Today's news reports about controversial arms sales to Taiwan from the United States -- resulting in a negative reaction from China -- sent me looking for this book review, which appeared originally in the New York City Tribune on Wednesday, March 2, 1988.
RICHARD SINCERE
Let’s Not Spite Our Allies to Appease Beijing
Arming the Dragon: U.S. Security Ties with the People’s Republic of China, by A. James Gregor, Ethics and Public Public Center, Washington, D.C., $7.95, paperback, 111 pp.
American sailors in the Persian Gulf today are in danger, partly because of the sale of Silkworm missiles from the People’s Republic of China to Iran. The Silkworms, like our Stinger missiles, are devastatingly accurate weapons for destroying ships — including the oil tankers and merchant ships that belong to countries that have not taken sides in the war between Iraq and Iran. There is broad agreement that no outsiders should sell such modern weapons to either Iraq or Iran. Yet China continues to sell the Silkworms.
This brings home to us in a sharp and timely fashion why the United States should be wary of pursuing closer military ties to China. The same point is made in a scholarly way in the new book Arming the Dragon: U.S. Security Ties with the People’s Republic of China by Prof. A. James Gregor of the University of California at Berkeley.
His argument is fairly straightforward: Essentially, the strategy seems simple enough — the most significant military and political threat to U.S. interests in the Western Pacific comes from the Soviet Union; the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a clear adversary of the Soviet Union; this creates a convergence of U.S. and Chinese interests in the region; therefore, the United States should provide military assistance to the Chinese.
Gregor shows persuasively that this syllogism of appealing simplicity has a very real shortcoming: it quite likely is wrong. Instead of syllogistic simplicity, the triangular political and military relationship between the United States, China, and the Soviet Union in the Western Pacific is far more complex than some of our strategic thinkers seem willing to acknowledge. Some military planners seem to take a perverse glee in the idea of arming China as a way to “get” the Soviet Union, a glee that is glaringly shortsighted.
In Arming the Dragon, Gregor notes that the existence of Communist China alone complicates Soviet strategic planning. Half a million Soviet troops are tied down at the Chinese border. Were there no threat from China, those troops would be free to make mischief in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, or elsewhere in the world. It does not follow, argues Gregor, that the United States should sell arms or give military aid to Beijing, particularly since U.S. allies in the region believe China is a greater threat to them than the Soviet Union is.
It is clear that as long as Moscow and Beijing are at odds with each other, there is little chance that the Soviet border forces will be freed to unbalance the delicate equilibrium between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe. Thus, the United States should pursue political, economic and cultural rapprochement with China. But does it mean that closer military ties should be sought as well?
No, not at all. The selling of arms to the PRC, the provision of military technology, and the training of members of the People’s Liberation Army in the West are misguided efforts. Policies such as these generate suspicion and ill will among our allies in the Western Pacific — particularly the Republic of China on Taiwan, but also Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Japan. When a tiny nation like Singapore, for instance, feels that the PRC threatens it more than the Soviet Union, and that the United States tilts toward the PRC, it may be more inclined to seek Soviet support or at least to resist Soviet overtures less forcefully.
Our friends in the Western Pacific — particularly the Republic of China on Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, and Japan deserve to have their needs and perceptions treated with respect in Washington. A cavalier attitude that places Beijing’s desires above those of our other, more reliable friends and allies will, in the long run, work against U.S. interests. The Silkworm missiles provide just one such example. With a broader perspective, Gregor’s book teaches that lesson quite clearly.
Richard Sincere is a Washington-based foreign policy analyst and writer.
Showing posts with label 1988. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1988. Show all posts
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Alan Paton Shed Light on the Darkness of South Africa
This article is not properly characterized as a “book review.” It is, rather, a tribute to an internationally renowned African author in the days after his death. The article appeared in the New York City Tribune on April 26, 1988.
RICHARD SINCERE
A Soldier for Freedom, Alan Paton Shed Light on the Darkness of South Africa
Alan Paton, whose first novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, thrust him onto the world stage as a literary and social leader, died on April 12 at the age of 85. In his lifetime -- which spanned the history of South Africa from just after the end of the Second Anglo-Boer War through two world wars to the present day -- Paton was a teacher, an advocate for prison reform, a liberal political leader, a world-renowned novelist and a humanitarian. His death diminishes the world.
Cry, the Beloved Country brought worldwide attention to South Africa’s racial strife. It was transformed into a movie and later into a musical play by Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill, Lost in the Stars.
Paton’s penetrating look into the dehumanizing aspects of South Africa’s society on the brink of change from a (for that era) liberal regime to the racist regime of Daniel Malan and Hendrik Verwoerd’s National Party gave Westerners their first (and, perhaps, most lasting) impression of apartheid.
Paton proved a puzzle to many in the United States who oppose apartheid, the system of racial classification and segregation that has characterized South Africa for most of the past 40 years. In the United States, opposition to the South African system seems inevitably to go hand in glove with support for sanctions against that country. Paton challenged this notion from the start.
In 1984, Paton wrote an open letter to Bishop Desmond Tutu, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Responding to calls for sanctions, Paton said:
“I do not understand how your Christian conscience allows you to advocate disinvestment. I do not understand how you can put a man out of work for a high moral principle.
“It would go against my own deepest principles to advocate anything that would put a man — and especially a black man -- out of a job.
“I think your morality is confused just as was the morality of the church in the Inquisition, or the morality of Dr. Verwoerd in his utopian dreams. You come near to saying that the end justifies the means, which is a thing no Christian can do” (Johannesburg Sunday Times, Oct. 21, 1984).
Paton was nothing if not consistent in his disapproval of sanctions. Like his liberal colleague, Helen Suzman, who for many years was the sole voice in parliament representing the anti-apartheid, pro-free enterprise Progressive Federal Party, Paton argued that it was the expansion of the economy and the growth of a substantial black middle class that would be the engine of change.
Experience has proved him correct. As blacks gained in economic power in the 1970s, the government was forced to grant them more political and civil rights. Black trade unions were legalized, job restrictions were ended, the infamous pass laws were repealed.
In the second and final volume of his autobiography, Journey Continued, scheduled to be published in South Africa on April 29 and later this year in the United States, Paton wrote passionately of his hope for positive social change. He argued for the release of Nelson Mandela and the need to include Mandela and his associates in the negotiations for post-apartheid South Africa. But he also reiterated his belief that sanctions are counterproductive, that they will achieve little in the way of reform or broader political participation.
In the final chapter of Journey Continued, Paton noted that “our future has become the concern of many of the governments and the ordinary people of the world. They have every right to concern themselves and to bring pressure to bear upon us. I believe they are utterly mistaken to think that sanctions and disinvestment will bring beneficial change. You cannot change a society for the better by damaging or destroying its economy. Sanctions are intended to be punitive, and punishment is not the way to make people behave better.”
It has been a cruel mistake for the U.S. Congress to impose sanctions against South Africa. American sanctions have created more than 100 white millionaires in South Africa while creating substantial black unemployment. The inflation caused by sanctions affects the poor most harshly, while rich whites -- the intended targets of sanctions -- are insulated by affluence. White families may have to give up their Mercedes or their beach bungalows; black families may have to go without food or clothing. Alan Paton, compassionate observer of political realities, knew this would happen. His words, informed by 85 years of living in South Africa, go unheeded by the U.S. Congress. Why?
Richard Sincere is a research associate at the Ethics and Public Policy center in Washington D.C. He writes frequently on U.S.-South African relations.
RICHARD SINCERE
A Soldier for Freedom, Alan Paton Shed Light on the Darkness of South Africa
Alan Paton, whose first novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, thrust him onto the world stage as a literary and social leader, died on April 12 at the age of 85. In his lifetime -- which spanned the history of South Africa from just after the end of the Second Anglo-Boer War through two world wars to the present day -- Paton was a teacher, an advocate for prison reform, a liberal political leader, a world-renowned novelist and a humanitarian. His death diminishes the world.
Cry, the Beloved Country brought worldwide attention to South Africa’s racial strife. It was transformed into a movie and later into a musical play by Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill, Lost in the Stars.
Paton’s penetrating look into the dehumanizing aspects of South Africa’s society on the brink of change from a (for that era) liberal regime to the racist regime of Daniel Malan and Hendrik Verwoerd’s National Party gave Westerners their first (and, perhaps, most lasting) impression of apartheid.
Paton proved a puzzle to many in the United States who oppose apartheid, the system of racial classification and segregation that has characterized South Africa for most of the past 40 years. In the United States, opposition to the South African system seems inevitably to go hand in glove with support for sanctions against that country. Paton challenged this notion from the start.
In 1984, Paton wrote an open letter to Bishop Desmond Tutu, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Responding to calls for sanctions, Paton said:
“I do not understand how your Christian conscience allows you to advocate disinvestment. I do not understand how you can put a man out of work for a high moral principle.
“It would go against my own deepest principles to advocate anything that would put a man — and especially a black man -- out of a job.
“I think your morality is confused just as was the morality of the church in the Inquisition, or the morality of Dr. Verwoerd in his utopian dreams. You come near to saying that the end justifies the means, which is a thing no Christian can do” (Johannesburg Sunday Times, Oct. 21, 1984).
Paton was nothing if not consistent in his disapproval of sanctions. Like his liberal colleague, Helen Suzman, who for many years was the sole voice in parliament representing the anti-apartheid, pro-free enterprise Progressive Federal Party, Paton argued that it was the expansion of the economy and the growth of a substantial black middle class that would be the engine of change.
Experience has proved him correct. As blacks gained in economic power in the 1970s, the government was forced to grant them more political and civil rights. Black trade unions were legalized, job restrictions were ended, the infamous pass laws were repealed.
In the second and final volume of his autobiography, Journey Continued, scheduled to be published in South Africa on April 29 and later this year in the United States, Paton wrote passionately of his hope for positive social change. He argued for the release of Nelson Mandela and the need to include Mandela and his associates in the negotiations for post-apartheid South Africa. But he also reiterated his belief that sanctions are counterproductive, that they will achieve little in the way of reform or broader political participation.
In the final chapter of Journey Continued, Paton noted that “our future has become the concern of many of the governments and the ordinary people of the world. They have every right to concern themselves and to bring pressure to bear upon us. I believe they are utterly mistaken to think that sanctions and disinvestment will bring beneficial change. You cannot change a society for the better by damaging or destroying its economy. Sanctions are intended to be punitive, and punishment is not the way to make people behave better.”
It has been a cruel mistake for the U.S. Congress to impose sanctions against South Africa. American sanctions have created more than 100 white millionaires in South Africa while creating substantial black unemployment. The inflation caused by sanctions affects the poor most harshly, while rich whites -- the intended targets of sanctions -- are insulated by affluence. White families may have to give up their Mercedes or their beach bungalows; black families may have to go without food or clothing. Alan Paton, compassionate observer of political realities, knew this would happen. His words, informed by 85 years of living in South Africa, go unheeded by the U.S. Congress. Why?
Richard Sincere is a research associate at the Ethics and Public Policy center in Washington D.C. He writes frequently on U.S.-South African relations.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
'South Africa: Revolution or Reconciliation?'
This book review first appeared in the New York City Tribune on August 10, 1988. Historical note: Walter Kansteiner later became Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the administration of George W. Bush (2001-05).
RICHARD SINCERE
Reconciliation the Key Word In Hopeful Book On Troubled South Africa
South Africa: Revolution or Reconciliation?, by Walter H. Kansteiner, Washington: Institute on Religion and Democracy, 1988, 175 pp., $8 paperback (foreword by Richard John Neuhaus).
Contrary to popular perceptions, the troubles in South Africa will continue to haunt us beyond the turn of the century. This is despite the dire warnings (or hopeful announcements) that “revolution is just around the corner.” There is little possibility that satisfaction for all will come to South Africa within this generation.
Leon Louw, a South African lawyer and advocate for a free market economy, told me recently that when he was a boy, he persistently heard the news that “the revolution is less than five years away.” That was more than 30 years ago, and the revolution has not yet come. Yet each succeeding political generation — both here and in South Africa — has viewed revolution there as both inevitable and imminent. On both counts, the would-be prophets and seers are wrong.
Walter Kansteiner, trained in economics and theology, has written a useful overview of the “revolutionary” situation in South Africa. Beginning with a thorough review of the traditional just war/just revolution doctrine that was formulated through the ages by such thinkers as St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin, he continues with a particular examination of current conditions in South Africa and asks whether the criteria for just revolution are met there.
The answer is no, primarily for two reasons. One of the major just revolution standards is that violent revolution must be initiated as a last resort. In the South African case, where the ferment of reform and nonviolent political change characterizes the present moment, violent revolution is clearly not the last resort. Advocates of change can still participate in party politics. The press, though circumscribed by emergency regulations, can freely criticize apartheid policies and call for reform. Even the most strident opponents of the government, such as Desmond Tutu, are free to leave South Africa and return without fear of arrest.
Let me give an example of this ferment, if a minor one. During a visit to Johannesburg in July, I observed the debate in the newspapers about the recent desegregation of railroad cars. Conservative Party members decried the reform as a further step away from rigid apartheid, liberals praised it as a step forward, and pragmatic black leaders complained that most of their constituents still cannot afford the price of anything better than a third- class ticket. Political cartoonists portrayed opponents of the reform as buffoons; the government’s response to white complaints was, basically, “either accept the change or stop riding the trains.”
A second reason Kansteiner says no to just revolution is that, according to just war doctrine, those who initiate revolution must have a reasonable chance of success. Given the size and degree of training of the South African Defense Forces, no revolutionary movement can hope to meet that criterion. Since the state of emergency was first declared by the South African government in 1985, the level of violence in the townships violence that was primarily black-on-black and not directed at either the white-controlled government or white citizens — has been reduced to near nothing. The South African police and military have a firm grip that will be nearly impossible to dislodge. Combined with an extensive, regionwide intelligence operation that allows them to stop terrorist incidents before they can occur and with the perception that the South African military possesses “last resort” nuclear weapons, there is little possibility that revolutionaries can succeed in the near term or ultimately.
In South Africa: Revolution or Reconciliation?, Kansteiner concludes that just revolution is not currently an option in South Africa; that peaceful progress toward the end of apartheid is both necessary and possible. He thus focuses on the last word in his title — reconciliation — and urges Americans to aid South Africans in their process of reconciliation and nation-building.
As part of this process, release of this book by the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) coincided with the initiation of a new IRD program called BANSA — Building a New South Africa. The program enables Americans to support financially South African organizations helping to strengthen economic opportunities for blacks, improving education and health care, and building democratic institutions. (For more information on this innovative program, readers of the New York City Tribune may write to IRD (BANSA), 725 Fifteenth Street, N.W. Suite 900, Washington, D.C. 20005, or telephone 202-393-3200.)
South Africa’s problems are often too complex for Americans to grasp. Our American culture believes that problems always have solutions. This is not the case elsewhere in the world, where “quick fixes” are disdained. To those who hope for revolution, and to those who encourage it through economic sanctions, Kansteiner warns:
“Disaster for South Africa is the easy way out. Joining or encouraging an armed revolution is deceptively simple. So too is acquiescing in apartheid. The hard challenges, the tough tasks, are for those who have enough faith and hope and patience and optimism that South Africa’s future is not the future of a tragedy, but rather the future of a bright, prosperous, and free nation.”
These are not the words of an unguarded optimist, but the judgments of one who has studied the South African situation in detail. Kansteiner mixes his hard-headed reflections on South Africa with compassion. The prescriptions in his book deserve further examination by policymakers in Washington and the constituents they serve throughout the United States.
Richard Sincere is a research associate at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and a frequent commentator on African affairs.
RICHARD SINCERE
Reconciliation the Key Word In Hopeful Book On Troubled South Africa
South Africa: Revolution or Reconciliation?, by Walter H. Kansteiner, Washington: Institute on Religion and Democracy, 1988, 175 pp., $8 paperback (foreword by Richard John Neuhaus).
Contrary to popular perceptions, the troubles in South Africa will continue to haunt us beyond the turn of the century. This is despite the dire warnings (or hopeful announcements) that “revolution is just around the corner.” There is little possibility that satisfaction for all will come to South Africa within this generation.
Leon Louw, a South African lawyer and advocate for a free market economy, told me recently that when he was a boy, he persistently heard the news that “the revolution is less than five years away.” That was more than 30 years ago, and the revolution has not yet come. Yet each succeeding political generation — both here and in South Africa — has viewed revolution there as both inevitable and imminent. On both counts, the would-be prophets and seers are wrong.
Walter Kansteiner, trained in economics and theology, has written a useful overview of the “revolutionary” situation in South Africa. Beginning with a thorough review of the traditional just war/just revolution doctrine that was formulated through the ages by such thinkers as St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin, he continues with a particular examination of current conditions in South Africa and asks whether the criteria for just revolution are met there.
The answer is no, primarily for two reasons. One of the major just revolution standards is that violent revolution must be initiated as a last resort. In the South African case, where the ferment of reform and nonviolent political change characterizes the present moment, violent revolution is clearly not the last resort. Advocates of change can still participate in party politics. The press, though circumscribed by emergency regulations, can freely criticize apartheid policies and call for reform. Even the most strident opponents of the government, such as Desmond Tutu, are free to leave South Africa and return without fear of arrest.
Let me give an example of this ferment, if a minor one. During a visit to Johannesburg in July, I observed the debate in the newspapers about the recent desegregation of railroad cars. Conservative Party members decried the reform as a further step away from rigid apartheid, liberals praised it as a step forward, and pragmatic black leaders complained that most of their constituents still cannot afford the price of anything better than a third- class ticket. Political cartoonists portrayed opponents of the reform as buffoons; the government’s response to white complaints was, basically, “either accept the change or stop riding the trains.”
A second reason Kansteiner says no to just revolution is that, according to just war doctrine, those who initiate revolution must have a reasonable chance of success. Given the size and degree of training of the South African Defense Forces, no revolutionary movement can hope to meet that criterion. Since the state of emergency was first declared by the South African government in 1985, the level of violence in the townships violence that was primarily black-on-black and not directed at either the white-controlled government or white citizens — has been reduced to near nothing. The South African police and military have a firm grip that will be nearly impossible to dislodge. Combined with an extensive, regionwide intelligence operation that allows them to stop terrorist incidents before they can occur and with the perception that the South African military possesses “last resort” nuclear weapons, there is little possibility that revolutionaries can succeed in the near term or ultimately.
In South Africa: Revolution or Reconciliation?, Kansteiner concludes that just revolution is not currently an option in South Africa; that peaceful progress toward the end of apartheid is both necessary and possible. He thus focuses on the last word in his title — reconciliation — and urges Americans to aid South Africans in their process of reconciliation and nation-building.
As part of this process, release of this book by the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) coincided with the initiation of a new IRD program called BANSA — Building a New South Africa. The program enables Americans to support financially South African organizations helping to strengthen economic opportunities for blacks, improving education and health care, and building democratic institutions. (For more information on this innovative program, readers of the New York City Tribune may write to IRD (BANSA), 725 Fifteenth Street, N.W. Suite 900, Washington, D.C. 20005, or telephone 202-393-3200.)
South Africa’s problems are often too complex for Americans to grasp. Our American culture believes that problems always have solutions. This is not the case elsewhere in the world, where “quick fixes” are disdained. To those who hope for revolution, and to those who encourage it through economic sanctions, Kansteiner warns:
“Disaster for South Africa is the easy way out. Joining or encouraging an armed revolution is deceptively simple. So too is acquiescing in apartheid. The hard challenges, the tough tasks, are for those who have enough faith and hope and patience and optimism that South Africa’s future is not the future of a tragedy, but rather the future of a bright, prosperous, and free nation.”
These are not the words of an unguarded optimist, but the judgments of one who has studied the South African situation in detail. Kansteiner mixes his hard-headed reflections on South Africa with compassion. The prescriptions in his book deserve further examination by policymakers in Washington and the constituents they serve throughout the United States.
Richard Sincere is a research associate at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and a frequent commentator on African affairs.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
'In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government'
This review appeared in the New York City Tribune on December 28, 1988.
R1CHARD SINCERE
Charles Murray’s Latest Common Sense Answers To Burning Questions
In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, by Charles Murray, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988; 341 pp., $19.95.
Question: If money can’t buy happiness, what can? Answer: Read Charles Murray’s new book, In Pursuit. It may not provide the definitive answers to this question, but it certainly focuses the argument.
This foll\ow-up to Murray’s successful critique of Great Society social policy, Losing Ground, demonstrates that Charles Murray is probably the most lucid and readable writer on questions of social policy since Jane Jacobs. Eschewing a florid or dense academic style, In Pursuit flows from one topic to another with fluencv and ease, tying together strands of seemingly unrelated arguments to create a cohesive and comprehensible whole. Unlike so many “scholarly” texts on this and related topics, Murray makes accessible to any interested reader the issue of the role government may have in enabling individuals to pursue happiness. And since the questions he addresses are those that have badgered us since the beginning of speech -- What is the ultimate meaning of life? What is virtuous behavior? Where do we go from here? -- it seems few readers could be uninterested.
Like Jacobs, who in her books The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Cities and the Wealth of Nations wrote about urban planning and economics in such a common-sense fashion that most readers were moved to ask, Why didn’t I think of that?. Murray applies an interdisciplinary approach to problems of poverty and prosperity, dignity and dependence, and the proper role of government in formulating social policy. He draws on the best works of political philosophy (Aristotle to John Rawls), psychology (Maslow and Csikszentmihalyi). history (Macaulay to Himmelfarb), sociology (James Q. Wilson and Nathan Glazer) and economics (Adam Smith to Milton Friedman).
Although so much of what he has to say seems self-evident, the fact is that no one has said it up to now. It took the special effort of Charles Murray, who is unafraid of the demons of received wisdom and conventionality, to break down the barriers between these disciplines and to point out that simply giving money (or food stamps, or housing vouchers) to poor people will not break the cycle of poverty. Nor can it make people happy. Money is just one of a number of “enabling conditions” that allow people to put-sue happiness in their own fashions. The proper role of government, Murray argues, is to build the base for these conditions and then stand out of the way.
Murray draws on the work of psychologist Abraham Maslow for his categories of “enabling conditions for the pursuit of happiness which is to say, if all of them were met, it is difficult to see how a person could claim that he was prevented by external conditions from pursuing happiness.” These conditions are: material resources or physiological needs (food, water, shelter, sex), safety (predictability, order, protection from physical harm), intimacy (friendship, relations with spouse or children). self-respect or self esteem, and self-actualization or, in Murray’s terms, “enjoyment.”
In Murray’s argument, government is more likely to stand in the way after these enabling conditions are laid down, impeding the pursuit of happiness rather than facilitating it. The basic difficulty is that we deal with social problems in a fashion that either leads to no solution or to making the problem worse. He cites sociologist Peter Rossi, who has formulated the Iron Law of Evaluation and the Stainless Steel Law, which say, respectively, “The expected value of any net impact assessment of any large scale social program is zero,” and “The better designed the impact assessment of a social program, the more likely is the resulting estimate of net impact to be zero.” In other words, social planners are like dogs chasing their tails. They run and run and bark and bark, but they don’t get anywhere and they don’t catch anything.
Drawing examples from the real world -- the 55-mph speed limit and the task of attracting good teachers to public schools, for instance -- Murray demonstrates that conventional ways of thinking are wholly inadequate for the issues we confront. New questions must be asked, he says, questions that do not necessarily have quantifiable answers. Much of what comprises “happiness” and the “pursuit of happiness” cannot be expressed in terms of dollars, gallons, or percentiles. The metaphor for their work used by social planners should be changed from engineering to healing. As a result, Murray says, ‘the world would not be perfect; it would just be better.”
The essence of Murray’s message is that individuals alone can best determine their own destiny, can best decide how they shall pursue happiness. He emphasizes, however, that this message cannot easily be categorized as “conservative” or “liberal” or ‘libertarian.” Adherents to these political philosophies may read into Murray what they will, and sometimes, citing him, will end up proposing just what they have proposed for the past 30 years. The exciting thing is, though, that enough people -- politicians, social planners, economists, sociologists -- might read this book and awaken to the fact that they have been asking the wrong questions and that the future demands new questions, new answers and new thinking. New thinking -- could Charles Murray have written a prospectus for perestroika for U.S. social programs?
Richard Sincere is a research associate at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
R1CHARD SINCERE
Charles Murray’s Latest Common Sense Answers To Burning Questions
In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, by Charles Murray, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988; 341 pp., $19.95.
Question: If money can’t buy happiness, what can? Answer: Read Charles Murray’s new book, In Pursuit. It may not provide the definitive answers to this question, but it certainly focuses the argument.
This foll\ow-up to Murray’s successful critique of Great Society social policy, Losing Ground, demonstrates that Charles Murray is probably the most lucid and readable writer on questions of social policy since Jane Jacobs. Eschewing a florid or dense academic style, In Pursuit flows from one topic to another with fluencv and ease, tying together strands of seemingly unrelated arguments to create a cohesive and comprehensible whole. Unlike so many “scholarly” texts on this and related topics, Murray makes accessible to any interested reader the issue of the role government may have in enabling individuals to pursue happiness. And since the questions he addresses are those that have badgered us since the beginning of speech -- What is the ultimate meaning of life? What is virtuous behavior? Where do we go from here? -- it seems few readers could be uninterested.
Like Jacobs, who in her books The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Cities and the Wealth of Nations wrote about urban planning and economics in such a common-sense fashion that most readers were moved to ask, Why didn’t I think of that?. Murray applies an interdisciplinary approach to problems of poverty and prosperity, dignity and dependence, and the proper role of government in formulating social policy. He draws on the best works of political philosophy (Aristotle to John Rawls), psychology (Maslow and Csikszentmihalyi). history (Macaulay to Himmelfarb), sociology (James Q. Wilson and Nathan Glazer) and economics (Adam Smith to Milton Friedman).
Although so much of what he has to say seems self-evident, the fact is that no one has said it up to now. It took the special effort of Charles Murray, who is unafraid of the demons of received wisdom and conventionality, to break down the barriers between these disciplines and to point out that simply giving money (or food stamps, or housing vouchers) to poor people will not break the cycle of poverty. Nor can it make people happy. Money is just one of a number of “enabling conditions” that allow people to put-sue happiness in their own fashions. The proper role of government, Murray argues, is to build the base for these conditions and then stand out of the way.
Murray draws on the work of psychologist Abraham Maslow for his categories of “enabling conditions for the pursuit of happiness which is to say, if all of them were met, it is difficult to see how a person could claim that he was prevented by external conditions from pursuing happiness.” These conditions are: material resources or physiological needs (food, water, shelter, sex), safety (predictability, order, protection from physical harm), intimacy (friendship, relations with spouse or children). self-respect or self esteem, and self-actualization or, in Murray’s terms, “enjoyment.”
In Murray’s argument, government is more likely to stand in the way after these enabling conditions are laid down, impeding the pursuit of happiness rather than facilitating it. The basic difficulty is that we deal with social problems in a fashion that either leads to no solution or to making the problem worse. He cites sociologist Peter Rossi, who has formulated the Iron Law of Evaluation and the Stainless Steel Law, which say, respectively, “The expected value of any net impact assessment of any large scale social program is zero,” and “The better designed the impact assessment of a social program, the more likely is the resulting estimate of net impact to be zero.” In other words, social planners are like dogs chasing their tails. They run and run and bark and bark, but they don’t get anywhere and they don’t catch anything.
Drawing examples from the real world -- the 55-mph speed limit and the task of attracting good teachers to public schools, for instance -- Murray demonstrates that conventional ways of thinking are wholly inadequate for the issues we confront. New questions must be asked, he says, questions that do not necessarily have quantifiable answers. Much of what comprises “happiness” and the “pursuit of happiness” cannot be expressed in terms of dollars, gallons, or percentiles. The metaphor for their work used by social planners should be changed from engineering to healing. As a result, Murray says, ‘the world would not be perfect; it would just be better.”
The essence of Murray’s message is that individuals alone can best determine their own destiny, can best decide how they shall pursue happiness. He emphasizes, however, that this message cannot easily be categorized as “conservative” or “liberal” or ‘libertarian.” Adherents to these political philosophies may read into Murray what they will, and sometimes, citing him, will end up proposing just what they have proposed for the past 30 years. The exciting thing is, though, that enough people -- politicians, social planners, economists, sociologists -- might read this book and awaken to the fact that they have been asking the wrong questions and that the future demands new questions, new answers and new thinking. New thinking -- could Charles Murray have written a prospectus for perestroika for U.S. social programs?
Richard Sincere is a research associate at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
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