Book Reviews

The British editors-Nigel Ashford is senior lecturer in politics of Staffordshire Polytechnic and Stephen Davies is senior lecturer in history at Manchester Polytechnic-employ 11 contributors from both sides of the Atlantic and do a good job of explaining and economizing for the busy reader oftentimes complex ideas. Too, they furnish with every entry a short list of relevant books for further reading. In addition, they provide an appendix of brief identifications and the main works of 188 conser vatives, libertarians, and classical liberals cited in the text-thinkers such as Lord Acton, James Buchanan, Frederic Bastiat, Hilaire Belloc, John C. Calhoun, Adam Ferguson, Milton Friedman, Edward Gibbon, Nathan Glazer, Alexander Hamilton, F. A. Hayek, Gustave Le Bon, Bruno Leoni, Frank Meyer, Ludwig von Mises, Robert Nozick,Karl Popper, Ayn Rand, WilhelmRoepke, Murray Rothbard, George Santayana, Jean Baptiste Say, Lysander Spooner, Jacob Viner, and Mary Wollstonecraft.

Some illustrative excerpts: ANARCHISM:[D]octrine that supposes that it is possi ble for there to be an orderly and predictable social 203 order in the absence of the state. This simple definition, however, conceals a wide variety of anarchist thought. Furthermore, it begs some key questions in political thought. Does anarchism mean that order is possible without government of any kind or merely that it can be achieved without the modern, coercive state? Does it hold that law and rules are required but that an enforce ment agency with a monopoly of power is dispensable? Is it the case that anarchism entails a revolutionary change in human nature to be viable or merely the removal of existing, arbitrary social institutions? ... CLASS:For the dassicalliberal, and even more the lib ertarian, a class is simply a category, an aggregate of indi viduals sharing a common market position. Classes are open both in the sense that they have no clear or obvious boundaries and in that the arbitrary category boundaries used by the social observer or market researcher are per meable. Individuals can move up or down from one class to another as they make use or fail to make use of the opportunities the marketplace offers for acquiring income, wealth, skills, or qualifications....

HUMAN NATuRE:Classicalliberalism and con servatism exemplify sharply contrasting views of human nature. Indeed, it could be said that the differ ences between the two political philosophies resolve into differences in beliefs about the powers, limitations, and prospects of human beings. On the view of the classical liberal, in order to flourish human nature needs to be emancipated from a multiplicity of social, cultural, and religious hindrances. Among the most noteworthy of these are restrictions on free trade, class structure, national boundaries, and religious dogma tism. The fact that such hindrances have grown up as a result of human activity, and therefore show human nature at work, is only partly recognized by the [classi cal] liberal. ... POLITICS:The question was once set in an Oxford phi losophy examination: "Power politics-what other sorts of politics are there?" Certainly all politics must be con cerned in some way with power. But, equally certainly, those conflicts of interest between states which are resolved wholly or mainly by appeals to force or the threat of force are not the sole sort. For there are also the paradigmatically peaceful internal politics of long-estab lished democracies, where the only appeal to force is usually tacit, and to the lawful force sustaining or~erly procedures and preventing intimidatory intrusions.

There are, no doubt, such similarly nonviolent politics even in the Vatican.... WAR: In the Western intellectual tradition there are broadly two ways of looking at war. One sees it as inevitable, even good under certain circumstances. The other sees war as the consequence of particular things.or 204 THE FREEMAN • MAY 1992 conditions, hence in theory at least not inevitable, and always bad-even if no moral alternative exists. This second school of thought can be further subdivided into the pacifist variety which argues that war is never justi fied and the 'just war' type wherein war is justified only if certain strict conditions apply and the war is fought in a particular way. Briefly, the war must be fought in self defense, it must have a just end, it must be the last pos sible resort, and the expected benefits must exceed the costs. The fighting must be limited in scope and confined to combatants, it must be done according to certain rules, and it cannot include wanton cruelty. Both the pacifist and just war arguments derive mainly from Christian theology....

The above abbreviated smorgasbord does lit tle justice to the richness of the ideas and argu ments presented here. In all, quite a Baedeker to the issues facing the intellectual on the right, be that person a conservative, libertarian, or classi cal liberal. D Dr. Peterson, Heritage Foundation and Mises Institute adjunct scholar, is the Lundy Professor ofBusiness Phi losophy at Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina. OUT OF THE BARRIO:TOWARDA NEW POLITICSOF HISPANICASSIMILATION by Linda Chavez Basic Books, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022 1991 •288pages· $22.95cloth Reviewedby Jim Christie L inda Chavez has earned a reputation as an opponent of Hispanic policy-oriented . groups that equate civilrights with govern mententitlements of one kind or another. Her stand against bilingual education, for example, hardly endears her to pro-entitlement groups such as the Mexican American Legal Defense· and Education Fund (MALDEF). And now, with Out of the Barrio, Chavez promises to be even more of an irritant to the spin-masters of the His panic political status quo.

This book concentrates on raising issues:-not always debating them-in brief polemics, each no more than a few pages long. Along with salvos at the standard issues defended by Hispanic policy groups, Chavez puts forth a pro-assimilation the sis that native-born Hispanics of almost every cultural and national origin are following the path of assimilation cleared by ethnic Europeans, even if current Hispanic politics run ideologically counter to this trend. And throughout, as well, there is her belief in the self that confronts the politics of self-pity. "A careful examination of the voluminous data on the Hispanic population gathered by the Cen sus Bureau and other federal agencies shows that, as a group, Hispanics have made progress in this society and that most have moved into the social and economic mainstream," she writes. "In most respects, Hispanics-particularly those born hereare very much like other Americans: they work hard, support their own families without outside assistance, have more education and higher earnings than their parents, and own their own homes. In short, they are pursuing the American Dream-with increasing success."

Chavez's research bears her out insofar as native-born Hispanics are concerned. They are becoming Americanized in a traditional pattern of moving into middle-class stability,pursuing higher education, marrying non-Hispanics in large numbers, and forgoing their native language for English. Media-savvy Hispanic activists, however, have focused on the needs of Hispanic immigrants. And what has resulted, says Chavez, are the familiar politics of addressing Hispanics as a monolithic group in desperate need of the kind of economic, political, and social relief granted to black Ameri cans after the civilrights movement. To Hispanics this may come as old news, as they are well aware of their own cultural and political rifts. But it is news worth repeating for those who have been taught to think of Hispanics as a mono lithic ethnic force. Nothing could be farther·from the truth, as Chavez's surveys of influential His panos in New Mexico, entrepreneurial Cubanos in Florida, and suburbia-aspiring Mexican Ameri,.

cans in Texas and California highlight the socio economic and political diversity among American Hispanics. As Chavez points out, "It is only in the United States that 'Hispanics' exist; a Cakchiquel Indian in Guatemala would find it remarkable that any one could consider his culture to be the same·as a Spanish Argentinean's." Chavez concedes that recent Latin American immigrants don't fit into the assimilation pattern of the native-born (although in many cases they hope to), and that their needs are special and do count in the policy realm. However, she takes offense at what she sees major Hispanic advocacy groups now champi oning to the detriment of the native-born, includ ing bilingual education and ballots, affirmative action, and set-aside electoral districts. "In the current era," she writes, "assimilation for Hispanic immigrants appears to mean adopting the ethos of entitlement."

And entitlements, Chavez proposes in a poignant update on New York's Puerto Rican underclass, with its 31 percent male unemploy ment rate and 50 percent illegitimate birth rate, can do more to hold back certain Hispanics than to help them. "Each year brings evidence that more are slipping further into dependency and that Puerto Rican families are becoming increasingly dysfunctional," because of this ethos of entitle ment, she writes. "The state has functioned too much like an anonymous patron, dispensing wel fare checks that allowed recipients to avoid the responsibilities of autonomous adults. The safety net became a web of dependency." Chavez will no doubt infuriate many for her tough talk on prioritizing assimilation and giving the heave-ho to the separatist fancies of her ideo logical opposites, who run the danger of falling into petty squabbling over who should be defined as Hispanic. It happened in San Francisco when two firefighters of Spanish-American descent tried to use their ethnicity in an affirmative action program.

Her detractors will take further offense at Chavez, who pulls no punches: "These groups [with MALDEF at the fore] consider themselves to be on the cutting edge of social change, but the future they envision for Hispanics is one in which Hispanics attain permanent entitlement status based on ethnicity. It is not one in which Hispan ics, like other groups before them, choose to become part of the mainstream .... Winning court battles to have Hispanic children taught in Spanish in a society in which the best jobs go to people who speak, read, and write English hardly empowers Hispanic youngsters. Insisting the political fortunes of middle-class Hispanics must be determined by the most disadvantaged His panics does not empower either group, but makes the former hostage to the latter. The only groups that benefit from such misguided policy objecBOOKS 205 tives are those that broker the policies in the first place." D Jim Christieis a San Francisco-basedjournalist.

REACHINGFOR HEAVENON EARTH: THE mEOLOGICAL MEANING OF ECONOMICS by Robert H. Nelson Rowman & Littlefield, 8705 Bollman Place, Savage,MD 20763 • 1991 •378 pages •$24.95cloth Reviewedby Jean A. Briggs G od was never dead, as Nietzsche once proclaimed. He was simply recast as a concept and called Efficiency;the role of priest was assumed by economists. That is only one of the insightsin this fascinating new book by Robert H. Nelson. Subtitled The TheologicalMeaningof Economics,the volume is a fresh ificonoclasticlook at the history of Western thought and how two main traditions in that thought have taken turns ruling the affairs of men since the days of the Greeks. It is also a look at how these two traditions influence us today and might affect us tomorrow. Nelson has labeled the two great traditions the Roman and the Protestant. Thinkers whom he cat egorizes as Roman tend to believe deeply in rea son, that mankind can improve his lot, find salva tion even, by applying reason. Thinkers I'n the Protestant tradition do not have such faith. They see mankind as depraved and alienated, to be saved by grace or some other force outside its own power. They despair of the institutions set up to govern mankind, pointing out that such creations do not perform as intended (that is, as reason might dictate), but willy-nilly. They become bureaucratic, if not corrupt, and need to be overthrown.

Thinkers in neither tradition have given up the idea of paradise. The argument is whether it can be attained through reason and effort here during life on earth or only in some version of the hereafter, after death or revolution. The Roman tradition, in Nelson's analysis, begins with Aristotle and is with us today in the credo of the American welfare state. The Protes tant begins with Plato, and today is found among 206 THE FREEMAN • MAY 1992 those people turning against rapid economic growth and/or against welfare state institutions. Aristotle's thinking not only held sway during the Roman Empire, but was later reinterpreted and updated by Thomas Aquinas, thus giving legitimacy to the ways of the Roman Catholic Church. Hence Nelson calls this mode of looking at the world "Roman." Plato, of course, was a great protester. So, too, was Martin Luther, who saw clearly that the church was not what it pur ported to be and launched a revolution against it.

And so the label "Protestant." Some of Nelson's categorizations are surprising. We find Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Gal braith not antagonists, but in the same Roman tra dition. Both believe that reason can be used to improve the workings of the modern welfare state and thus mankind's lot, bringing him closer to heaven on earth. And we find Herbert Spencer and Karl Marx in the same tradition, both protest ing against institutions created by man by applying reason. Spencer called for the recognition of the forces of nature, Marx for revolution to get closer to heaven on earth. Nelson is an economist by training, and one of his aims is to show the roots of modern economic ideas in these Roman and Protestant traditions. He points out that ideas about the benefits to society of private property date back to Aristotle and are dis cussed at length by Aquinas, the great theologian of the Middle Ages. Ideas about pricing, too, have a long history. Aquinas, for example, defined the just price in terms remarkably similar to our mar ket price. The idea that money can be used to com pensate victimsof economic undertakings-neigh bors of a tanning factory, for example-can be found in medieval ~ewish rabbinical writings.Even the notion that the pursuit of private gain is evil has a lengthy history.Plato said it long before Marx and modern-day deep ecologists. There is, Nelson proves again and again, nothing new under the sun in terms of our ideas. Each has a long history.

In the centuries when the Roman tradition has held sway, the world has been fairly peaceful. But its governing mechanisms have tended to become stultifying, rigid, and self-serving, thus calling forth protest. When the Protestant tradition has been ascen dant, the world has often been subjected to war and chaos. A century of religious warfare followed Martin Luther, Nelson points out, and the wars of the 20th century followed Marx and Spencer. Where are we today? The American welfare state, clearly in the Roman tradition, predominates but is under attack by protesters who, as always, have a point. The theological underpinning of the welfare state has been a belief in economic growth. One could believe in and work for continuous growth because it would provide more goods for everyone. The belief is of a secular religious nature in the sense that it has given meaning to life. The protesters, many of them embracing envi ronmentalism, don't share that belief. They call for a halt to economic growth, in some cases to a dis mantling of the results of prior growth. Many find their religion in nature. They are joined by other protesters, some libertarians, who find the institu tions of the welfare state ineffective if not corrupt, in need of overhaul or overthrow.

In Nelson's view,then, we are at a critical point. In the nuclear age the world cannot afford another round of chaos and warfare. What to do? Nelson does not offer a blueprint. He puts forth some suggestions and calls for debate. He suggests a synthesis of the two tradi tions, impossible though that might seem. It might involve, he says, a worldwide recognition of some values-keeping the peace, for example, or pro viding disaster relief-with worldwide bodies to administer them along with considerable local autonomy. Presumably then the Roman tradition based on reason would prevail in the world at large while protesters could form their own states based on their own values and, of course, economies. The modern state might disappear, the right of free secession prevail. < In some ways the world is already moving in this direction. The Soviet Union has already broken up, and several Eastern European countries may follow. The United Nations is called on more and more frequently to send its peacekeeping forces to trouble spots.

Reachingfor Heaven on Earth is an important book for two reasons: its clear-eyed look at where we are today, with the dangers we face if we don't listen to the protesters; and its historical analysis which, like a good education, provides a frame work for interpreting current events. It's an analy sis far removed from the outmoded left versus right. D Jean A. Briggs is Assistant Managing Editor at Forbes.

GAININGACCESS:CONGRESSAND THE FARM LOBBY,1919-1981 by John Mark Hansen University of Chicago Press, 11030 S. Langley Avenue, Chicago, IL 60628. 1991 • 265 pages • $38.00cloth, $15.95 paper Reviewed by Doug Bandow O ne of the great political Oddit,iestoday is the continuing power of the farm lobby in the industrialized West.Farmers make up the majority of the population in Third World countries, yet they are routinely robbed by their governments. In contrast, in the United States, Europe, and Japan, farmers regularly use their governments to rob everyone else. This phenomenon-the ability of concentrated interest groups to dominate the political process has been explored by public choice economists. Most special interests have lobbying and trade organizations operating in Washington, and farm ers are no exception. Hansen's book focuses on the relative influence of such agricultural groups as the Farm Bureau.

What is the impact of lobbies on legislation, asks Hansen? "The decisive stage of interest group influence," he argues, "is the choice of the prob lems and pressures to which to respond. Lobbies achieve influence in Congress to the degree that legislators choose their counsel, to the degree that legislators grant them access." Although the U.S. began its life as an agricultur al nation, farmers' political influence was for years relatively limited. Until 1920rural areas accounted for the majority of America's population, yet, writes Hansen, "Congress had traditionally rebuffed agrarian demands for direct intervention in the agricultural marketplace." -That began to change in the 1920s,however. At that time there were some 8,600 different farm organizations, but the multiplicity of voices worked against their lobbying efforts. Observes Hansen, "working with the farm groups was hardly more efficient than starting from scratch."

Then four of the largest lobbies set up shop in Washington: the American Farm Bureau Feder ation, Farmers National Council, National Board of Farm Organizations, and National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry. Of these, the Farm Bureau, with a large and geographically broadBOOKS 207 based membership, became the most influential. The first major farm lobby victory came in 1921, when Congress passed a package of six bills, including an extension of the War Finance Corpo ration's authority to make agricultural loans. But farmers' objectives were relatively modest then. Observes Hansen, "only six months after its great victory, [the Farm Bloc] ran out of things to do." As the agricultural market slumped, the farm lobby soon thought of new benefits to demand, however.Farmers organized against what they saw as the do-nothing Coolidge Administration, then intensified their campaign for subsidies as the U.S.

fell into the Great Depression. Not surprisingly, President Franklin Roosevelt was sympathetic to the farmers' demands, so he advanced the Agricul tural Adjustment Act, "the fruit of the farm lobby's decade-long labor," writes Hansen. The act was quite popular, despite being over turned by the Supreme Court. And legislators got the message. Reports Hansen: [E]lections in the 1930s consistently under scored the farm lobby's competitive advantage. The Farm Bureau's prominence in the passage and administration of the Agricultural Adjust ment Act enabled it to stabilize and expand its membership, especially in the South, where in the late 1930smembership increased tenfold, to more than one hundred thousand. In the minds of voters and politicians alike, the close associa tion between the farm organizations and the Triple A program turned farm state elections into tests of their mandate, and the supporters of government aid to agriculture won many more than they lost.

Republicans as well as Democrats endorsed New Deal farm policies. Thus began nearly two decades of bipartisan subservience to farm inter ests. In fact, there was little that the Farm Bloc wanted that it did not get. "In sheer reputation for power, the agricultural organizations reigned alongside the business lobbies and the labor unions as the 'Big Three' of American politics," observes Hansen. Farmers' political clout persisted even as the number of rural residents fell. But power was redistributed within the agricultural lobby. In the 1950s the Farm Bureau lost its preeminence. Its enthusiasm for subsidies lagged behind that of many farmers, and its leadership was seen as too 208 THE FREEMAN • MAY 1992 closely allied with the Republican Eisenhower Administration. The Democrats were only too happy to respond with a bidding war in which tax payers were the losers. The Kennedy Administration fared little better than its predecessor, and Republican legislators were soon using agriculture policy to oust Demo crats. By 1965, however, bipartisanship returned, with Republicans and Democrats uniting to mulct non-farmers. Thereafter, writes Hansen, "the dis- .

tinctions between Republican and Democratic farm policy blurred, except among a handful of conservative Republican and liberal Democratic ideologues." Not that there weren't differences between Presidents and Congresses. Presidents Nixon, Carter, and Reagan all tried in their own ways to limit farm spending, but Congress consistently upped the ante. Capitol Hill's generosity with the American people's money was due in no small part to the continuing influence of the different agricul tural groups. The Farm Bureau, however, never regained its preeminence. Instead, Congress turned increas ingly to specific commodity groups, such as dairy men. "Their competitive advantage lay in part in specialization," writes Hansen, but two other fac tors came into play. One was that these groups tended to support existing agricultural programs during the 1950sand 1960swhile the Farm Bureau worked against them; the other is that such groups were more interventionist than the relatively con servative Farm Bureau.

GainingAccess is not primarily about the sub stance of farm policy,but it does give an occasional glimpse of the craziness of Federal programs. In the late 1940s,for instance, the Commodity Credit Corporation purchased fully one-fourth of the potato crop, torching some of the surplus. But while "editorial writers raged in protest, and Congress launched an investigation," reports Hansen, the subsidies continued. The House Agri culture Committee, for instance, "greeted the uproar with exceptional calm. It warned potato growers that they had one more chance to get their house in order before Congress abandoned them, but it assured them that whatever kind of program they wanted, the Committee would get it for them." And farm state legislators could do so because urban Democrats, whose poor constituents are most injured by the higher taxes and prices engen dered by farm programs, consistently supported agricultural subsidies. They did so for several rea sons, in Hansen's view: "the small, hidden impact of agricultural subsidies on consumer prices," "the relative safety of [urban congressmen's] seats,"

and the Democrats' use of agricultural policy for partisan advantage. When urban support seemed to wane in the 1960s,rural legislators thoughtfully offered Food Stamp appropriations in exchange for continued votes for farm programs. The 1970s was a decade of consumer activism, but these groups exercised virtually no influence on farm policy.The basic problem is that it is hard to organize a large, diffuse mass of people who have less at stake than do members of opposing organizations, such as farmers. Without active popular support, consumer advocates cannot interest legislators in their issues or perspectives. Explains Hansen: "The consumer movement's problem in breaking farm producers' hold on food policy was obvious. Before 1973, the salience of farm policy to urban voters was too low to justify substantial investments of their representatives' time, or even a membership on the House Agricul ture Committee."

In succeeding years, a few urban legislators joined the Agriculture Committee in order to raise consumer concerns. But they found them selves routinely outvoted by the coalition of farm program and Food Stamp advocates. Rural legis lators were particularly careful to log-roll within the agricultural community, bundling farm pro grams in an attempt to generate a "one-for-all and all-for-one" attitude amongst farmers. All too often such tactics brought, and still bring, the farm lobby victory. This year the federal government is spending almost $1.5 trillion, double just 10 years ago.. Even under avowedly conservative administrations, Washington has proved to be a seemingly limitless cornucopia for the well-connected. And for 70 years few have been as influential as farmers. John Mark Hansen's GainingAccessmakes great read ing for anyone who wants a better understanding of the ups and downs of farm politics and how the agricultural lobby continues so efficiently to loot the pub~ic. D Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of The Politics of Plunder: Misgovern ment in Washington.