Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
By Tony Judt
William Heinemann 2005
$79.95 878pp
ISBN 0434 007 498
Reviewed by Martin Sheehan
Tony Judt’s new history of Europe, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, reminds us of the central place Europe has occupied politically, culturally, and in so many other ways, in the history of the world over the past 60 years. The book is a stunningly comprehensive overview of European history since the fall of Nazi Germany, and provides some insights into the role that Europe is likely to play in the world of the 21st century. However, Judt avoids merely relating the political history of Europe since 1945, and interspaces his narrative with fascinating illustrations of Europe’s cultural and social development over the past six decades.
Judt’s history opens with a vivid portrait of the devastation and ruin left by the war in Europe which ended in May 1945—a continent that seemed then on the brink of starvation and communist revolution. Cities and towns across Europe had been ruined, and, in some cases, flattened by aerial bombing and artillery fire, leaving homeless, for instance, an estimated 25 million people in the Soviet Union and another 20 million people in Germany. The war also saw widespread destruction of the continent’s vital infrastructure, such as roads and rail lines, of factories and workshops, and the loss of large numbers of livestock and prime agricultural land. Worst of all, Europeans suffered enormous casualties during the war: over 36 million people were estimated to have died in the conflict, with huge numbers of non-combatant civilians among the dead.
It is hard for us to imagine, cut off as we are by the passage of time from the events of the Second World War, how the war affected Europeans and their view of the world. From the European point of view, the war was a catastrophe for all concerned—aggressors and victims alike. Europeans emerged from the conflict determined never again to see war waged on their territories and convinced that the social and economic causes of the war must be erased from society, lest they lead to another, even worse conflict on European soil.
This memory of war and misery still dominates much European thinking—witness the consternation when Italy’s then Prime Minister Berlusconi compared a German EU official to a concentration camp guard; or the widespread panic among Europe’s political elite when Freedom Party leader Jorge Haider, with his revisionist views on Nazism and the war, rose to power in Austria in the late 1990s. The depth of European fears about a return to the political extremism that led to war in 1939 is difficult to underestimate—something that Americans and Australians find hard to understand.
European politics since 1945, therefore, has been largely a quest to build a society that will not only avoid a return to the pre-war political and economic conditions that many Europeans believe led to the war, but where social and economic conflict is replaced by arbitration and negotiation. To this end, Europeans rejected the so-called American free-market model after 1945, favouring instead a social democratic or social market (a term conservative Christian Democrats in Germany and Italy preferred) model, which sought a third way between free-market capitalism and Soviet-style state control of the economy. Under the social market model, the state would play a much greater role in economic and social planning than in the United States, and a generous welfare state was seen as essential to maintaining social harmony and class solidarity—the failure to maintain social stability across class lines was widely seen as one of the prime causes of the political extremism that led to war in 1939.
In this climate of aversion to free-market theories post 1945, economists such as the Austrian Freidrich von Hayek, who had been arguing during the war years that socialist tendencies in pre-war European democracies had actually paved the way for fascist economic and social controls, were largely ignored. In the late 1940s, the British Labour Government constructed a fully-fledged universal welfare state, similar to those that had long existed in Scandinavia during the inter-war years. However, it was the West Germans under Konrad Adenauer who became the leaders in implementing a social-market model of society, which sought to bind all citizens, workers and business leaders alike, to an economic order based on social justice and prosperity for all.
The commitment, however, of west European states to providing universal welfare and full employment in the postwar years had its price. At the height of the successes of the social market economies in western Europe in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, European publics developed a consumerist, hedonist ethos that gradually undermined traditional beliefs and institutions—such as the Christian churches—leading to the social and sexual revolutions of the late 1960s and 1970s. Judt shows that the political and cultural upheavals of this period had more to do with the rejection by the postwar generation of their parents’ worldview and politics, rather than any serious commitment by the young to communist or socialist ideologies. The young, particularly in Germany, blamed their parents for the creating an unjust society that led to fascism and war, and they were determined to oppose these lingering tendencies in the postwar era.
Judt’s history of postwar Europe is at its weakest in dealing with the many social and cultural problems facing Europeans at the beginning of the 21st century. While celebrating the rise of the universal welfare state and the development of the European Union as the great achievements of postwar European society, Judt skirts around the long-term issues that arise for European societies flowing from these achievements. Europeans refuse to face the stagnation of their economies, designed to provide high levels of comfort and security to their citizens, and despise the competitive practices that make the United States’ economy so robust by comparison. Europeans cannot delay dealing with this situation forever—their extensive social welfare nets are rapidly becoming unaffordable.
Judt’s history ends on an upbeat note, emphasising how much Europe has to teach the world in terms of creating societies that seek social justice and harmony. And Judt is right to celebrate Europe’s achievements since 1945, particularly the reconciliation between France and Germany, the source of much European conflict since the 19th century. However, the host of social, economic, and demographic problems that beset modern Europe make a mockery of some of his more upbeat assessments. Increasingly, ageing and childless Europeans seem to be retreating from the world stage, refusing to come to grips with the economic and social challenges facing their continent and the world. Many Europeans would prefer to criticise others, such as the United States, from the sidelines, content in their sense of moral and cultural superiority.
Whether Europeans care to admit it or not, they are living on borrowed time, and their future is unlikely to be as peaceful and prosperous as it was in the postwar period. Judt’s mammoth history, however, is an important contribution to our understanding of Europe since 1945, and will no doubt fuel much debate about Europe’s place in world affairs in the coming century.
The Australian Electoral System: Origins, Variations and Consequences
By David M Farrell and Ian McAllister
University of New South Wales Press 2006
228pp, $49.95
ISBN 0 86840 858 1
Reviewed by Charles Richardson
There often seems to be an implicit bargain with academic writing: readers put up with turgid prose on the understanding that the authors will get the facts right. Conversely, a breezy, readable style is equated with sloppiness. In fact, however, the best academic writing manages to be both accurate and readable.
Then you get books like this, which are neither. Unsuspecting readers will notice the density of the prose and the impenetrability of the tables (what on earth are ‘varimax rotated factor loadings’? (p 111)) and assume they are concealing something profound. Alas, they are not.
There is certainly some worthwhile material in this book, and students of Australian electoral matters will not come away empty-handed. But the effort required to extract it is generally more than it is worth, and there are enough question marks against the cogency of the authors’ arguments and the accuracy of their research to suggest most readers will be better off looking elsewhere.
Farrell and McAllister lost me on page 14, with this passage: ‘Federal elections must be held every three years ... In most states the same rule applies; the exceptions are New South Wales, where the period between elections is four years, and South Australia, which has a fixed four-year term.’
Actually, New South Wales and South Australia both have fixed four-year terms, as has Victoria, while Western Australia and Tasmania have four-year maximum terms. Queensland is the only state with three-year terms, and has been since the 1980s. How could anyone writing a book about Australian elections not know this?
Nor is it an isolated lapse; the same misinformation appears on page 144, but without South Australia. Also on page 14 comes the statement that ‘Of the 39 federal elections ... only seven have produced a non-major-party vote that has exceeded 10 per cent of the first preference vote’. The real figure is 14; they have missed cases as recent as 1998 and 2001.
It is tedious to chase down factual errors, but they appear to be symptomatic of a general failure to comprehend the material the authors are dealing with. For example, page 136 reports survey data in which almost half the voters claim to ignore how-to-vote cards in House of Representatives elections, and comments that consistency in the surveys ‘suggests that these estimates are accurate.’ But the very same paragraph points out that the same survey overstates by 100% the number who vote below the line for the Senate. If people lie about what they do in Senate elections, why think they’re not doing so for the lower house as well?
Other questions are more controversial. The discussion of strategic voting (pp 126–33) argues that preferential systems allow for strategic voting that is not insincere. But as most analysts use the term, strategic voting is insincere by definition. Farrell and McAllister know that, but they fail to offer any alternative definition—or at least one that makes any sense. And their mischaracterisation of the 1998 result in Blair (p 172), plus their quotation of a nonsensical comment from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (p 56), suggests that their grip on the issue is less than secure.
Many of the book’s foibles are confusing rather than wrong in themselves. Australia’s two main electoral systems, which we usually call ‘preferential voting’ and ‘proportional representation’, are referred to throughout as ‘alternative vote’ (AV) and ‘single transferable vote’ (STV). This is justified by international practice, since it works for distinguishing them from other members of their respective families (single-member systems and multi-member systems). But there is no recognition of the fact that it doesn’t distinguish them from each other—the terms would be equally descriptive if you swapped them around.
Sometimes a glossary would help: terms such as ‘highest average d’Hondt system’ (p 72) and ‘Condorcet winner’ (p 111) are either not defined at all, or defined in unrelated footnotes. So would better proofreading: ‘simple member’ on page 7 should be ‘single member’; a missing comma on page 40 sends the reader off on a wild goose chase about alphabetical codes vs. party labels. And the authors obsessively preview and then recapitulate, telling us where the argument has been and is going. This device, not uncommon in academic writing, is no doubt supposed to make things easier, although perhaps not for the reader who is crying out ‘For God’s sake, get on with it!’
At least one important theme emerges from the book: that because Australia’s voting systems stress, in principle, voter choice, political practice has compensated for that by developing ever-tighter party control. This produces ‘the potential double disadvantage of an electoral process that is at the same time both confusing and alienating’ (p 122). Hence the book’s calls for such reforms as abolition of ticket voting in the Senate, optional preferential voting at all levels, and introduction of ‘Robson rotation’ to reduce the power of how-to-vote cards.
This would be a much better book if it had concentrated on the meaning and effects of such policy choices. Instead, the authors get bogged down attempting to show, somewhat at variance with the reformist impulse, that Australian voting systems perform well in international comparisons of voter satisfaction (chapter 7). This in turn depends on their belief that one can construct an analytically useful variable that puts ‘AV’ (single-member districts, remember) and ‘STV’ (proportional representation) together at one end of a spectrum.
This is so strongly counter-intuitive that much stronger evidence would be needed for it than Farrell and McAllister provide. Indeed, their own analysis shows that the effects of systemic factors on voter satisfaction are dwarfed by the effects of national wealth and length of democratic experience (p 159).
There is unquestionably a need for the Australian electoral system to be studied more seriously in the light of international experience. But this book is not a good example of how to go about it.
Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age
By Russell Jacoby
Columbia University Press, 2005, 240pp
US$24.95, ISBN 0231128940
Reviewed by Jeremy Shearmur
Russell Jacoby is a UCLA-based historian with a strong interest in the Frankfurt School. He is erudite, and writes very well on a whole range of interesting themes. This small book is a follow-up to his The End of Utopia (1999, a brilliant critical engagement with the grim state of the ‘cultural Left’. Jacoby is there an entertaining and, at times, scathing guide to ‘the end of ideology’, to overblown claims for multiculturalism, to postmodernism’s uncritical love affair with mass culture, to intellectuals, and to aestheticism in postmodern thought. The concluding discussion of utopianism leads into Picture Imperfect.
The new book is well-written, and full of fascinating material—from a contrast between the tolerant pluralism of Thomas Moore’s Utopia and his actual conduct once in power, to the impact of television on traditional children’s games. Jacoby’s main theme, however, is a distinctive defence of political utopianism. He initially argues that it has not been utopians who have been the advocates or promulgators of political violence. He also reminds us that George Orwell was and remained a democratic socialist, and that Aldous Huxley’s utopian Island came after his Brave New World. Jacoby argues that their anti-utopias were less hostile depictions of then-current utopias than critical extrapolations of themes in their own societies.
Jacoby also discusses some critics of utopianism. He claims that Isaiah Berlin never took on any live advocate of ideas that he disagreed with, and that there are unresolved tensions between Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and her argument in The Origins of Totalitarianism. He also criticises Karl Popper, arguing that his linking of totalitarianism and utopianism relates only to Marxism—something that Jacoby himself does not wish to defend. Jacoby is not really correct about Popper. Popper engaged with the Marxists of his own day by discussing the views of Karl Marx. His treatment of Plato was, similarly, a way of engaging with themes that he discerned in the anti-democratic conservatives of his own day and even (in a strange way) in Hitler.
What, however, of Jacoby’s ‘negative’ case for utopianism? His negative view is made by way of a parallel with strands in Jewish theology (in a brilliant discussion, he links the theme of ‘You must make no image of God’ to Horkheimer and Adorno, Wittgenstein and Leo Strauss, and the ideas of the Frankfurt School to the Jewish theme that ‘To depict the future is sacrilegious, but it can be heard and longed for.’). Jacoby’s position comes over as attractive and modest, and he strongly differentiates his view from those who offer positive blueprints for society.
However, one important strand in Marxism was its condemnation of what Engels called ‘utopian socialism’ —that is, of the proffering of utopias which while (perhaps) attractive, are not realisable. Marx responded to this by inventing a social force, the proletariat, that—equipped with his ideas—was supposed to realise them. But he ducked the crucial issue of showing that his ideas were realisable, by instead pointing to social tendencies that were allegedly leading us in their direction. He thus eschewed the task of explaining what was supposed to be realised, and that it was possible, disparaging this as ‘writing recipes…for the cook-shops of the future’.
But it is essential to show that what one favours is, indeed, possible. Jacoby is right in poking gentle fun at the proclivity of some utopians for telling us how people’s days will be organised, and how they will be dressed. His criticism, however, seems to me incorrect if it is taken to suggest that the utopian—of any stripe—does not have to address key structural issues concerning how the society they favour will work. The Frankfurt ‘negativist’ tradition seems to me pernicious precisely because it avoids this task, while at the same time invoking ideas that only make sense if something like the Marxist vision were tenable. It uses the result as a stick with which to beat current society, while in fact distancing itself from the substantive content of Marxism.
A crucial problem here—and it is striking that Jacoby does not discuss it at all—was highlighted in Hayek’s ‘Inaugural Address’ at the London School of Economics. Hayek argued that Mises had raised a key issue: that what had been assumed by the socialist tradition—that the benefits of modern economies would be available in a future society without markets—was false. Hayek’s own subsequent work was in many ways concerned with highlighting some of the ways in which how we currently do things, or how we might do things better, bring with them constraints as to what else we can do. The specific claims of Mises and of Hayek are, of course, open to argument. But Hayek’s general point, I think, is not. In part, it is that our current situation—and, say, the number of people that it currently sustains—imposes significant constraints over what else we can do. In part, it is that we have to do things in a systematic manner, and that any system that we use will bring with it constraints as to what else it is also possible for us to do, or for how we can accomplish other things which we value.
What seems to me badly wrong with Jacoby’s account—and with the tradition that lies behind it—is that it is utopian in the sense of simply ignoring these issues. The result is that those who follow Jacoby may find that they are led to discontent with, and possibly even to try to throw off, ‘chains’ which are, in fact, the other side of the very things that are needed to make desirable features of our society operate. Of course, any such specific claim is fallible; and there is a lot of room for argument about how things function—or might function better than they do—and about what constraints they impose. (This, of course, is an argument that must be made not only in respect of human social institutions, but also in ecological terms.) It seems to me that, in the end, it is upon this crucial debate that Jacoby is inviting us to turn our backs. While his book is a first-rate read, his views seem to me attractive but dangerous—not least because of just how powerful his presentation of his case is.
Where does this leave us? I do not see that we are stuck with just how things are currently. But what is needed if we are to explore ideas about a better society, is indeed to take a realistic view of how things currently work, and to take seriously the constraints that existing social mechanisms impose upon us. We need then to explore what the options are to make things actually function in new ways. The claims of Hayek and Mises about markets seem to me telling. But if they are right, we are not condemned to stagnation and, socially, just to more of the same. Rather, the classical liberal tradition opens up the possibility of making use of competition as a discovery procedure, and for diverse forms of private social experimentation—provided that we can remove governmental controls that currently limit us to what bureaucrats and the less imaginative of our fellow-citizens think is ‘sound’.
Please Just F* Off: It’s Our Turn Now—Holding Baby Boomers to Account
By Ryan Heath
Pluto Press
228pp, 2006
$25.95 ISBN: 1-86403-328-2
Reviewed by Sukrit Sabhlok
Sukrit Sabhlok is 18 years of age, and is presently studying arts and law at the University of Melbourne.
‘There are better things to do than validate other people’s marketing labels by talking up generational conflict,’ writes Ryan Heath, a 25 year old expatriate living in the UK. It’s a refreshing start to his book, simply because most criticism directed at Heath has argued he is doing precisely that. But that’s the trouble with penning a book about generational warfare isn’t it? You leave yourself open to accusations of lapsing into style at the expense of substance.
To an extent it’s true: Heath stringently avoids turning his work into an ‘academic treatise’, pointedly using words such as ‘inefficient, unfair and dumb’. Think cute, fashionable language with plenty of expletives thrown in.
Similar in gist to Tony Blair’s Fabian pamphlet The Third Way: New Politics for the New Century, this book urges us to harness capitalism to achieve socially just goals. Where the difference arises however, is in its focus. Detailed discussion on why, and how, Baby Boomers should be ‘held to account’—and pushed aside—forms the core of Heath’s analysis.
The result of Heath’s foray into the genre is that he spends much of Please Just F* Off: It’s Our Turn Now attempting to abide by the unwritten rules of generational warfare, with memorable lines like ‘War is not 24/7—there’s lots of dead time—but you have to be ready for the action.’ According to Heath, one can’t ‘allow Australia to believe that its 20-, 30-, or even 40-year olds are just ‘young people’ unworthy of contributing to public life—mired as ‘Generation Next’, stuck in a queue that doesn’t move, living in a generational tent city.’
If you believe Heath then young people are discriminated against in the media. If you believe Heath then droves of young people are fleeing Australia like they would flee a third-world nation that provides few opportunities for its young. Ouch. We’re so mediocre it hurts!
But, if you’re looking for a consistently substantiated argument to go along with that, you may as well look elsewhere. From his bemoaning of ‘property apartheid’ to his criticism of government under-funding of higher education to the adoption of green environmental arguments, Heath’s work is characterised by sweeping generalisations coupled with sporadic references to demographic research.
Where some proponents of change argue for a better lot for everyone, Heath is heavily biased in favour of young people, or to be more specific, towards those whom generational warriors would term Gen Y (people born after 1970). But is Gen Y the ‘most educated, skilled generation yet’ or the most overqualified and selfish?
Disregarding the stereotyping of Boomers, in the chapters where he condemns the shortage of opportunities for career development, he fails to indicate specific examples where one can objectively decide whether a meritocracy is in operation. More common is the usage of nasty anonymous quotes or interview subjects like Holly Lyon, who complains about the ‘ageist’ nature of the Australian television industry and how it was ‘impossible’ for her to get work heading a script department —no less—as a 22-year old.
Heath is, however, at his best when discussing how young people today are different from previous generations.
A lot is demonstrated by way of anecdotes: young people today are more sophisticated; they are flexible and adaptable; they are extremely comfortable with technology; and importantly, they are pro-capitalism. ‘We run web businesses before we’re done with Year 10 and teach ourselves the skills and knowledge to navigate the world’.
His own views on capitalism are not exactly favourable, judging by the denouncement of price signals in a market economy. First, they are driving Australians abroad, which in his polemic is necessarily a bad thing. And second, his disdain of market forces is evident in issues such as property speculation or corporate profit. As Ludwig von Mises wrote in his Omnipotent Government: ‘The market is a democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote and where voting is repeated every day.’ If his version of ‘ethically’ based capitalism is something Gen Y will bring to the table then that is surely not capitalism but something more value laden than capitalism—merely a means of structuring society—could ever be.
Effectively comparing old Boomer techniques with a variety of suggestions ‘for achieving lasting social change’, Heath argues social movements have to adapt to the 21st century with new methods of activism. It is an argument closely tied in with the decline of left-wing political groups in Australia. Whether this is because they have allowed themselves to lose relevance—as he argues in a later chapter—or whether this is a natural result of the right winning the battle of ideas is a matter for interpretation.
Part one of this three part book is an interesting sociological blend of perspectives on young people and is, in sections, very insightful. It is also a rare instance of Heath getting over Boomer bashing to document the areas where GenY is deficient. Parts two and three on the other hand, add little to the world’s wealth of knowledge. They pointedly illustrate how the original ideas in part one of the book were not carried over to the other parts.
The author also resorts to criticising Australian fashion:
…on a trip back to Australia in October 2005… I contemplated just how many beautiful people there are in (Sydney and Melbourne). But something was missing. Style. The people I was gawping at had an amazing appearance, but at the end of the day it was shallow. Beyond the great tans and toned limbs was a decisive lack of thought about what their dress sense said to the world.
If, as he claims, Boomers aren’t as smart or adaptable as Gen Y, his own snideness shows they are certainly more mature.
But that assumes his characterisation of ‘my generation’ is legitimate. In fact, Heath is not representative of, or even a representative, of GenY. He is an anomaly in the system, just as his narrow usage of interview subjects for the book’s chapter on ‘exiles’—mostly professionals and those involved in media—are not representative of the wider population. ‘I readily accept the narrow pool of people interviewed in the chapter,’ he writes in response, ‘But the point is they are more important in this debate than people who work in bars—because they create more wealth.’
The numerous typographical errors in Please Just F* Off: It’s Our Turn Now could be seen as indicative of a book that has been carelessly slapped together. But what’s more damning is Heath’s sloppiness with sources. A random check of his assertions on pages 25 and 168 pointed to a UK poll as evidence of Australian youth opinion on unions as well as being indicative of international opinion on the Iraq war when the poll in question was about neither. Instead, the Guardian ICM poll of December 2004 was about voting expectations. Whether there is some legitimate reason for this particular referencing bungle is not as important as what it shows about his loose way with research.
For Heath, the book will have achieved its purpose of propelling generational warfare to centre-stage. I can sense the excitement and intelligence of ‘my generation’ and Heath is right in pointing out it is young people who will shape the future of this country—but hopefully not in the ill-thought out ways he advocates.
Surely throwing around labels isn’t all that’s needed to make Australia a better place?
Catastrophe: Risk and Response
By Richard A Posner
Oxford University Press
2004
332pp, £19.99
ISBN 0-19-517813-0
Reviewed by Tom Quirk
‘Have you heard, it’s in the stars, next July we collide with Mars’ Cole Porter
The subject, catastrophe, ought to command attention. Armageddon, global warming, plagues, the end of the earth, the galaxy or the universe are all possible but with what probability? Some are certainties but billions of years hence. Others are a little more immediate. What should we do? Richard Posner attempts to answer this question in a book that is overlong, humourless and with suggestions that are guaranteed to irritate the various constituencies he is trying to assist.
There are two broad classes of disaster, natural and man made. Man-made are accidental or intentional. Catastrophes are disasters on a larger scale. Posner is at the grand end of catastrophes as opposed to Disraeli whose modest example was of a misfortune if Gladstone fell into the Thames but a calamity if he were fished out.
Natural catastrophes of an extreme sort have ranged from the massive activity of the volcanoes of 535 AD (possibly a super Krakatoa) and Krakatoa to asteroid collisions. Loss of biodiversity and global warming, although presented as human induced, are not un-natural phenomena and should be categorised as such. Plagues, which are a combination of the natural and human induced influences, the result of organisms either new or transferred from animals to humans, should also be included.
The potential palate of manmade catastrophes can be as broad as you wish to make it. Nuclear and bio-terrorism, industrial activity, accidents from scientific research or even from milli-, micro- and nano-technology could all be considered.
The central issue is whether mitigation of these risks is possible. An extreme example would be planning for human migration from earth in three to four billion years time as the sun swells to become a red giant. Whether the race will have survived that long or succumbed to some other calamity is probably not our concern but there is a known time for this event.
But assessing risk mitigation for events with uncertain timing but estimated or known frequency becomes very difficult. Mitigating human derived risks is even more so. For terrorism, a state can take measures as far as its citizens approve but the issue of freedom and rights tends to impose limits. On the other hand risks derived from scientific discoveries and procedures and indeed their interaction with rogue states and terrorism is a much more vexing problem. In between these poles are the risks derived from ordinary activity, this includes global warming, bio-diversity and disease.
Posner considers natural catastrophes, scientific and unintended accidents and intentional catastrophes. He attempts to tease out how the social sciences and the law could help or even take the lead in mitigation by following three prime examples to exhaustion: asteroids, bio-terrorism with science and accidental science.
The risk of asteroid collision could be mitigated. If the approach of a substantial rock is detected then some action might be possible to deflect it away from the earth. The issue is how much does a detection and deflection system cost set against the damage. The extinction of the dinosaurs is an example of destructive possibilities. Posner shows various risk benefit calculations which depend on severity of impact, value of lives lost, probability of collision and of course the discount rate. How much to spend on a program of no immediate benefit is a common question in businesses and governments that finance long-term exploration or research and development. There are no rules and it is not zero-base budgeting but more custom and practice. A secondary issue, the need for more consideration of the direction of scientific research, is illustrated by the planned construction of a large aperture telescope to search for distant galaxies. Posner suggests that it would be perfect for asteroid watching but the astronomers have ideas elsewhere well beyond the solar system.
Terrorist weapons coming from unconstrained scientific research has an example drawn from Australia where scientists from the CSIRO and ANU in Canberra made a virulent mousepox virus by stitching in a gene to make IL-4, a cytokine, a signalling molecule of the immune system. The aim was to control mouse plagues in grain silos by rendering the mice infertile. Instead the virus killed them. But further, the engineered vaccine also killed mice immunised against normal mousepox. Their immunity was overcome. This could be repeated by engineering IL-4 into smallpox and hence create a potential new weapon for bioterrorists. Society has to limit access to lethal biologicals but limiting or stopping scientific experiments needs the Wisdom of Solomon and he is not currently available. The technique with cytokines has another side to it in the search for treatments for HIV and cancer.
Finally there is the risk of destruction of the planet as a consequence of an accidental runaway nuclear physics experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island. This is a similar dilemma to that faced by the makers of the first hydrogen bomb. Would it trigger a worldwide chain reaction through the atmosphere and oceans of the world? A theoretical physics group, led by Gregory Breit, were asked to calculate the odds. The trial went ahead. Likewise, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has been operating since 2000 and we are all well.
The issue of how to deal with estimated and unknowable risks remains and is a perfect place for the precautionary principle—a delay until more is known.
Posner sees risk benefit analysis as the basis of assessing response. He suggests a number of ways to help develop responses: a scientifically literate legal profession, a science court and a centre for catastrophe assessment and response. He suggests an international Environmental Protection Agency, a bio-weaponry agency and catastrophic risk review for new projects. He also considers limiting science study for foreigners and enhanced security measures.
These suggestions are a scattergun approach. Patent law requires familiarity with science and technology but Posner wants to go further and educate lawyers for catastrophic risk law. A science court conjures up visions of past Presidents of the Royal Society in London holding court while at present science risk assessment is covered by in the United States by the likes of the Food and Drug Administration, the EPA and even occasional scientists in the basement of the White House signing off proposals. This is responsibility spread across agencies rather than concentrated in a single agency. The surrender of some authority to an international agency is even more problematic.
These ideas probably have as much chance of being adopted as the probability of Cole Porter’s catchy prediction of planetary collision.
The book addresses real and important issues without adding much to ways of thinking about mitigation of risk. It would have been better reduced to a paper.
Motherhood: How should we care for our children?
By Anne Manne
Allen and Unwin
$29.95, 392pp, 2005
ISBN 1-74114-379-9
Reviewed by Arti Sharma
In today’s high-pressure, high-cost environment, bringing a child into the world is no small feat. Rearing a child can be a trying and emotional endeavour in a milieu where men and women often strive for the right to be dominant in their relationships and in society in general.
The responsibility is particularly acute for women. Aside from the physical rigours of having a child there are myriad societal, financial and gender issues that obstruct the childrearing path.
Anne Manne, in her book Motherhood: How should we care for our children? casts a controversial look at the issues. A feminist for many years, Manne has finally been confronted—after the birth of her own child—with the growing incompatibility between traditional feminism and child rearing in today’s society.
Covering the debates surrounding early institutional child care, the problems of reconciling work and family life, the crisis of fertility and the impact of new capitalism on parenthood, Manne concludes that an overwhelming number of parents would prefer that children have their mother care for them at home while they are very young.
The key message in this book is that nothing can replace the relationship between a mother and a child, not even a paternal relationship. Manne argues that women and society need to acknowledge the bond between mother and child as being one that should be encouraged and facilitated.
Instead, she says, society has become accustomed to lumping women with obligations, instead of choice. Government and society have forced women to look at having a child as a trade-off: either return to work early and sacrifice the mother-child relationship, or stay at home and relinquish career and self-development prospects.
Examining the alternatives being offered to women to that of being a stay-at-home mum, Manne struggles to contain her disdain for the child care system in Australia. She argues that child care has become such a potent symbol of the emancipation of women and the feminist tradition that academics have shied away from criticising the weaknesses of such a system. As a consequence, women are forced either to embrace inadequate and costly child care to help them to remain ‘accepted’ in society, or choose to be ostracised so that they can nurture their child through its infancy. She points out that it is the traditional feminist ideal of women forsaking their children for their career that has established this degrading state of motherhood.
Manne oscillates between being factual and pragmatic to emotional and confronting in this book, and as a result presents a strong—at times overwhelming—argument that mothers should be the first (and ideally the only) people to take care of their children in their formative years. Her experience of motherhood provides the backbone for her views on the subject, and much of her opinion is supported by fact.
However the book is, at times, weak. Even though it appears well researched, the belligerence of her argument gives way to the selective nature of her research and her subsequent failure to embrace adequately both sides of the child care debate.
Another significant absence in the book is a comprehensive discussion of the role of men in motherhood, so to speak. While she is quick to criticise feminist ideology and the shortcomings of the state, there is little or no discussion of the role of men in parenthood and how this affects the choices that a woman makes in relation to her children.
The book establishes itself as an excellent work outside of the norm. It challenges the roots of feminism, is relentless in its criticism of the child care system, and most importantly, admonishes the state for having too much control over how people live their lives: in this case it is the lives of mothers and their children that are being compromised at the hands of government policy.
Ultimately, Manne concludes that while feminism has merit in itself, it needs to be adapted to be more embracing of the notion of motherhood and be more aware of the needs of children. Equally, the state must pursue ‘active neutrality’ in its family policies, so that women feel supported regardless of how they choose to bring up their children, rather than support being a privilege to those who make the ‘right’ choices.
Cultures Merging: A Historical and Economic Critique of Culture
By Eric Jones
Princeton University Press, 2006
297(+ xvii)pp US$29.95
ISBN 0-691-11737-9
Reviewed by David Robertson
Eric Jones has drawn on his command of history and economic literature, his wit and pen craft to analyse this challenging frontier where economics intersects with the multifidous subject of culture. Cultures Merging steps into the unbounded sphere of customs, beliefs, behaviour, values, ideals and preferences shared by groups of people. This carefully reasoned, comprehensive and intellectually amusing assessment of ‘culture’ in its many forms should strike a chord with readers confused by the frequent, imprecise references to that subject. At another level, the economic commonsense underpinning this enterprising analysis should appeal to anyone who has difficulty dealing with claims for ‘cultural protection’ generated by conservatives and conservationists, the performing arts and postmodernists—to name a few!
Culture and institutions overlap. Culture is a process that comprises rules and practices acquired informally in society, while institutions are conscious or political constructs that support customs, etc. Separating the process and the institutions is a source of confusion, which perhaps explains why modern economists tend to neglect cultural considerations in their analyses of rational maximising behaviour. However, as his assessment progresses, Eric Jones makes important revelations that establish the importance of cultural change in adjusting community behaviour over time. Historically, as customs set down by tribal leaders gave way to religion, morals and behaviour were established through religious teachings, while laws developed to replace arbitrary decisions by chieftains or committees of elders. As time passed, European law was codified by medieval clerics and adopted by the lay legal profession for application to mercantile contracting by the rising middle classes. Law is fundamental to the operation of effective markets, and the process of economic development.
Early in this study, historians are criticised for giving little weight to cultural change, tending to treat culture as constant over extended periods. This is convenient and even appropriate for some periods, but it is difficult to accept for any research over the past two centuries, after frenetic movements of people, goods and technology. The effects of invasions, immigration, trade and economic change are examined thoroughly in Part II.
This volume covers the broad span of ‘culture’. It ranges from historical assessments of religious and spiritual regimes to the cultural advances that facilitated the spread of globalisation. Special attention is given to the development of counter-philosophies in East Asia, to the cultural stagnation associated with state planning and the disasters brought to Sub-Saharan Africa by cultural paralysis. The spread of economic prosperity relates strongly to the establishment of law and order, while poverty, perversely, discourages efforts to improve. Yet economic progress begets cultural change and more growth.
When markets combine or competition brings them together, there is cultural fusion. Cultural fragmentation occurs when markets remain separate. In the developed world, globalisation has provided unified markets, and many developing countries aspire to join them. Even so, media-based ‘cultural protection’ and anti-Americanism conspire to frustrate market unification. Complete standardisation of goods and services is unlikely as personal contacts amend information—and surely, there are enough international frictions to convince anyone that differences will endure.
The author draws on many sources to review the place of ‘culture’ in history. The chapters on religions and community practices are full of entertaining anecdotes that relate to social behaviour. He links Christianity to prior pagan rites in amusing and revealing ways. Christianity is exposed as continuing the practices of tribal leaders, by invoking ancient rites to support its authority. Justifications for these anachronisms are substantiated by the current willingness of churches to make concessions to sustain their falling congregations.
The use of ‘Merging’ in the title refers to the tendency for societies, religions and languages to come into contact, borrow ideas and at times to blend. As this interaction increases, information transfers become less expensive and cultures grow more alike. On the other hand, national media operators often try to impede ‘global culture’, which they regard as American imperialism. However, young generations across the world do not see such interactions as threatening, rather as providing opportunities for them to join the global economy; ‘culture and information accompany goods and services, migrations and conquests, as invisible baggage’ (page 104). Where authorities resist foreign information or products, the forms of protection adopted tend to align with the interests of ruling elites. In Australia, arts’ and media groups periodically mount protests demanding protection from foreign competitors or subsidies for local artistic endeavours, in attempts to evade market disciplines on their productions.
This comprehensive study of changing cultures and their links to economic development suggests an opportunity for a peaceful outcome to the continuing Islamic backlash against Western culture. The material gap that has opened between the West and the Islamic states of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a socio-economic gap as well as a cultural one. The problems for MENA populations arise from slow economic growth (with high military expenditures) and corrupt, authoritarian regimes that eradicated prior cultures. Levels of education are low, population growth is high and government sectors dominate these economies. The result is low productivity and high unemployment, leading to social discontent and idle young men susceptible to paternal bullying and unquestioning obedience to medieval Islam. There is potential for strong catch-up growth in these economies. Eric Jones identifies some of the gradual changes in Islamic society, especially the education of women, as instruments for change in the culture of social restraint and conservatism. Many young Arabs now learn English and follow Western broadcasts. Drawing on this book’s analysis of changing cultures, there is evident potential for the Islamic states to ‘merge’ culturally and economically with other parts of the world, even against present repression. There is always a place for a positive prognosis for this kind of worrying international crisis.
The most striking thought in the excellent review of the role of culture in economic development is that culture is changeable, which enhances the prospect that economic development is possible even in the most hide-bound autarkies. The book is challenging because it is so comprehensive, but it is rewarding because it is optimistic about the scope of culture and its links to economic development.
