时间里，他实现了四个目标:解决与英国关于巨大的“俄勒冈”领土(不仅包括今天的俄勒冈州，还包括遥远的北部土地)的争端，从墨西哥手中获得加利福尼亚，建立“仅为收入而征收的关税”(区别于保护性关税)，并建立一个与银行系统无关的“独立财政部”。尽管这并不是波尔克最初的愿望，但他在任职期间还从墨西哥手中获得了广阔的“新墨西哥州”，从而使美国的版图全面扩大，不仅包括俄勒冈州、华盛顿州、德克萨斯州和加利福尼亚州，还包括今天的“新墨西哥州、亚利桑那州、犹他州、内华达州……”，以及……部分地区……堪萨斯州、俄克拉荷马州、科罗拉多州和怀俄明州。”《纽约时报》编辑约翰·奥沙利文(John O'Sullivan)在1845年创造了“天定命运”(Manifest Destiny)一词，恰如其分地描述了美国成为一个从大西洋延伸到太平洋的大陆大国的过程。1844年，波尔克被民主党提名为总统候选人，这是支持前总统马丁·范布伦和参议员刘易斯·卡斯的竞争派系之间达成妥协的结果。在随后的选举中，波尔克以微弱优势击败辉格党候选人、参议员亨利·克莱。在赢得总统大选之前，波尔克曾在田纳西州立法机构任职，担任田纳西州州长，并在美国众议院任职14年，并升任众议院议长。他是安德鲁·杰克逊(Andrew Jackson)的得意门生和主要支持者。杰克逊曾连任两届总统，在19世纪20年代末和30年代叱咤风云。波尔克作为总统所取得的非凡成就，将使那些看重实质而非浮华或油嘴滑舌的人感到欢欣鼓舞。梅里形容他“缺乏天生的领导能力”，“既不能激发忠诚，也不能激发恐惧”，不能“按照自己的意愿操纵别人”。他“缺乏那种代表友谊和同志情谊的随和态度和举止。”他所拥有的是“分析能力和大胆行动的热情”，加上“钢铁般的政治毅力”，以及他是一个“命运之人”的信念。如果认为美利坚共和国的最初几年是对这个新国家存在的田园诗般的庆祝，那就错了。…
{"title":"A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent","authors":"D. D. Murphey","doi":"10.5860/choice.48-2285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.48-2285","url":null,"abstract":"A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent Robert W. Merry Simon & Schuster, 2009 Robert Merry's lucid new biography of James K. Polk, the eleventh president of the United States who served from 1845 to 1849, combines the virtues of an experienced journalist and perceptive historian. His 35 years as a journalist and publishing executive included several years as a Wall Street Journal correspondent and a long stint as the president and editor-in-chief of Congressional Quarterly. This is his third book that relates to America's place in the world (which, as we will see, is something that a biography of Polk inevitably does). Historians have given Polk a high place among American presidents, but, as Merry notes, he hardly exists today in the American public's memory. We can well surmise that the reason for his obscurity lies in the course American history took after his presidency. Just twelve years after he left the White House, the country was torn by a civil war that arose out of a cauldron of passions and that established, for at least this past century and half, the perception of heroes and villains. Andrew Jackson, James Polk and Millard Fillmore were among the presidents who sought to tame those passions (especially over the burgeoning slavery issue), consciously giving priority to the preservation of American unity as the more important value. Neither pole before the Civil War would honor these peace-keepers' seeming passivity; and after that war the praise inevitably went to the victors and to the cause they had championed. Polk went into office with a commitment to serve only a single four-year term, but during that brief period was able to accomplish each of his four objectives: to settle the dispute with Britain about the gigantic \"Oregon\" territory (which included not only what is today the state of Oregon but also lands far to the north), to acquire California from Mexico, to institute a \"tariff for-revenue-only\" (as distinguished from a protective tariff), and to create an \"independent treasury\" not tied to the banking system. Although it was not within his original aspirations, Polk's tenure also saw the acquisition from Mexico of the immense \"New Mexico\" province, resulting in a total extension of the United States to include not just Oregon, Washington, Texas and California, but also the present-day states of \"New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada..., as well as parts of... Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming.\" The term \"Manifest Destiny,\" coined by New York editor John O'Sullivan in 1845, fittingly described this extension of the United States to become a continental power reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The nomination of Polk by the Democratic Party in 1844 resulted from a compromise among the competing factions that had supported formerpresident Martin Van Buren and Senator Lewis Cass. In the ensuing election, Polk narrowly defeated the Whig Party nominee, Sen","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73011166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy Joseph E. Stiglitz W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 Joseph Stiglitz's Freefall is another excellent discussion of the global economic crisis, authored by a man who ranks high among the commentators. Stiglitz was the chief economist at the World Bank during the East Asian economic crisis in 1997-1998, and then chaired the United Nations commission that sought reforms for the global financial and monetary system. He was a member of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. This is his fifth book. There seem to be a great many Nobel Prize winners in Economics (whose collective wisdom doesn't seem to have saved the world from its financial travails), but it would surely be amiss not to mention that Stiglitz is among them. This book testifies to his distinction in that select group. Because Freefall can hardly examine the crisis without covering much of the same ground as the other books we have reviewed, we will avoid repeating that analysis here. We prefer to focus on those aspects of Stiglitz's discussion that address unresolved issues or that most bring his own learning to bear: * His view of the plight in which today's "capitalism" finds itself. * What he says (and yet doesn't say) about the whirlpool of global finance. * His critique of the response that the U.S. Federal Reserve and government have made to the crisis, including what he thinks should have been done. * In connection with this critique, his reflections on the performance both of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations' actions through the end of 2009. * What reforms Stiglitz considers needed. His view of today's "capitalism." Although Stiglitz affirms "that markets lie at the heart of every successful economy" and is by no means anticapitalist, he shares the view that has come to be held by a great many thoughtful commentators that today's "capitalism" bears little resemblance to the competitive "private enterprise" that supporters of a market economy have long championed. He speaks of an "ersatz capitalism" that features a "corporate welfare state" driven by "blatant greed" and an ideology, sponsored by special interests, that has made a fetish of "self-regulating markets." "The current crisis has uncovered fundamental flaws in the capitalist system, or at least the peculiar version of capitalism that emerged in the latter part of the twentieth century in the United States." This realization is an intellectual earthquake. It should profoundly redirect the thinking of America's free-market enthusiasts, who will do their philosophy a great disservice if they insist on blind loyalty to the current system. We saw the same theme in our review of John Bogle's The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism,1 where we wrote that "in common with many others today, Bogle sees that the market system has become untracked - has 'lost its soul' - and needs much devoted attention (especially from capitalism's supporters
{"title":"Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy","authors":"D. D. Murphey","doi":"10.5860/choice.47-6385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.47-6385","url":null,"abstract":"Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy Joseph E. Stiglitz W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 Joseph Stiglitz's Freefall is another excellent discussion of the global economic crisis, authored by a man who ranks high among the commentators. Stiglitz was the chief economist at the World Bank during the East Asian economic crisis in 1997-1998, and then chaired the United Nations commission that sought reforms for the global financial and monetary system. He was a member of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. This is his fifth book. There seem to be a great many Nobel Prize winners in Economics (whose collective wisdom doesn't seem to have saved the world from its financial travails), but it would surely be amiss not to mention that Stiglitz is among them. This book testifies to his distinction in that select group. Because Freefall can hardly examine the crisis without covering much of the same ground as the other books we have reviewed, we will avoid repeating that analysis here. We prefer to focus on those aspects of Stiglitz's discussion that address unresolved issues or that most bring his own learning to bear: * His view of the plight in which today's \"capitalism\" finds itself. * What he says (and yet doesn't say) about the whirlpool of global finance. * His critique of the response that the U.S. Federal Reserve and government have made to the crisis, including what he thinks should have been done. * In connection with this critique, his reflections on the performance both of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations' actions through the end of 2009. * What reforms Stiglitz considers needed. His view of today's \"capitalism.\" Although Stiglitz affirms \"that markets lie at the heart of every successful economy\" and is by no means anticapitalist, he shares the view that has come to be held by a great many thoughtful commentators that today's \"capitalism\" bears little resemblance to the competitive \"private enterprise\" that supporters of a market economy have long championed. He speaks of an \"ersatz capitalism\" that features a \"corporate welfare state\" driven by \"blatant greed\" and an ideology, sponsored by special interests, that has made a fetish of \"self-regulating markets.\" \"The current crisis has uncovered fundamental flaws in the capitalist system, or at least the peculiar version of capitalism that emerged in the latter part of the twentieth century in the United States.\" This realization is an intellectual earthquake. It should profoundly redirect the thinking of America's free-market enthusiasts, who will do their philosophy a great disservice if they insist on blind loyalty to the current system. We saw the same theme in our review of John Bogle's The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism,1 where we wrote that \"in common with many others today, Bogle sees that the market system has become untracked - has 'lost its soul' - and needs much devoted attention (especially from capitalism's supporters","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77263327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West Christopher Caldwell Doubleday, 2009 Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. With this book, he has added his voice to the literature discussing and warning against the on-going change occurring in the identity of Europe as its native population shrinks and as an immigrant population, mostly Islamic, establishes within it a growing parallel society. This journal has reviewed three of the earlier books: Walter Laqueur's The Last Days of Europe (in our Winter 2007 issue, pp. 519-522), Tony Blankley's The West's Last Chance (Winter 2005, pp. 524-531), and Patrick J. Buchanan's The Death of the West (Spring 2002, pp. 126-130). Even though they deal with the same theme, each of these books, including Caldwell's, has much to say that keeps it from being a mere repetition of the others. Caldwell's contribution consists largely of his emphasis on Islam and his dissection of shibboleths that have long ruled the thinking within Europe, especially within Europe's governing class. This isn't to say that he doesn't have a good deal else to tell. His work with The Weekly Standard makes clear his identification with American "neo-conservatism"; and, among the authors just mentioned, this puts him closest to Blankley. He avoids, however, the extremes of which we were so critical in Blankley's book. Caldwell does not join Blankley in calling for a testosterone-ladened ruthlessness in response to jihadism. Caldwell mostly limits himself to factual explication and conceptual analysis, leaving policy prescriptions to others. If he agrees with Blankley's extremes, he gives no indication of it. It is surprising that Caldwell writes about the demographic threat to Europe without showing an awareness of (or giving a nod of recognition to) the other books. He does, at least, tell about Jean Raspail's haunting 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints; but neither the bibliography nor the index mentions Blankley, Buchanan or Laqueur. The surprise at these omissions is lessened, of course, because we know that many authors say very little about the contributions of others. This fashion would seem to stem in part from the incivilities imposed by publishers' and authors' frequent insistence upon an overly-constricted interpretation of the "fair use" doctrine, which has long made it legally uncomfortable to bring in other authors. Caldwell's book gives informative details about the history of Islamic immigration into Europe. During the decade immediately following World War II, a prostrate Europe desperately needed manpower, and brought in large numbers of immigrants for what Europeans thought would be short stays. But then, when "the economic benefits [that] immigration brought [proved] marginal and temporary," most of Europe (except for France until 2006) shifted to a more selective type of immigration. It found it difficult, however, to find highly skilled people. Despite this and "ge
{"title":"Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West","authors":"D. D. Murphey","doi":"10.5860/choice.47-3403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.47-3403","url":null,"abstract":"Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West Christopher Caldwell Doubleday, 2009 Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. With this book, he has added his voice to the literature discussing and warning against the on-going change occurring in the identity of Europe as its native population shrinks and as an immigrant population, mostly Islamic, establishes within it a growing parallel society. This journal has reviewed three of the earlier books: Walter Laqueur's The Last Days of Europe (in our Winter 2007 issue, pp. 519-522), Tony Blankley's The West's Last Chance (Winter 2005, pp. 524-531), and Patrick J. Buchanan's The Death of the West (Spring 2002, pp. 126-130). Even though they deal with the same theme, each of these books, including Caldwell's, has much to say that keeps it from being a mere repetition of the others. Caldwell's contribution consists largely of his emphasis on Islam and his dissection of shibboleths that have long ruled the thinking within Europe, especially within Europe's governing class. This isn't to say that he doesn't have a good deal else to tell. His work with The Weekly Standard makes clear his identification with American \"neo-conservatism\"; and, among the authors just mentioned, this puts him closest to Blankley. He avoids, however, the extremes of which we were so critical in Blankley's book. Caldwell does not join Blankley in calling for a testosterone-ladened ruthlessness in response to jihadism. Caldwell mostly limits himself to factual explication and conceptual analysis, leaving policy prescriptions to others. If he agrees with Blankley's extremes, he gives no indication of it. It is surprising that Caldwell writes about the demographic threat to Europe without showing an awareness of (or giving a nod of recognition to) the other books. He does, at least, tell about Jean Raspail's haunting 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints; but neither the bibliography nor the index mentions Blankley, Buchanan or Laqueur. The surprise at these omissions is lessened, of course, because we know that many authors say very little about the contributions of others. This fashion would seem to stem in part from the incivilities imposed by publishers' and authors' frequent insistence upon an overly-constricted interpretation of the \"fair use\" doctrine, which has long made it legally uncomfortable to bring in other authors. Caldwell's book gives informative details about the history of Islamic immigration into Europe. During the decade immediately following World War II, a prostrate Europe desperately needed manpower, and brought in large numbers of immigrants for what Europeans thought would be short stays. But then, when \"the economic benefits [that] immigration brought [proved] marginal and temporary,\" most of Europe (except for France until 2006) shifted to a more selective type of immigration. It found it difficult, however, to find highly skilled people. Despite this and \"ge","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89994420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What is the What Dave Eggers McSweeney's, 2006 What is the What is a partly fictionalized account of the life of one of the four thousand "Lost Boys" who were brought over to the United States in 2001 after fifteen years' wandering and encampment as refugees from the civil war in the southern Sudan. Above all, readers come away with a vivid sense of the cruelties and indifference human beings inflict upon each other, and with an equally vivid sense of the tenacity of life that has so long kept Achak Nyibek Arou Deng, the book's subject, going through all these years. Deng was born into a Dinka village in southern Sudan before the outbreak of the civil war there (the war that preceded the current war in the western Sudanese region of Darfur). When his village was burned by Arab raiders, he joined the tens of thousands of refugees, many of them unaccompanied children, who trekked across the Sudan for asylum in Ethiopia. He spent three years in the Pinyudo camp inside Ethiopia until the refugees there were driven out with mass bloodshed by the Ethiopians. Horrors of many kinds-including those from humans, crocodiles and lions-accompanied Deng at each step of his odyssey. Eventually, he lived for ten years in the Kakuma refugee camp inside Kenya. It was from there that he and other "unaccompanied children," mostly boys but with a few girls, were brought to the United States in 2001. To its credit, Eggers' book is not a typical account designed to play upon the empathy and credulity of sympathetic souls who read it. Eggers quite candidly describes that genre: "The tales of the Lost Boys have become remarkably similar over the years... Sponsors and newspaper reporters and the like expect the stories to have certain elements, and the Lost Boys have been consistent in their willingness to oblige. Survivors tell the stories the sympathetic want, and that means making them as shocking as possible." He admits that his own telling "includes enough small embellishments [so] that I cannot criticize the accounts of others." Perhaps, as he says, he cannot criticize those others; but there is much honest candor in the book, as we will see. Some of this candor has to do with the quizzical irrationality of American altruism. We know, of course, that throughout the history of the United States many Americans have been inspired by an altruism that is unrestrained by reason. This is the giddy "do-goodism" that mixes so many fine qualities with a child-like naivete that is blind to causes and consequences. About this, the book has Deng saying that "we were the model Africans... We were applauded for our industriousness and good manners and, best of all, our devotion to our faith. The churches adored us, and the leaders they bankrolled and controlled coveted us. But now the enthusiasm has dampened. We have exhausted many of our hosts. We are young men, and young men are prone to vice. Among the four thousand are those who have entertained prostitutes, who have lost week
{"title":"What Is the What","authors":"D. D. Murphey","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv6wgdww.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6wgdww.7","url":null,"abstract":"What is the What Dave Eggers McSweeney's, 2006 What is the What is a partly fictionalized account of the life of one of the four thousand \"Lost Boys\" who were brought over to the United States in 2001 after fifteen years' wandering and encampment as refugees from the civil war in the southern Sudan. Above all, readers come away with a vivid sense of the cruelties and indifference human beings inflict upon each other, and with an equally vivid sense of the tenacity of life that has so long kept Achak Nyibek Arou Deng, the book's subject, going through all these years. Deng was born into a Dinka village in southern Sudan before the outbreak of the civil war there (the war that preceded the current war in the western Sudanese region of Darfur). When his village was burned by Arab raiders, he joined the tens of thousands of refugees, many of them unaccompanied children, who trekked across the Sudan for asylum in Ethiopia. He spent three years in the Pinyudo camp inside Ethiopia until the refugees there were driven out with mass bloodshed by the Ethiopians. Horrors of many kinds-including those from humans, crocodiles and lions-accompanied Deng at each step of his odyssey. Eventually, he lived for ten years in the Kakuma refugee camp inside Kenya. It was from there that he and other \"unaccompanied children,\" mostly boys but with a few girls, were brought to the United States in 2001. To its credit, Eggers' book is not a typical account designed to play upon the empathy and credulity of sympathetic souls who read it. Eggers quite candidly describes that genre: \"The tales of the Lost Boys have become remarkably similar over the years... Sponsors and newspaper reporters and the like expect the stories to have certain elements, and the Lost Boys have been consistent in their willingness to oblige. Survivors tell the stories the sympathetic want, and that means making them as shocking as possible.\" He admits that his own telling \"includes enough small embellishments [so] that I cannot criticize the accounts of others.\" Perhaps, as he says, he cannot criticize those others; but there is much honest candor in the book, as we will see. Some of this candor has to do with the quizzical irrationality of American altruism. We know, of course, that throughout the history of the United States many Americans have been inspired by an altruism that is unrestrained by reason. This is the giddy \"do-goodism\" that mixes so many fine qualities with a child-like naivete that is blind to causes and consequences. About this, the book has Deng saying that \"we were the model Africans... We were applauded for our industriousness and good manners and, best of all, our devotion to our faith. The churches adored us, and the leaders they bankrolled and controlled coveted us. But now the enthusiasm has dampened. We have exhausted many of our hosts. We are young men, and young men are prone to vice. Among the four thousand are those who have entertained prostitutes, who have lost week","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84220334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karl Mannheim's Sociology as Political Education Colin Loader and David Kettler Transaction Publishers, 2002 In the words of the publishers of this book, "German professors and academic intellectuals are often blamed for their passivity or complicity in the face of the anti-Republic surge of the late Weimar years, culminating in the National Socialist rise to power," but Karl Mannheim was not amongst these. This was in fact a kind way of avoiding stating that Karl Mannheim was at heart a Marxist, as was his prime academic mentor, Georg Lukacs. In fact, while reading this book we need to remember that Lukacs, whom Mannheim admired so much, had actually served as "Commissioner for Culture" in BeIa Kun's murderous Soviet-style government of Hungary, during the chaotic years following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I. It is to Mannheim's credit that he himself rejected violence as a means toward attaining the Communist goal, although perhaps this rejection was only due to his belief that sudden revolutions tended to strengthen opposition toward "social change." Instead he argued that class barriers had to be lowered by subtle means before any radical reconstruction of society could win universal acceptance. While at Heidelberg, Mannheim was impressed by Max Weber's sociological treatises, and especially by his analysis of the dangers of bureaucracy. The authors, both seemingly favorable toward Mannheim, accordingly concentrate on showing how Mannheim took established Weberian sociology as his starting point, and having gained the attention of his audience, diverted it in line with Marxist principles. "Not Marx but Max Weber usually served him as the paradigm for sociology in appeals to wider publics. Like Albert Saloman, however, he did not let his invocation of Weber stand in the way of his simultaneous identification of sociology with Marxism in the extended sense, especially when addressing students." (p. 163) Thus we see a conflict between more objective sociologists such as Leopold von Wiese, Georg von Below on the one hand, and politically-oriented intellectuals such as Eduard Spranger, Max Adler, Karl Kautsky, Albert Salomon, Emil Lederer, and Karl Mannheim, all of whom saw sociology as a tool by which they could indoctrinate students - or, in the words of the book's title, as "political education." Thus there was an important contrast between Weber and Mannheim. Max Weber was an academic who valued the high cultural achievements of Western civilization. Mannheim, on the other hand, although a talented academic, rejected Western civilization, and particularly the German tradition that favored elitism and idealism. In the post-World War II environment, when Marxist-sympathizers such Jean Paul Sartre achieved a powerful role in Western intellectual circles, some writers portrayed Weber as a Nazi sympathizer, while portraying Mannheim as the defender of democracy. The fact that Mannheim was intellectually active
{"title":"Karl Mannheim's Sociology as Political Education","authors":"I. McNish","doi":"10.5860/choice.40-4932","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.40-4932","url":null,"abstract":"Karl Mannheim's Sociology as Political Education Colin Loader and David Kettler Transaction Publishers, 2002 In the words of the publishers of this book, \"German professors and academic intellectuals are often blamed for their passivity or complicity in the face of the anti-Republic surge of the late Weimar years, culminating in the National Socialist rise to power,\" but Karl Mannheim was not amongst these. This was in fact a kind way of avoiding stating that Karl Mannheim was at heart a Marxist, as was his prime academic mentor, Georg Lukacs. In fact, while reading this book we need to remember that Lukacs, whom Mannheim admired so much, had actually served as \"Commissioner for Culture\" in BeIa Kun's murderous Soviet-style government of Hungary, during the chaotic years following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I. It is to Mannheim's credit that he himself rejected violence as a means toward attaining the Communist goal, although perhaps this rejection was only due to his belief that sudden revolutions tended to strengthen opposition toward \"social change.\" Instead he argued that class barriers had to be lowered by subtle means before any radical reconstruction of society could win universal acceptance. While at Heidelberg, Mannheim was impressed by Max Weber's sociological treatises, and especially by his analysis of the dangers of bureaucracy. The authors, both seemingly favorable toward Mannheim, accordingly concentrate on showing how Mannheim took established Weberian sociology as his starting point, and having gained the attention of his audience, diverted it in line with Marxist principles. \"Not Marx but Max Weber usually served him as the paradigm for sociology in appeals to wider publics. Like Albert Saloman, however, he did not let his invocation of Weber stand in the way of his simultaneous identification of sociology with Marxism in the extended sense, especially when addressing students.\" (p. 163) Thus we see a conflict between more objective sociologists such as Leopold von Wiese, Georg von Below on the one hand, and politically-oriented intellectuals such as Eduard Spranger, Max Adler, Karl Kautsky, Albert Salomon, Emil Lederer, and Karl Mannheim, all of whom saw sociology as a tool by which they could indoctrinate students - or, in the words of the book's title, as \"political education.\" Thus there was an important contrast between Weber and Mannheim. Max Weber was an academic who valued the high cultural achievements of Western civilization. Mannheim, on the other hand, although a talented academic, rejected Western civilization, and particularly the German tradition that favored elitism and idealism. In the post-World War II environment, when Marxist-sympathizers such Jean Paul Sartre achieved a powerful role in Western intellectual circles, some writers portrayed Weber as a Nazi sympathizer, while portraying Mannheim as the defender of democracy. The fact that Mannheim was intellectually active","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80996468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Democracy without Competition in Japan: Opposition Failure in a One-Party Dominant State","authors":"I. McNish","doi":"10.5860/choice.43-4912","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.43-4912","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81560023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Who Are the Jews? Vol. I: Soul of the Israelites, ISBN 0-913993-17-4 Vol. II : A Nation of Philosophers, ISBN 0-913993-18-2 Seymour W. Itzkoff Paideia Publishers, Ashfield, MA, 2004 Within the next several years, Volumes I and II of Who Are the Jews will be joined by a third and final volume, which will survey the historical, ethnic, religious history of the Jewish people into our own time. Volume I, Soul of the Israelites, gains its theme from the role of Moses the law giver, the inner ethical rock upon which Judaism was based. Itzkoff s biblical and historical analysis confirms Sigmund Freud's 1937 view in Moses and Monotheism of the probable Egyptian origins of this figure. The fact that Moses was but sixty or seventy years removed from the Pharaoh Akhenaton, c.1350 BCE, who but for only one generation overthrew the anthropomorphic animal gods of the Egyptian priesthood for a more philosophical monotheistic sun-god, argues for the probable affiliation of Moses with the Egyptians. The Exodus could have taken place c.1275-1225 BCE, a period close to the rule of the Hyksos (1650 BCE) derived Asiatic dynasty of the red-headed Rameses II. That the Hellenistic Egyptian priests of Heliopolis so viewed Moses is additional support for the plausibility of Itzkoff s argument. Much study is given to the origins of the various Israelite tribal units. Here Itzkoff sees three groups amalgamating into one national unity under Saul, David, and Solomon, to defend themselves from the advancing Philistines - unquestionably Mycenaean (Homeric era "sea people") Greeks - who, earlier, had given the Egyptians much trouble. These groups were a) the Exodus Semitic rabble from Egypt, led by a determined and visionary Moses; b) the Yahwist tribes of the Sinai, Negev, northern Arabia, who were essentially monotheistic, sharing their circumcision ritual with the Egyptian aristocracy; c) the northern Canaanite tribes of Israel, worshipping the traditional Babylonian/Syrian chief god, El, Elohim, Elohenu. The glue that held these diverse peoples together, along with an existing Indo-European component of Hyksos, Hurrians, Hittites, and Greeks (here including the peoples of the Jebusite town of Jerusalem that David made his capital) was the mysterious and all-powerful war god Yahweh and the ethical discipline that the Levites and priests had tried to force upon these formerly Habiru ruffians. From the beginning, this century-long monarchy fulfilled the warning that Samuel the judge had given the Israelites about relinquishing their tribal freedoms for a king, to defend them. The moral corruption, the falling away from the difficult disciplines that Moses and then the written Pentateuch had placed before them, undermined the Mosaic vision. First, the breakup of the tribes into two monarchies. Then, the descent of the religion into a Near-Eastern syncretism. By the time Israel, the state, and its ten tribes fell before the Assyrians, c.700 BCE, the northern monarchy envisioned
{"title":"Who Are the Jews","authors":"James Blakely","doi":"10.4324/9781315509013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315509013","url":null,"abstract":"Who Are the Jews? Vol. I: Soul of the Israelites, ISBN 0-913993-17-4 Vol. II : A Nation of Philosophers, ISBN 0-913993-18-2 Seymour W. Itzkoff Paideia Publishers, Ashfield, MA, 2004 Within the next several years, Volumes I and II of Who Are the Jews will be joined by a third and final volume, which will survey the historical, ethnic, religious history of the Jewish people into our own time. Volume I, Soul of the Israelites, gains its theme from the role of Moses the law giver, the inner ethical rock upon which Judaism was based. Itzkoff s biblical and historical analysis confirms Sigmund Freud's 1937 view in Moses and Monotheism of the probable Egyptian origins of this figure. The fact that Moses was but sixty or seventy years removed from the Pharaoh Akhenaton, c.1350 BCE, who but for only one generation overthrew the anthropomorphic animal gods of the Egyptian priesthood for a more philosophical monotheistic sun-god, argues for the probable affiliation of Moses with the Egyptians. The Exodus could have taken place c.1275-1225 BCE, a period close to the rule of the Hyksos (1650 BCE) derived Asiatic dynasty of the red-headed Rameses II. That the Hellenistic Egyptian priests of Heliopolis so viewed Moses is additional support for the plausibility of Itzkoff s argument. Much study is given to the origins of the various Israelite tribal units. Here Itzkoff sees three groups amalgamating into one national unity under Saul, David, and Solomon, to defend themselves from the advancing Philistines - unquestionably Mycenaean (Homeric era \"sea people\") Greeks - who, earlier, had given the Egyptians much trouble. These groups were a) the Exodus Semitic rabble from Egypt, led by a determined and visionary Moses; b) the Yahwist tribes of the Sinai, Negev, northern Arabia, who were essentially monotheistic, sharing their circumcision ritual with the Egyptian aristocracy; c) the northern Canaanite tribes of Israel, worshipping the traditional Babylonian/Syrian chief god, El, Elohim, Elohenu. The glue that held these diverse peoples together, along with an existing Indo-European component of Hyksos, Hurrians, Hittites, and Greeks (here including the peoples of the Jebusite town of Jerusalem that David made his capital) was the mysterious and all-powerful war god Yahweh and the ethical discipline that the Levites and priests had tried to force upon these formerly Habiru ruffians. From the beginning, this century-long monarchy fulfilled the warning that Samuel the judge had given the Israelites about relinquishing their tribal freedoms for a king, to defend them. The moral corruption, the falling away from the difficult disciplines that Moses and then the written Pentateuch had placed before them, undermined the Mosaic vision. First, the breakup of the tribes into two monarchies. Then, the descent of the religion into a Near-Eastern syncretism. By the time Israel, the state, and its ten tribes fell before the Assyrians, c.700 BCE, the northern monarchy envisioned ","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78306313","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The End of Blackness: Returning the Souls of Black Folk to Their Rightful Owners Debra J. Dickerson Anchor Books, 2004 There is something in this book for just about everyone, depending upon a reader's proclivities. Those who read it to find ammunition against whites will find it there. Those who wish to see a black author's own characterizations of what is to her the deeply flawed behavior of many other blacks will find that there, too. Those who would like to see some emphasis, at least, on the decent and responsible behavior of a large number of people in either race will be disappointed, but apparently Dickerson feels the negatives exist in such abundance that they deserve the center of attention. Ironically, she is critical of "the hysterical black polemicist [who] is the snarling German shepherd that blacks loose on racism," but that is a description a reader can't help but feel fits Dickerson herself throughout much of the book. Looking at the world through a haughty intellectualism that gives her an Olympian perspective and allows her to apply much pop psychology, she finds fuel for dissatisfaction with almost everybody. Those who come under her scalpel include the current black leadership; the "Movement Generation"; the black "bourgeoisie"; the great bulk of black males; black women, who despite being the work horses of their race have many undesirable qualities, according to Dickerson; and whites, for their racism, "structuralized greed, entrenched privilege, and xenophobia." There is in all of this considerable grist for thought, and for good reason: Dickerson is in a position to have much to say. She is a sharecropper's daughter who graduated from Harvard Law School, and the wife in an interracial marriage. Her style is articulate (and she takes pleasure in an occasional sally into intellectualized smut). Even though there is much to criticize her for, her negativity has a unique value in light of the circumstances in which Americans find themselves today: it brings her to say things that few others are able to say in a society stifled by political correctness (i.e., by an insistence upon ideological conformity). Slurs against whites are politically correct, so there isn't much she can dish out along those lines that hasn't already been said. But that isn't true of her criticisms of today's black population. Her observations there offer a window into a forbidden subject. In this review, it will be valuable to examine what she has to say about whites, but most especially about blacks. Her book's content has significance for reasons Dickerson herself may not intend. If her critique is to be taken seriously, she is suggesting something quite startling and unexpected: that there is much that is problematic about the "moral high ground" that has allowed the Civil Rights Movement in the United States to sweep all before it. Those reading her observations can't help but entertain questions about the moral justification for the process of soc
《黑人的终结:把黑人的灵魂还给他们应有的主人》黛布拉·j·迪克森，锚出版社，2004。这本书中有一些东西适合每个人，取决于读者的倾向。那些为了找到反对白人的弹药而读这本书的人会在那里找到它。那些希望看到一位黑人作家对她认为的许多其他黑人有严重缺陷的行为的自己的描述的人也会发现。有些人希望看到，至少在这两种种族中，有大量的人表现出体面和负责任的行为，他们会感到失望，但显然迪克森认为，负面因素如此之多，值得关注。具有讽刺意味的是，她批评“歇斯底里的黑人雄辩家是黑人在种族主义问题上放任不管的咆哮的德国牧羊犬”，但读者不禁觉得，这种描述与迪克森本人在书中的大部分内容都很吻合。她以一种高傲的理智主义看待这个世界，这种理智主义赋予了她奥运选手的视角，并使她能够运用许多流行心理学，她找到了对几乎所有人不满的燃料。那些在她手术刀下的人包括现在的黑人领导人;“运动一代”;黑人“资产阶级”;大量的黑人男性;根据迪克森的说法，黑人女性尽管是他们种族的主力，但也有许多不受欢迎的品质;而白人，因为他们的种族主义，“结构化的贪婪、根深蒂固的特权和仇外心理”。所有这些都有值得思考的地方，而且有充分的理由:迪克森有很多话要说。她是一个佃农的女儿，毕业于哈佛法学院，是一个异族婚姻的妻子。她的风格是清晰的(她喜欢偶尔进入知性的色情作品)。尽管她有很多值得批评的地方，但鉴于美国人今天所处的环境，她的消极态度有其独特的价值:这让她说出了在一个被政治正确(即坚持意识形态的一致性)扼杀的社会中很少有人能说出的话。对白人的诽谤在政治上是正确的，所以她没有太多可以沿着这些已经说过的路线发表的言论。但她对今天黑人人口的批评并非如此。她在那里的观察为一个被禁止的话题提供了一扇窗。在这篇评论中，审视她对白人的看法，尤其是对黑人的看法，将是很有价值的。她的书的内容具有重要意义，原因可能不是迪克森自己想要的。如果认真对待她的批评，她提出了一些相当令人吃惊和意想不到的东西:美国民权运动(Civil Rights Movement)曾经横扫一切的“道德制高点”存在很多问题。那些读到她的评论的人不禁会提出这样的问题:自第二次世界大战以来，在美国社会中占据强大影响力的社会和法律变革过程的道德正当性。但首先，我们离题了。从表面上看，这是迪克森写作的主要原因，但把对这条信息的讨论推迟到评论的结尾是不恰当的。她想传达振奋人心的信息。她说，美国黑人应该关注生活，关注“作为个体的实现”，而不是关注种族正义。他们可以做很多事情:追求“好公民”，通过自助项目改善社区，在学业上取得优异成绩，参军，收养被忽视的儿童，教育选民。为了实现这一目标，“黑人必须把提升自己的缰绳掌握在自己手中。”“黑人的行为和道德标准不能再低于白人了，”她说;“犯罪就是犯罪，懒惰就是懒惰，优点大多是可以衡量的。”从更广泛的角度来看，他们应该承认西方文化的“伟大”，“给予魔鬼应有的惩罚”。…
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