Review by Choice Review
The six books reviewed here are united by a common theme, if not a common answer: that there is something wrong with contemporary political life that only substantial changes in the way government does business can repair. Why Not Freedom! argues that the federal government was created by the states and so is bound to the express language of the Constitution: where the Constitution is silent, the national government may not act. Liberals are seen to have victimized the American people by creating a federal welfare state that has robbed citizens of their freedom. In contrast, freedom, defined as returning power to the states, is offered as the answer to contemporary problems. Unfortunately, the text fails to discuss how "freedom" would make things better. Instead, a problem is described, "Why Not Freedom?" is asked , and the text moves on to another problem. The Welfare State is similar in tone and stridency, although it makes explicit recommendations for changing the system. Here, liberals have victimized the American people into believing that individuals ought to help each other, particularly those less fortunate, on moral grounds. Thus an expansive welfare state has been created to compel cooperation. Assisting others in a choice, however, not a duty. Life is seen to be the primary value and only those ideas that promote life for the individual can be primary. Thus the welfare state, which is seen as legalized theft and therefore antilife, should be abolished. Interestingly, both works assert that a small group of individuals in government, the media, and the bureaucracy have foisted the welfare state on ordinary citizens. Yet there is no analysis in either work of how and why the welfare state grew. In the absence of an analysis of the roots of the welfare state, the prescriptions for change both texts advance are weak. Consequently, neither can be recommended. Opposing the System is also strident, but on a different topic. Reich blames government for failing to protect democracy in the face of powerful economic institutions. "Downsizing" and corporate influence over employees' private lives--e.g., setting rules about whom employees may date--have conspired to advantage a new class, the management elite, whose power has surpassed that of elected officials. This elite holds values that are fundamentally opposed to those of democratic life and has actively worked to assert its interests against the individual. Unfortunately, the book is weak in explaining how the management elite gained its power. It asserts but does not demonstrate that the management elite has risen to power through conspiracy. The text must explore this issue in detail to be persuasive. An interesting and distinctive argument, but the book must be recognized and recommended only as a primarily political work. Values Matter Most is also primarily political. Against those analysts who argue that economic variables drive elections, the text argues that social issues--those that are important, that are harmful to society, that hold out the possibility of governmental action, and that President Clinton promised to work on--actually divide the American people. Expressively written, easy to read, and informed by an important argument, the book does not refute the possibility that the values divisions it describes may be based on different philosophies of what government ought to do. Thus it may be impossible for one party to chart a path to "The" American way of life. Understood, however, as an interesting but incompletely drawn analysis, the book is a useful addition to any political library. Of all the books reviewed here, The New Color Line most explicitly explains its view of how the welfare state, or one component of it, grew. The text argues that with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas decision the Supreme Court adopted Gunnar Myrdal's thesis that American racism cannot be overcome through elections. Consequently, the Court began on an interpretive path that led it from stamping out legal racism to enforcing its vision of equality in affirmative action, elections, and social life. This path has delegitimized the American political system and transferred political rule from elected officials to appointed judges. While readers may argue with the interpretations of the cases the authors present, the book is comendable for its attempt to lay out exactly how the court's activism developed. Its main weakness is its too-optimistic understanding of the probable end of race problems had the courts not acted as they did. Citing an economic argument that racism is economically unproductive, the authors argue that racism would have been voluntarily ended (at least in law) without Court action. This conclusion begs the question of when such discrimination would have ended, and leads the authors to be overly critical of decisions that were reasonable at the time. Otherwise the text can be recommended. Finally, Dismantling Leviathan treats the issue of the growth of the federal bureaucracy that accompanied the rise of the welfare state. Importantly, the writer and the source of the issues addressed are Canadian. This fact highlights a substantial weakness of analyses of the welfare state discussed above, their lack of any comparative focus. The welfare state is cross-national; Waterfall's careful analysis of the conditions that promoted its growth in Canada A. L. Crothers Illinois State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Readers who find attacks on recent civil rights laws and regulations too mild will relish Roberts and Stratton's shifting of the debate back to the 1950s. "The demise of liberalism" and "the assault on freedom of conscience" have their roots, the authors argue, in Brown v. Board of Education and the 1964 Civil Rights Act: "Democracy gave way to judicial and regulatory edicts, and persuasion gave way to coercion." In their defense of democracy, majority rule, and goodwill as the vital bulwarks of a liberal social order that must be rescued from decades of judicial dictatorship and "the proliferation of privilege," Roberts and Stratton take shots at everyone from Gunnar Myrdal to Lani Guinier, but the venom they heap on "critical race theory" legal scholars in particular--comparing them to anti-Semitic proto-Nazis--marks this analysis as more extreme than it may at first appear. Curiously, Roberts and Stratton seem not to notice that quotas and privileges were essential tools in the distribution of wealth and power in the U.S. long before Earl Warren was born. Popular subject, expect demand. --Mary Carroll
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
