Rafe's Round-Up: A Selection ofCuriosities and Comments

Rafe Champion

The Spectre of Free Enterprise

Moscow News, May 7 1989.

In the interest of showing a 'a whole spectre (sic) ofopinions', this weekly newspaper prints some sugges-tions from a Russian group called Against Inflation.They state that the financial crisis is based on a 1985decision to accelerate industrial growth by printingmoney.

'We've already printed enough paper money tobuy all the goods in Western Europe, if only it wouldaccept the rouble at its official exchange rate. The GDRand Czechoslovakia have recently forbidden our tour-ists to take consumer goods out of the country'.

They demand the abolition of those forms of creditwhich pump the economy full of paper money. Creditshould be based exclusively on commercial considera-tions, with interest rates determined by supply anddemand.

Administrative control over prices should be lifted,also the rouble should be freely convertible to find itsmarket value. Labour productivity must be lifted at thesame time to avoid depression under the influx of newmoney.

Different forms of ownership (including privateproperty) should be permitted in the farm sector. Mostindustrial enterprises should be transferred to joint-stock partnership.

'The State Planning Committee and the Ministry ofFinance threaten the radical reforms started byMikhailGorbachov'.

The Commission for the Future Discovers theMarket

Dr Peter Ellyard 'Desirable Futures for Australia', InFuture, April 1989.

Writing in the magazine of the Commission for theFuture the new Director sketches five new projectsdesigned to focus the resources of the Commissionmore effectively. These are Sustainable Futures, Crea-tive Futures, Enterprising Futures, Healthy Futures andAustralia-Japan Futures. Dr Ellyard considers that thecreativity and enterprise projects should be consideredtogether.

'Innovation depends on the fundamental levels ofentrepreneurship and enterprise in a society. ... ifAustralia is to develop a productive culture, we needworkplaces which are both more creative and moreenterprising and entrepreneurial'.

He must have been reading Moscow News.

The New Science of Pork-Barreffing

Joseph Martino 'Pork Invades the Lab', Reason, March1989.

State governments and universities in the US havebegun to use hardline lobbying tactics to obtain Federalscience grants. One of the plums was the Departmentof Energy's Superconducting Supercollider, worthalmost 5,000 jobs during construction and many thou-sands of positions thereafter. Several states workedhard to win the prize but nobody took any notice of thescientists who argued that it was not needed at all.

Research grants are now firmly planted on thepolitical agenda, spelling the decline of the pre-1983'peer review' system where universities and otheragencies had to compete on the scientific merits of theirapplications.

Now that our scientists are trying to shrug off their'wimp' label, will they get into the game of cultivatingpolitical patronage, and where will this lead?

A Balanced View of the Budget

Joseph White and Aaron Wildavsky 'How to Fix theDeficit - Really', The Public Interest, Winter 1989.

We disagree both with those who say that deficits donot matter and those who exaggerate how much theymatter'.

These American authors argue that 'deficit mania'is concentrated among the elite of national experts,politicians and journalists who have made much of thedeficit for political pointscoring and newsworthy state-ments. This distracts attention from other equallypressing problems, including those which have pro-duced the deficit and whose correction calls for long-term effort.

'The deficit has become an all-purpose weapon,used to oppose or support virtually any position. This

Polity Winter 1989 63

is bad policy and worse analysis; it has paralysed ourpolitical system. Obsessed with the deficit, we ignoreother questions'.

They reach the following conclusions, supportedby arguments:

1. There is no economic necessity to balance thebudget within five years.

2. The deficit persists not because of a lack ofpolitical courage but because the steps re-quired to reduced it, whether by tax hikes orspending cuts, are difficult and produce prob-lems of their own.

3. The strategies demanded by extreme 'respon-sible budgeters' are misguided and self-de-feating because failure to meet unrealisticgoals will undermine more sober efforts toachieve balance over a longer term.

4. The 'crisis' is partly a matter of confidence in

Obituary Tom Kewley, OAM

Tom Kewley, a long-time mem-ber of the CIS Advisory Council,and one of the pioneers of theacademic study of Public Admini-stration inAustralia, died suddenlyin March at the age of 78.

For more than 40 years hewas associated with the Univer-sity of Sydney, first as a studentand then as a colleague of Profes-sor F. Armand Bland who occu-pied the Foundation Chair ofPublic Administration in the Fac-ulty of Economics. His majorcontributions to the disciplinewere in the areas of social admini-stration and public enterprise, hisbest known book being The His-toiy of Social Security in ustra-ha, 1900-1972.(1973)

Having gained his Master ofArts and Diplomas in Public Ad-ministration and in Social Studies,

Tom Kewley became Senior Lec-turer in Government and Public Ad-ministration. His overseas appoint-ments included: Rockefeller Foun-dation Research Fellow at the Lon-don School of Economics and Po-litical Science; United Nations Con-sultant on public enterprise inBurma; Visiting Fuibright Professorof Political Science at Colgate Uni-versity, New York State; and SeniorScholar at the Institute of AdvancedProjects, East-West centre, Univer-sity of Hawaii. Locally, he served asa consultant and advisor to theCommonwealth Department ofSocial Services in the late 1960s.

Tom Kewley's contribution totertiary education and to public pol-icy continued until his death. Re-tirement from the University ofSydney in 1974 meant merely anopportunity to pursue his interests

elsewhere. At the Kuring-gai Col-lege of Advanced Education hehelped develop the Graduate Di-ploma in Social Administration andwas Director of the Centre for So-cial Welfare Studies from 1976 to1978. As Kuring-gai's first Honor-ary Fellow, he continuedto play animportant role in the intellectuallife of the College.

His close association with theCentre for Independent Studies formore than ten years assumed agreater significance in the past fewyears with the establishment of theCentre's Social Welfare ResearchProgram. His advice on a variety ofissues was often sought by thoseworking in the Program.

We have lost a good and gentlefriend.

the finance ministries and central banks of UStrading partners. They can be satisfied bysigns that there is no panic, and by realisticdeficit reduction.They propose a reduction of $50 billion overtwo years. This will lower the deficit to afigure in the order of 1 to 2 per cent of GDP.These steps should establish a trajectory toreduce the deficit and there should be noobsession with the precise figure as a per-centage of GDP because fluctuations in theeconomy will shift this regardless of the bestefforts of the administration.

'The nation's leaders should make clear that a $50-billion reduction is a significant policy change. They

could offer politicians what nobody has offered since1982; a settlement of the budget wars'. _____

IPo1icyI

64 Policy Winter 1989

Hernando deSoto, 'What'sWrong withLatin Amen-

I lU) UIIU- U I P can1 mies? Elec-

tions withoutdemocracy, regulations without law, a privatesectorwithout capitalism', Reason, October1989.

Hernando de Soto is president of the Instituto Libertady Democracia in Lima (Peru) and the author of an im-portantbook The OtherPath: The Invisible Revolutionin the Third World.

Only about 5 per cent of Peruvians belong to la-bour unions and more than 60 per cent are operatingas entrepreneurs in the informal orblackecoqomy. In-formal operators do not regard themselves as eitherthe private or the public sector because they see theformer as the beneficiary of privileges handed out bythe latter.

The costs of entry into the legitimate private sectorare prohibitive. Researchers in Lima took 289 daystoregister a small garment firm (it took four hours in NewYork City). Land titles are very hard to obtain, sopeople are unwilling to build anything substantial forfear of having it expropriated or claimed by tenantswhen titles are handed out. In the absence of land titlesand other property rights, mortgage finance is practi-cally unavailable.

The government makes 27000 rules per annum.Bribery and the quest for favours are rampant; generalmanagers in Lima spend 45 per cent of their timeinvolved in politics of some kind. Practically all entre-preneurs in the formal private, including those whosebusinesses are in the provinces, have to live in Lima,the political centre.

Latin America is still in a mercantilist period: onlythose with access to political power can legally dobusiness. Practically none of the institutions requiredto sustain democratic capitalism has evolved. Thegreat problem is to find Western democrats with enoughunderstanding of the spontaneously evolved systemsthat sustain democratic capitalism to provide usefulideas for the Third World.

Sydney Hook, 'Civilization and its Malcontents',National Review, 13 October 1989.

Serious moves are under way to politicise the study ofthe humanities in the United States. These tendenciesare reflected in the social studies texts proposed bysome education reformers. Traditional texts are to bereplaced or supplemented with books composed bywomen, coloured people and other representatives ofthe 'oppressed classes'. Special courses will be pro-vided by members of these disadvantaged groups.This amounts to a massive program of historical revi-sionism and cultural affirmative action.

Hook points out that these plans are based on

major errors of fact. Against the claim that the main-stream of traditional culture stifles alternative and dis-senting views, Hook notes that 'Western culture hasbeen the most critical of itselF, that 'its history haslargely been a succession of heresies', and that 'it hasbeen freer of the blind spots of ethnocentrism than anyother'. Against the view that Western culture exploitscolonial cultures, Hook reminds us that many leadersof Third World countries learned their liberationistideologies from liberal humanities courses in Paris andLondon.

The debate hinges on a blatant extension of theterm 'political' to include any difference of opinionwhatever. Consequently, people who suggest thathistory and literature texts do not need to be studied asessentially political documents are accused of coveringup their own political interests in the status quo. Hookidentifies this as a part of a sinister tendency to politicisethe truth itself, as though truth were decided by powerand influence. Unfortunately, corrective action willneed to have a political dimension the radical reformershave successfully captured positions of political powerand influence.

Michael Novak, 'Boredom, Virtue and Demo-cratic Capitalism', Commentary, September1989.

Novak criticises Francis Fukayama's 'end of history'thesis, which says that the end of the cold war and thetriumph of liberal democracy will usher in a period ofboredom and nostalgia. This judgment onthe 'spiri-tual deficiency' of democratic capitalism springs froma 'horrific' category mistake. Democratic capitalism isnot a church, a philosophy or a way of life; rather, itpromises three liberations: from tyranny and torture;from the oppression of conscience, information andideas; and from poverty.

The resulting social order provides space 'withinwhich the soul may make its own choices, and withinwhich spiritual leaders and spiritual associations maydo theit own necessary and Creative work'. Demo-cratic capitalism has done rather well on the score ofpromoting spiritual and cultural life, in contrast withFascism and Communism, both of which aspired tocater for higher human needs.

Novak identifies several valuable moral traditionsthat were called forth by democratic capitalist institu-tions in the early American colonies. These includecivic responsibility, personal economic enterprise,creativity and a certain kind of communitarian livingembodied in a myriad of voluntary associations. On amore sombre note, he reminds us that capitalism de-pends on a moral framework that is under threat fromrelativism in the intellectual realm and from socialengineers in the political and social arena. 'It wouldonly, take a generation of citizens who have forgottentheir founding principles and all the lessons of expe-rience to set in motion a precipitous and calamitousslide'.

Rafe Champion.

64 Policy Autumn 1990

JohnR.Dunlap, 'Kid-die Litter', TheAmerican Specta-tor, December1989.

U In the 1950s the socialpsychologist McClel-

land wrote a book called The Achieving Socielywhichexplored cultural influences on the entrepreneurialspirit. His historical and cross-cultural studies sug-gested that one of the antecedents of a country's highcultural and economic performance was the domi-nance of themes of achievement and heroism inchildren's stories and folklore.

Dunlap does not refer to this work but he traces arecent tendency in the US awards for children's litera-ture to favour 'progressive' themes of race relations,anti-sexism and crises of conscience. His main concernlies with the way the issues are presented in a pervasivecontext of moral relativism, as though right and wronghave vanished.

'Using the (trend-setting) Newbury award-win-ners as a yardstick, we can say that something like two-thirds of those 3000 children's titles being pumped outeach year are not books that a sensible parent would beeager to see in his child's hands.'

In addition, he suggests that the keynote in this'new wave' of children's literature is preoccupationwith the self at the expense of the storyline. In thewords of his 12-year-old son, these books are 'boringand kinda preachy'.

AnthonyLejeune, TheDisappearing Cowboy: The RiseandFallofthe Western NationalReview , 31 Decem-ber 1989.

'A nation which loses its myths is in danger of losing itssoul.. Just as the legends of King Arthur were "the Matterof Britain," so Westerns have been the Matter of Amer-ica'.

Lejeune argues that the 'cowboy code' depicted incountless A, B and C grade movies has genuine value.Apart from the slaughter of Indians, mostly in the B andC grades, the themes of the great Westerns addressedserious moral issues. The body count was usually smalland even if violent incidents were essential to the plotthey were ritualised because violence as such was notthe point.

The situation has been transformed by the 'spa-ghetti Western' - corpse-strewn, amoral and unro-mantic. 'A worm has entered the apple ... and badcurrency drives out good.' A typical example is ClintEastwood's Pale Rider, often described as a reworkingof the classic Shane. The classic began with a deerthreatened by a child's toy gun; Pale Riderbegins withthe slaughter of cow and a pet dog. Shane had onekilling and one gunfight; Pale Rider has brutality fromstart to finish.

The nature of the change has not been widelynoticed, as though the new form of the genre merelyextends some tendencies that were always present.

64 Policy Winter 1990

Lejeune insists that this is not the case, that the twocategories are moral opposites. And 'If Americanaudiences now prefer violence to chivalry, they havebecome like the false knights who trample on theRound Table at the end of Camelot.

'Losing the Battle of Stalingrad The Russian writers'union falls apart', The Economist, 9 December1989.

The Russian writers' union is racked with dissensionfollowing an argument over the reputation of Alexan-der Pushkin. He has achieved something like godlikestatus among Russian patriots who follow his peculiarbrand of chauvinistic pan-Slavism. Members of thisfaction (who incidentally believe in an internationalJewish conspiracy against Mother Russia) now controlthe writers' union.

'The union is equally anti-western, anti-demo-cratic and pro-tsarist. In the spring of 1987 it threatenedto unleash "a new battle of Stalingrad" against glasnost

The union's magazine is a main vehicle for anti-per-estroika articles.'

Literary liberals are leaving the union in droves,including the entire Soviet membership of PEN, theinternational writers' guild, and the two best-knownRussian poets.

Christopher Tookey, 'The Chaige oftheAngyBr1gade',National Review, 24 November, 1989.

The 'Angry Brigade' is a group of left-wing British play-wrights who make their living by writing publicly-subsidised plays calling for the overthrow of capitalismin general and the Conservative Party in particular. Thepersonnel include some Of the most substantial talentsin the country; among them David Hare, Edward Bond,Trevor Griffiths, Howard Brenton apd Howard Barker.

They see the role of theatre as essentially political.In the course of casting for a play, Edward Bondinterrogated auditioning actors on their politics. Poli-tics aside, other themes in their productions are unor-thodox. An evening of ten short plays by HowardBarker features rape, infanticide, casual killings, andflogging. His The Last Supper has the apostles stabbingand eating the Christ-figure. All of this no doubtreflecting the harsh realities of life in 'Thatcher'sBritain'.

Sometimes their socialist principles are put aside.In the 1970s,Hare and Brenton used actors' improvisa-tions to build up plays that the two would then write bythemselves for commercial production, thereby ob-taining both the credit and the money.

Tookey suggests that it is hard to respond effec-tively to propaganda and obscenity on the stage be-cause critics tend to appear (or can be made to appear)as if they are trying to restrict freedom of speech.

-Rafe Champion

Geo7ge F. Will, 'A Racist Rationalefor Racial Hi ri rig', The Los Ange-les Times, 1 7May, 1990.

Aprofessor at Harvard Univer-sity has threatened to take unpaidleave until a black woman becomesa tenured professor in law, despitethe fact that five of the law profes-sors are women andthree are black.This is part of a campaign for racialhiring to provide 'role models' forblack students.

Will points out that black students at Harvard arehighly privileged and upwardly mobile. The last thingthey need is a role model whose hiring communicatesa message that they are participants in a group entitle-ment to professional advancement.' A black memberof the Harvard faculty has irritated the civil libertiesmovement with a paper pointing out that this amountsto 'intellectual gerrymandering' and the destruction ofstandards to make 5àrticular groups exempt from com-petition or criticism.

Price V.Fishback, 'Can CompetitionAmongEmployetReduce Governmental Discrimination? Coal Compa-nies and Segregated Schools in West Vitginia in theEarly 1900s', Journal ofLaw & Economics, vol.32,October, 1989.

Fishback examines discrimination against blacksin government schools in West Virginia in the early1900s. At that time blacks could not resort to the ballotbox and white voters in effect sought to redistributeincomes from minorities to themselves. However, inperiods of high demand for labour, as during the coalboom from 1890 to World War I, coal companies notonly recruited black workers and treated them similarlyto whites but also promoted equality in schools toimprove the quality of their labour force. They did thisin various ways, induding the donation of buildingsand paying external supplements outside the schoolsystem.

James P. Smith and Finis R. Welch, 'Black EconomicProgress After Myrdal', Journal of Economic Lit-erature, vol. 27(March), 1989.

How widespread is economic progress in theblack community? How much progress should be at-tributed to affirmative action as opposed to other fac-tors such as improved education and migration to thecities and to the North?

The difference in wages for black and white menhad narrowed dramatically, especially during the 1940sand 1950s (from a low base for blacks). One of the mostencouraging findings is the emergence of an affluentblack middle dass which was almost totally missing 40years ago. The major cause appeared to be more andbetter education for blacks, followed by migration tothe North and a reduction in the South-North wage gap.Affirmative action is relevant only as an explanation forpost-1965 effects on the wage gap; it appears thatprogress did not accelerate in that period, although

some groups such as young blackcollege graduates experienced largegains.

The authors conclude thatblack progress reflects hard-wonachievements with enhanced blackmarket skills, in the context of rapideconomic growth. The black elitehas expanded but there is also thespectre of the black underclass.They see the quality of education as

the key factor in sustained black advancement.

Morley Gundeison, Male-Female Wage Differentialsand Policy Responses', Journal ofEconomic Litera-ture, vol. 27 (March), 1989.

The wage differential is in the order of 7:10 infavour of males. But when factors such as hours ofwork, qualifications and years of unbroken work areconsidered, the remaining gap (the discrimination ef-fect) narrows considerably. Factors outside the labourmarket such as home responsibilities and type of edu-cation are significant, showing the limited scope ofpolicies which focus only on the labour market Thegap tends to be smaller in the public sector than in theprivate sector, and in the private sector the gap issmaller in areas where the product market is competi-tive. It appears that wage increases due to EqualEmployment Opportunity programs have not had largeadverse employment effects, especially in the publicsector.

Roosevelt R. Thomas, 'From Affirmative Action to Af-firming Diversily', Harvard Business Review,Matvh-Aprtl 1990.

The author, an executive director of the AmericanInstitute for Managing Diversity at Atlanta's MorehouseCollege, has worked with major companies to developprograms and practices to facilitate the progress ofminorities in the workforce.

He argues that affirmative action will eventuallydie a natural death. With the renewed emphasis onproductivity and competitiveness, corporations realisethat they cannot afford to squander the talents ofpeople in minority groups. This pressure has gener-ated the need for creative changes in the hithertoconservative culture of the major corporations.

Affirmative action is not the way to influenceupward mobility because in its strong forms it conffictswith the principle of merit. 'For this reason, affirmativeaction is a red flag to every individual who feels unfairlypassed over and a stigma for those who appear to be itsbeneficiaries'.

There is a danger of maintaining the 'zero sum'mentality and a fear among employees that merit isbeing overlooked in favour of special considerations.'Because of its artificial nature, affirmative action re-quires constant attention and drive to make it work.The point of learning once and for all how to managediversity is that all the energy can be focussed some-where else.' -Bale Champion

64 Policy Spring 1990

Adam Meyerson 'The Vi-sion Thing, Continued: ACons ervative ResearchAgenda for the '90s',Policy Review, Summer1990.

Meyerson, editor ofPolicy Review, suggests thatrenewed efforts in the battleof ideas should not be at theexpense of engagement inpolitical and policy debates.He offers a list of strategicpolicy issues or goals where liberal/conservativescholars should lead the public debate.

One such issue is the maintenance of the militaryand economic strength of the US and the free world.Some older economists such as Buchanan and Stiglerexert great influence but the young lions of the pro-fession are too technical or too dogmatically libertar-ian to speak effectively to the general public.Meyerson suggests that this accounts for the break-down of the deregulation movement during the 1980sand the public relations success of the environmen-talists.

Another aim is to sharply reduce long-term statewelfare dependency in America while preservinggovernment help for those in temporary emergen-cies. Unfortunately these twin aims are likely toconflict. Perhaps the only long-term solution is toremove government from the picture so that privatecharity and initiative can take care of people in need.

Allan Bloom, 'Western Clv - and Me: An Ad-dress at Harvard University', Commentary, Au-gust 1990.

Bloom is the author of the best-selling book TheClosing of the American Mind, which blew thewhistle on the modern treason of the liberal intelli-gentsia, especially in the universities. Here he de-molishes some of his critics who interpreted the bookas an intolerant and uncomprehending attack onmodern students. He points out that his target wasthe mindset which scorns ideas which are regardedas old hat or reactionary without regard to theirmerits or to the defects of supposedly modern, pro-gressive ideas. For example, high regard for Euro-pean culture is dismissed as 'Eurocentrism', to bereplaced by - what?

'The dominant schools in American universitiescan tell the Chinese students only that they shouldavoid Eurocentrism, that rationalism has failed, thatthey should study non-Western societies, and thatbourgeois liberalism is the most despicable of re-gimes. Stanford has replaced John Locke with FranzFanon, an ephemeral writer once promoted by Jean-Paul Sartre because of his murderous hatred of Euro-peans and his espousal of terrorism. However, this isnotwhat the Chinese need. They have Deng Xiaopingto deconstruct their Statue of Liberty. We owe themsomething much better.'

Michael E. Porter, 'TheCompetitive Advantageof Nations', HarvardBusiness Review, March-April 1990.

Michael Porter, not to beconfused with our ownMichael Porter of theTasman Institute, is the au-thor of the recently-releasedThe Competitive Advantageof Nations (Free Press),based on a close study of a

number of thriving industrial economies. Like asth-matics who become Olympic champions and peoplewith speech-defects who become leading orators,some nations achieve success despite major com-parative disadvantages. Motivation, commitment andinnovation provide the keys. Governments shouldaccept this and do the things that need to be doneinstead of the things they most like doing.

Porter sees a role for government in shaping thecontext and institutional structure surrounding com-panies and in creating an environment that stimu-lates companies to gain competitive advantage. Thismeans that governments should concentrate on in-frastnjcture, education and research. They shouldnot intervene in factor and currency markets. Theyshould enforce strict (how strict?) product, safety andenvironmental standards. They should deregulatefor competition and reject managed trade policies.More controversially they should enforce strong do-mestic antitrust policies.

Lynn Huinphreys, 'The Case for Chemicals',Australian Country Style, October-November1990.

Professor Winand Hock, director of the PesticideEducation Program at Pennsylvania State Universityspent some time in Australia in 1990. He workedwith the Agriculture & Veterinary Chemicals Associa-tion (AVCA) to produce an education manual forfarmers. One aim is to ensure that the continued useof fertilisers, weedicides, fungicides and the like isnot prejudiced by excessive use or avoidable acci-dents.

Another aim is to counter the attack on farmchemicals, led by noted authorities on the subjectsuch as Meryl Streep and Pamela Stephenson. Pro-fessor Hock reminds us that many of the toxinsproduced by the bacteria and fungi that damage fruitand vegetables are themselves very dangerous. Someare potent cancer producers. Control of these pests istherefore not just a commercial imperative for farm-ers and the food industry, it is also important forpublic health.

Rafe Champion

64 Policy Summer 1990

Joseph Adelson, 'The NudearBubble', Commentary, Novem-ber 1990.

A minority of psychologistsand psychiatrists in the US haveprecipitated a torrent of literaturepurporting to demonstrate thatyoung people are tormented byfear of nudear war. The evidenceis very thin and is drawn almostentirely from the children of peaceactivists responding to loaded questions. Where thismethod fails to yield the appropriate level of anguishand concern, Catch 22 is deployed: the child hasrepressed the horror as a defence mechanism. All ofthis flies in the face of more reputable studies withlarge random samples. One of these showed that thetop seven issues of concern to seventh and eighthgraders were drugs (25 per cent), sex (17 per cent),the environment (10 per cent), crime (7 per cent),education, child abuse and suicide (5 per cent each).Not to be deterred by anything so trivial as evidence,groups such as the National Education Associationsprang into action to address this great non-issue.They developed curricular units designed to 'sensi-tise' the insensitive and help children to understandthe sinister role of the United States in the arms raceand the cold war. Some materials even went so far asto depict the 'bloodthirsty' tradition of Christianity asthe root problem.

'Nuclear psychology is the worst example wehave had so far of a more general problem in psy-chology: the erosion of the boundary between ideol-ogy and disinterested research ... Episodes such asthese take their toll in the form of squandered cred-ibility.'

Stephen A. Schwartz, 'Paz in our Time', TheAmerican Spectator, December 1990.

The 1990 Nobel laureate in literature, Mexicanpoet and critic Octavia Paz, has made the honourablepilgrimage from the Left to become one of the sternestcritics of Marxism in Latin America. Son of a Mexicanrevolutionary of the same name, Paz in his youth wasan associate of extremists and a champion of thestudent protesters in 1968. In those days he was alsoan aggressive secularist. His saving grace was hisover-riding loyalty to genuine freedom and creativ-ity, which forced him to acknowledge the valuableelements of traditional culture, including religion,and to deplore the tyranny of the Left when it came topower in Cuba and Nicaragua.

At the 1984 Frankfurt Book Fair he received thePeace Prize of the German Association of Booksell-ers and Publishers. His speech of acceptance con-demned the dictatorship of the Sandinista regime andhis monthly magazine Vuelta has taken a stand onfreedom of speech and modernism, against left-wingpolitical censorship and the intellectual hegemony ofsocial realism. He has written, 'The Nicaraguan elec-tion dealt the all-but-final blow to Marxist-Leninist

revolution in this hemisphere'.Asked who was responsible forthe human cost of the failed revo-lutions he replied 'I would startwith the Latin American intellec-tuals.'

Theodore Dairymple, 'IfSymptoms Persist', The Spec-tator, 3 November 1990.This column monitors the pulse

of British life from the perspective of a doctor ingeneral practice. He notes that one of the symptomsof chronic schizophrenia is 'anhedonia', the inabilityto derive pleasure from anything. This can lead to alack of motivation to undertake the relatively simpletasks of daily life.

'As far as one can tell, it is the normal conditionof a considerable proportion of British youth, and isactively encouraged in our schools'.

This came home to the good doctor when apatient presented her teenage daughter who wastruanting and laying the foundations for a squan-dered life, despite her intelligence and talents. Herteachers refused to take a positive (elitist and un-democratic) view of her strengths and instead per-suaded her that, because she lived in a poor part oftown, she had no prospects due to social injustice.The daughter had apparently taken this message onboard and communicated in sullen monosyllables, asthough determined to give the impression of mentalretardation.

John O'Sufflvan, 'Philistines at the Gate', Na-tional Review, 11 June, 1990.

Progressive artists have been driven to fury bymoves to restrict the exhibition of pornographic worksproduced with the aid of public subsidies. They areeven more furious at suggestions that subsidies mightnot be granted for such projects in future. We areinformed that the central purpose of art is 'to outragethe placid', though as O'Sullivan points Out, the placidare increasingly hard to outrage. Quite extrememeasures are required these days, though artists andperformers with the creative ingenuity of Madonnacan still manage to do so. In fact, many of theobjectors are not calling for censorship at all, merelyto be relieved from the duty of footing the bills. Theprogressive counter-attack, mounted by a Harvardlaw professor, argues that refusal to subsidise artistsis really much the same as suppressing their freedomof expression.

The credibility of the notion that progressive artshould give offence probably derives from the expe-riences of scientific pioneers such as Galileo, Darwinand Freud. They encountered opposition based onreligious or moral prejudice, though their achieve-ments have enduring value. Can the same be saidabout blasphemy and the explicit depiction of homo-sexual sado-masochism?

- Bale Champion

64 Policy Autumn 1991

RAFE'Sup

Maurice Cranston, 'A Few Right Moves',The American Spectator, March 1991.

Cranston suggests that the Hawke Government is busyburying socialism, by swinging into privatisation andderegulation. However, the subservience of Labor to itstrade union minders will ensure that economic recov-ery is uncertain. He has a historical explanation of theintransigence of the labour movement. Selective mi-gration in the early colonial days, with assistedpassages for skilled tradesmen, resulted in under-representation of the educated middle class andentrepreneurs. At the same time, the transportation ofleaders of illegal trade union organisations and Irishrebel politicians injected a fiercely radical element intothe labour movement.

However, the author has apparently overlookedthe institutional framework that provides so muchleverage for vested interests. This is the combination oftariffs and central wage fixing, dubbed the 'New Protec-tion', that was put in place shortly after the turn of thecentury. He underestimates the impact of the women'srights movement, apparently misled by the fact thatGermaine Greer and Jill Ker Conway live overseas. Healso underestimates the destructive influence of theGreens and hard-line socialists who remain powerful inmajor trade unions and the State of Victoria.

Murray Weidenbauin, 'Slight Reading',Reason, March 1991.

The green movement does not like economics oreconomists. World watch (September-October 1990)reports that there is a fundamental flaw in economics,namely, 'an almost complete lack of regard for theenvironment'. This is based on a scan of the indices ofthree macroeconomic textbooks that failed to find anyentries under 'pollution', 'natural resources', 'environ-ment' or 'depletion'.

Weidenbaum reminds us that macro texts are notthe place to look for these issues, which are moreappropriately treated in microeconomics. Most intro-ductory books cover both macro and micro, so a moresensible sample would be drawn from them.Weidenbaum sampled ten, ranging from Samuelson(1961) through Lipsey and Steiner (1972) to Samuelson(1980), McKenzie (1986) and Ragan and Thomas(1990). The number of pages devoted to environmen-tal issues in those books ran as follows: 5, 9, 30, 13, 26.So much for the world watchers' sample of three.

More important than mere coverage is content.Economists have for many decades, if not centuries,addressed the problem of externalities (such as

pollution). Can the price system be used to controlsuch things or do we have to resort to the command andcontrol approach? Weidenbaum suggests that economicanalysis of alternative approaches to environmentalissues is imperative to avoid strategies that fail toachieve their objectives or cost more than they areworth.

'Rather than counting pages in economics text-books, the Woridwatch Institute should try readingtheir contents.'

'Champion of Choice', Interview withPolly Williams for Reason, October 1990.

The public schools of Milwaukee have just started thefirst American experiment with education vouchers forlow-income children. The cost of the vouchers, up to$US2500 each, will be deducted from the public schoolbudget, which currently spends $6000 per pupil. Thedriving force behind this scheme is an alliance ofRepublicans and Democrat Polly Williams, a blackmember of the Wisconsin state legislature. LiberalDemocrats resisted the scheme and finally tried tohijack the initiative with an alternative scheme wherebyapplicants would need to meet some negative criteria.'If you were in a family of alcoholics, had a brother inprison and a pregnant teenage sister, and were inarticu-late, you would have been a perfect candidate. In otherwords, a program they hoped would fail.'

On the cost of public education: 'The money isgoing to a system that doesn't educate them and to abunch of bureaucrats. A lot goes out the tailpipe ofbuses, trucking kids halfway across town so they can sitnext to white kids. . . . It's more feel-good politics forwhite liberals. They think their kids are having a neatcultural experience by going to school with African-American kids... Poor people become the trophies ofwhite social engineers.'

On affirmative action: 'I could see some affirmativeaction if it went to the people who really need it - atthe very bottom. But it never does that, it goes topeople who don't need it, and it carries with it thestigma that whatever position you got, people thinkyou got there because of favoritism.'

'hy not just improve the public schools? 'We'vetried that for years, and the best we get is, "Well, we'rethe experts, you are just parents". The choice plan isour second option. The folks who run the povertyindustry in this town are worried that kids will get abetter education for half the money. In their shoes, I'dbe worried too.'

- Rafe Champion

64 Policy Winter 1991

RAFE'S UP

L. J. Hume, 'Another Look at the Cultural Cringe',Political Theory Newsletter, Apr11 1991.

The notion of the Australian cultural cringe is one of thegreat clichés of our times. According to legend, thehumble colonials of yesteryear were 'inert, deferentialand passive' in front of the Great Overseas Powers,especially Britain, though this dismal state of affairschanged for the better during the 1960s, or perhaps withthe ascent of Whitlam. The phrase was coined by E. E.Philips in the very limited context of imaginative litera-ture and has since been generalised to the wholecolonial experience.

L. J. Hume, a retired political philosopher andBentham scholar, has put the cliché under the micro-scope in this minute and thorough study. The result isfascinating and devastating, revealing a rich tapestry ofignorance, selective quotation, and misreading of docu-ments. Hume's task would have been more difficult ifthe 'cringe theorists' (practically the whole galaxy ofprogressive historians and social commentators) hadbeen more circumspect in their statements. Strongclaims have been made and the cringe theory collapsesat every point where Hume prods it. Every schoolchild(before the 1960s) would have known there was nothingdeferential about world-class Australian sporting heroes,and nothing backward about our scientists and innova-tors, even in some areas of manufacturing.

The 'cringe' theory has been taken up by peoplewho propound a left-wing colonial dependency theory.Consequently, the economic historian Edward Shann isdescribed as one who 'untiringly defended Anglo-co-lonial economic dependency'. In fact, he opposed tariffprotection (a genuine cringe), deplored the accumula-tion of foreign debt (for the benefit of investors inLondon and New York), and felt we should exploit ouradvantages in primary industries and the proximity ofgrowing Asian economies. Though propounded in1930, this has a strongly contemporary ring, and not oneof cringing subservience to the Home Country.

Having devastated the cringe theorists, Hume con-templates the purpose that is being served by such afeeble yet popular misconception. It seems that pro-gressive intellectuals are so desperately insecure thatthey seek to draw inspiration from the myth that theyhave heroically escaped from a hideous spectre, i.e. thecringe. As George Orwell would have said, you wouldhave to be an intellectual to be so deluded.

Donald Kagan, 'George Will's Baseball - A Conserv-ative Critique', The Public Interest, No 101, Fall 1990.

Donald Kagan is the Dean of Yale College, author of afour-volume history of the Peloponnesian War, and anardent follower of baseball. He is distressed by what heperceives as the efflorescence of pseudo-scientific ped-

antry into what should be simultaneously epic anduncomplicated. A man stands on a hill and hurls a rockat another man who waits below armed with a tree trunkin his hands.

This essay is a review of Men at Work: The Craft ofBaseball by George F. Will, another conservativescholar. Will considers that the game was in thedoldrums in the 1950s but now is getting better all thetime; winning margins are narrowing, competition forthe pennants is becoming more equal, and above all,intelligence is now the decisive element in the game. Inresponse, Kagan asserts that the 1950s were a goldenage, with the mighty Yankees ruling year after year,challenged by the Dodgers and the Giants as the Titansand Giants of another era challenged the Olympians.With the fall of the Yankees in 1965 'came burning citiesat home, frustration and division abroad, debasement ofthe schools and universities, the collapse of sexualdecorum and restraint'.

This may, have been written with tongue in cheekbut Kagan is in earnest with his critique of modern effortsto apply statistics and safety-first tactics to a game whosefinest moments have traditionally come from a blend ofinspiration and athleticism. He points out the anomalythat he is forced to take issue with a fellow conservativewho might be expected to share his own love of thetraditional ethos of the game.

Leon T. Hadar, 'Perestroika in the Promised Land?,'Reason, October 1990.

Israel was founded by Eastern European socialists andconsists of a mix of democratic elements (a strong andindependent judiciary) and a huge bureaucracy, a cen-tralised economy and the most oppressive tax system inthe Western world. The resulting economic stagnation ismasked by American aid which props up the massivegovernment apparatus and prevents its true cost frombeing realised at home.

The major parties similarly combine a mix of good andbad policies. 'Trying to make a selection between Likud'smessianic foreign policy agenda and Labour's domesticsocialist program is like trying to choose between a heartattack and cancer, especially when both are competing forthe goodwifi of the clerical religious parties.'

Fortunately, help is at hand. A classical-liberal thinktank, the Israel Centre for Social and Economic Progress,opened in 1984. It has already lifted the level ofeconomic debate in the press. Unlikely allies in its causeare the more entrepreneurial members of the generallydown-trodden Eastern Jews, the Sephardim, who aresceptical of the ability of the welfare state to do much tohelp them.

The director of the centre, Daniel Doron, suggeststhat even the West Bank problems have as much to dowith economics as politics. Army intelligence found thatmany Palestinians jailed for rioting cited unemploymentand a harassing bureaucracy as major causes of theirown frustration.

Rafe Champion

64 Spring 1991 Policy

RAFE'S U p Robert Brustein, 'The Uses and Abusesof Multiculturalism', The New Republic,16 & 23 September, 1991.

Jacques Barzun, 'Russian Politics in the Russ-ian Classics', Commentary, May 1991.Bernard Levin wrote that he became a liberal as a resultof reading the classics of English literature before heencountered Karl Popper's Qpen Society or any otherphilosophical tracts. This reflects the fact that theinstitutions of democratic capitalism gain support fromother cultural and religious traditions. They may evendepend on apparently unrelated traditions, and if theseare defective then economic and political reforms maynot generate a successful market order.

How well are the Russians served by their classicalliterature as they stumble from the cavern of commu-nism? Barzun has explored the political content ofworks by some major Russian writers from Pushkin(1799-1837) to Chekhov (1860-1904). His analysis isnot encouraging. Many books explore the heights anddepths of passion and despair but few examples can befound of characters who are usefully engaged in publicaffairs, commerce, the arts or scholarship.

'Pushkin's Superfluous Men were stifled for lack offreedom to act in the public arena. After Pushkin,ranging up and down the social scale in books, we haveseen nothing but pitiful attempts to break out of thepatriarchy. . . And so the debate about Russian reform,by Instinct or by Intellect, by the peasant or theWesternizer, goes round and round with no exit inpolitical action for lack of political institutions. To itsmost gifted observers Russia remains holy and great,but it is landlocked in spirit and social forms just as it isin geography.'

Charles Oliver, 'Heated Debateç Reason,August/September 1991.Climatologists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography,La Jolla, California, dispute the concept of a runawaygreenhouse effect. They have explored one of the self-correcting mechanisms that come into play when thetemperature of the sea rises by several degrees in itsnatural temperature cycle. Water vapour builds up inthe air, forming huge clouds that climb to freezingaltitudes and form gigantic reflectors until the sunlightover the ocean is considerably reduced. When thishappens, cooling begins, the clouds dissipate and thecycle turns again.

'Critics of computer models of the greenhouseeffect have long argued that such a process wouldoccur, but this is the first proof that it does occur.' Thedirector of the institute considers that this is only one ofmany feedback mechanisms that could reduce theglobal temperature change to almost zero.

'The left, whose enemy list was previously limited toMcCarthyites, bigots and extremists, has recently beenadding those considered "insensitive" to racism, sex-ism, ageism, homophobia, to discrimination againstminorities, and to the suffering of AIDS victims.'

Brustein approves of a form of multiculturalismthat amalgamates the riches of many cultures to reflectthe variety of American life. This is being replaced bysomething very different under the same name: a tribalapproach that celebrates the style and achievement ofa single culture and excludes others. The second,although it calls itself 'multiculturalism', is better la-belled 'uniculturalism' or 'racial fundamentalism'.

A typical example is provided by the black play-wright August Wilson, who insists that only blackdirectors can do movie versions of his works. He alsoprotested against George Gershwin's 'bastardising ourmusic and our experience' in Poj and Bess. Appar-ently all that whites are allowed to do is to declare theplays to be masterpieces and award them prizes. Criti-cism is out of bounds even if the plays are limited andrepetitive through their concentration on victimisation.

Virginia I. Postrel & Lynn Scarlett, 'TalkingTrash', Reason, August/September 1991.'If you don't recycle, Santa Monica will look like theinside of this truck' reads the sign on the garbage truck.Santa Monica, California, jumped the gun on recyclingand started a program in 1981. This costs the city oneand a half times as much as ordinary collection andlandfilling. After a decade of practice the. people ofSanta Monica recycle only about 12 per cent of theirgarbage, a worrying indicator compared with the 25 percent mandated by the more gung-ho states such asOhio and California itself, which have adopted theEnvironmental Protection Agency target of 25 per centas a. mandatory minimum.

These demands may be unrealistic and some of theproblems are exemplified by a small family garbageremoval service in Ohio. Virtually no lead time hasbeen allowed to make the transition to 25 per centrecycling and the company has to weigh the trashcollected at each stop to check that each firm is meetingthe target. 'The bookkeeping is unreal'. Major capitalinvestment will be required to make the new systemwork and costs will have to be passed on to consumers.

Plastic is generally unpopular with the greens. Butresearch revealed that elimination of all plastic pack-aging in the Federal Republic of Germany woulddouble the cost of packaging, quadruple the weight ofmaterials required, and almost double energy con-sumption. Clearly there is a need for an ecologicalapproach (looking downstream) to evaluate proposalsdesigned to force environmental rectitude upon us.

Rafe Champion

64 Summer 1991 Policy