Book Reviews

But now the book is here. Samuel L. Blumenfeld, the author of a previous book called How to Start Your Own Private School-and Why You Need One, has gone back deeply into history to write the story of the "Prussianizing" of American 755 756 THE FREEMAN December education in the early Nineteenth Century. His new book has a sharp title Is Public Education Necessary? (De vin-Adair, P. O. Drawer A, Old Greenwich, Conn. 06870, $12.95). The big point that he makes is that the public school system was fas tened upon us by a band of fanatics who were primarily concerned with imposing their elitist power on a public that had already achieved al most universal literacy by patroniz ing the private academies ofthe time. Almost from the beginning Amer ica had some tax-supported public schools. The Boston Calvinists be lieved in a back -stopping arrange ment that would give indigent stu dents a chance at making their public Boston Latin School, which offered the classical training necessary to entering Harvard. But private aca demies were the general rule in most of the states in the early nineteenth century years.

Literacy levels were higher then than they are now. The general sys tem was peculiarly American. In Pennsylvania, for example, the law provided for tuition grants to help poor children enter the private aca demies. But most people paid for their own education. This would have become the "American way" if it hadn't been for the Boston meddlers who were breaking from their his toric Calvinism to proclaim that hu man nature was perfectible and that it was the business of the State to train the young mind in the ways of perfectibility. Harvard University became the forcing house of the new anti-origi nal-sin doctrine when it was taken over by the Unitarians in 1805. The Unitarians were not averse to using the State to combat Calvinist influ ence. They sent their promising young men to Germany to study at Gottingen. It was there that George Ticknor and Edward Everett be came converts to the Prussian sys tem of State-directed compulsory education. With the help of an en thusiastic study of Prussian and He gelian educational philosophy by Victor Cousin, a Frenchman, Tick nor and Everett made State-domi nated public education a Unitarian "must."

Mr. Blumenfeld does not allege there was any conscious impulse to ward socialism among the Harvard Unitarians. They had not yet yielded Harvard Power to Galbraithians. But it seems significant to him that the Owenites-the followers of Robert Owen-should also be working to impose compulsory State education on Americans in the 1830s. The Ow enites had socialist ends in view, but they were willing to let the Unitar ians' Horace Mann do the prelimi nary work in accustoming the American public to the idea that the State could best impose standards of virtue on the youthful mind by 1981 IS PUBLIC EDUCATION NECESSARY? 757 training all the teachers in so-called normal schools. The Owenites, along with Josiah Holbrook of the Lyceum movement, were willing to wait for the day when socialism itself might be defined as the national way of virtue. Horace Mann, who combined zeal otry with a prodigious faculty for po litical manipulation, had his way all too easily with a country that had not had the opportunity to see how Prussianism could mutate into Bis marckism and, at the last, into Hit lerism. The Unitarians' belief that the State could be the inculcator of an anti-Trinitarian Christian mo rality was rudely shattered when American education, with Supreme Court blessing, went totally secular.

By then it was too late even to save the day for voluntary prayer in the schools. Mr. Blumenfeld's book is a blow in a good cause. It will help the growing private school movement. But it will take far more than a sin gle book to separate school from State. Public education is a tremen dous vested interest: Mr. Blumen feld says it represents an annual cash flow of $80 billion. There are more than two million educators who are committed, through their Na tional Education Association and other organizations, to increase the volume of the flow. Up to the moment, local control of public education in the fifty states has prevented nationalization of the system in the ultimate Prussian manner. But the existence of a cab inet-rank federal Department of Ed ucation could be an omen if the present plans to abolish it aren't carried through. For myself, I don't expect to live long enough to see the work of Hor ace Mann undone. But I do expect to see a dramatic increase in competi tion between the public and the pri vate school. And, with the publica tion of such books as Is Public Education Necessary?, Leonard Read's hoped-for crusade to separate school and State will at least get into a strong uphill second gear. , EQUALITY, THE THIRD WORLD, AND ECONOMICDELUSION by P. T. Bauer (Harvard University Press, 79 Garden 51., Cambridge, MA 02138),1981 293 pages - $17.50 cloth Reviewedby Roger R. Ream PROFESSOR PETER T. BAUER of the London School of Economics is not an orthodox development economist.

Rather than following the fashion and advocating the massive transfer of resources from developed coun tries to Third World governments, Bauer is the foremost critic of such 758 THE FREEMAN December foreign aid. It appears that many of his proposals are beginning to get the consideration they merit. His latest volume is a collection of fifteen essays on a variety of topics. Some are revised and extended ver sions of articles which have ap peared elsewhere. Bringing them together in one volume, Bauer offers a superb overview of the major is sues in development economics. Anyone concerned with this subject should study the ideas presented in this book. Bauer begins by undermining many of the popularly accepted jus tifications for massive income trans fers to less developed nations. "In an open and free society," he writes, "political action which deliberately aimed to minimize, or even remove, economic differences would entail such extensive coercion that the so ciety would cease to be open and free. The successful pursuit of the unholy grail of economic equality would exchange the promised reduc tion or removal of differences in in come and wealth for much greater actual inequality of power between rulers and subjects. There is an un derlying contradiction in egalitari anism in open societies." Indeed, economic equality is a chimera.

Unfortunately, among main stream development economists it is widely assumed that the economic positions of people are properly the concern of official policy. As Bauer comments, "Political power enables rulers forcibly to restrict the choices open to their subjects. But posses sion of wealth does not by itself con fer such coercive power in this cru cial sense .... In any case, wealth as such does not imply coercive power. Indeed, those who are rich are vul nerable to envy and to criticisms founded on an unreasoning pre sumption in favour of economic equality. These attitudes have at times led to the persecution and even destruction of productive or prosper ous groups, often ethnic minorities. Possession of wealth offers no sure protection against such dangers." Not only have the successful his torically been victims of this envy and egalitarianism, the intended beneficiaries-the poor-also suf fer. In many Western nations, the state provides for the necessities of life and the unexpected occurrences.

Social security for old age, socialized medicine for ill-health, food stamps and aid to dependent children for poor, all these are financed by taxa tion. "As a result many people's post tax income becomes like pocket money which is not required for ma jor necessities and hazards of life be cause these are paid for by taxes largely levied on themselves. This policy treats adults as if they were children. Adults manage incomes; children receive pocket-money. The redistribution of responsibilities im plied in the operation of the welfare 1981 OTHER BOOKS 759 state means the reduction of the sta tus of adults to that of children." This analysis of the effects of the welfare state within a country ap plies to income transfers on a global scale, known as foreign aid. There is a condescending attitude implicit in the policies recommended by ortho dox development economists. As Bauer describes this outlook, "The poor are seen as helpless victims of their environment, people at the mercy of external forces and without wills of their own. The implication is that they are without the primary human characteristic ofresponsibil ity .... Poverty is thus a condition caused by external forces and not by personal conduct."

Bauer presents a convincing case for the proposition that "economic achievement depends on people's at tributes, attitudes, motivations, mores and political arrangements. ... Moreover, policies of many Third World governments are plainly damaging to economic achieve ment." Here, a recommendation of Bauer's has recently gained a lim ited degree of acceptance by the World Bank. Bauer proposes that in allocating aid, donors "should fa vour governments which within their human and financial resources try to perform the indispensable tasks of government, but who refrain from close control of the economy-briefly, governments who govern rather than plan. This would promote liberal economic systems, minimize coer cion, reduce political tensions and favour material progress." Bauer shatters the misdirected attempts to promote Western guilt for Third World poverty. "The West has not caused the relative poverty of the Third World," Bauer writes.

"The opposite is the case. The con tacts established by the West have resulted in improved living condi tions, longer life expectation and much wider choice for hundreds of millions of people in the Third World .... Indeed, millions of people who would otherwise have died sur vived because of Western tech niques and ideas, notably medicine and public security which came with colonial rule." The concept of exploitation is an other chimera. The material progress in the developed West is not caused by depriving the Third World of its resources. In truth, "Western con sumption is more than paid for by Western production. This produc tion not only finances domestic con sumption but also provides the cap ital for domestic and foreign invest ment as well as foreign aid." The West is not totally blameless for the plight of Third World coun tries. Bauer identifies several areas of fault. In particular, Western ac tivities since the Second World War have done much to politicize eco nomic life in the Third World. The politicalization of economic life is 760 THE FREEMAN one of the primary inhibiters of eco nomic progress. "In a subtle way, aid tends to perpetuate ideas and modes of conduct adverse to ma terial progress." Chiefly, Bauer ob serves, "Aid promotes the delusion that a society can progress from in digence to prosperity without the in termediate stage of economic effort and achievement."

Bauer is perhaps at his best when destroying the prevailing myths in development economics. However, he also presents proposals for the re form of official aid, "while looking forward to its eventual termination and doing [the] best to bring that about." Ideally, he would leave most aid to voluntary charities, for they are "usually more interested in as sisting the poorest and most distressed than are Third World rul ers." The West must also reduce its barriers against Third World ex ports, a move which is unlikely to find much support among protec tionist-minded businessmen in this country. It is evident that Professor Bauer has a genuine concern for the poor of the Third World. Unfortunately, his thoughtful analysis and bold policy suggestions have been largely ignored by mainstream develop ment economists. But they are be ginning to gain consideration. The sad fact is that until they begin to set the tone for discussions of Third World poverty, much unnecessary suffering will continue to be en dured in the underdeveloped world.

@ HANDSOME BLUE LEATHERLEX FREEMAN BINDERS $4.00 Order from: THE FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION, INC. IRVINGTON-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK 10533 Index THE FREEMAN-Volume 31, January-December 1981 Prepared by BETTINA BIEN GREAVES of the Foundation staff NOTE: In page references, the number preceding the colon designates the month, those following refer to pages. All articles have at least three entries-author, subject, and title-except in a few cases when title clearly indicates subject matter. Books reviewed are listed on page 768. ADVERSARY unionism (Nelson) 5:307-314 ADVERTISING (Mises) 9:518 AGRICULTURE Farm land and the free market (Ross, K.) 10:629-634 Land reform (Mises) 9:542 Politics of economic stagnation (Osterfeld) 11:686-698 ALEXANDER, Holmes ..see Book reviews (Cooper) AMERICA at her best (Fulda) 11:667-670 AMERICAN tradition/heritage Myth of self-reliance (Anderson) 12:707-713 Natural law and the American tradition (Keeler) 5:272-274 Signs of the times (DeArmond) 6:331-334 ANDERSON, Bill Myth of self-reliance, The. 12:707-713 ANTI-CONSUMER lobby (McGath) 3:143-147 ANTITRUST, anti-business policies Business bogy (Williams) 1:30-35 Do antitrust laws preserve competition? (Petro) 4:223-231 ASSAULT on free choice (Ream) 3:153-156 "AUSTRIAN" economics, understanding (Hazlitt) 2:67 78 AUTOMOBILE industry, subsidies to Assault on free choice (Ream) 3:153-156 Buy American! (North) 1:3-9 See also: Transportation BANKING and bank loans. See money BASICJaw (Bradford, R.) 1:10-13 BASTIAT, Frederic-ideas of Seen vs. the unseen: a modem example (Semmens) 8:467-469 BENEFITS of speculation (Block) 12:717-722 BENEFITS of trade (Hultman) 10:626-628 BLACKSTONE, William On the origin and character of rights. 3:181-182.