New Old Challenges
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Review by Christian Gillitzer

Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism
by Brink Lindsey
John Wiley & Sons Inc, New York, 2002, 330pp, $US29.95 ISBN 0 471 44277 1

Brink LindseyÕs book Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism squarely takes on the popular view, of globalisationÕs supporters and critics, that it is an unstoppable force unleashed by technological change, and is forcing governments to pursue market-friendly policies.

Thomas Friedman, one of the best known exponents of this view, uses metaphors such as the Ôgolden straightjacketÕ to illustrate the beneficial but unstoppable power of markets over governments. He comes in for several mentions throughout the book. Lindsey takes a different view.
As he asks, Ôhow computerised was China when Deng Xiaoping decollectivised agriculture, and points out that Ôthe Internet was still an obscure Pentagon initiative when the ÒChicago BoysÓ transformed ChileÕs economyÕ.

Instead, Lindsey argues that the world is going through a period of liberalisation because the gap between the expectations from centralisation and the outcomes delivered became too large to sustain, despite often poorly functioning political institutions.

His insight that political change is the necessary precondition for globalisation is sound. He might, however, have stressed more heavily that the economic contrast between centralised and free economies is becoming sharper with the latest wave of technological innovation. The advances made possible by free markets, for the reasons he outlines in the chapter ÔCentralisation versus UncertaintyÕ, are growing ever more obvious and must act as a strengthening Ôpull-factorÕ on collectivised economies to liberalise.

LindseyÕs argument that failed centralisation is driving change helps explain why a wide range of politicians embraced market-based reforms. While not ignoring ideological friends of free markets such as Reagan and Thatcher, he sites P.V. Narasimha in India from the Congress Party, which implemented socialist planning there,
Carlos Menem in Argentina, and Alberto Fujimori in Peru as examples of converts by economic necessity. Ê

As a result, Lindsey argues that the world has Ôliberalised in fits and startsÕ, creating economic difficulties which are subsequently blamed on markets. In the chapter ÔHollow CapitalismÕ, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan come in for strong criticism for political interference with capital allocation, exercised through an over-reliance on bank financing. He argues persuasively that the fate suffered by the first four of these economies during the ÔAsian CrisisÕ was a result of their illiberal centralisation of capital allocation. During the early Ôcatch-upÕ phase, spotting profitable ventures was not difficult, but as the economies became more complex, the suppression of price signals in capital markets led to economic under-performance. The stunning readjustment, Lindsey contends, was caused by the remnants of the Ôdead handÕ of centralisation not Ômarket funda-mentalismÕ. Perhaps we can now add Argentina to this list for similar reasons.

Overcoming the sometimes hysterical depictions of the powerlessness of governments in a globalised world, the book puts capitalism in context, using Africa to depict a situation where he says there is too little government. Lawlessness here is a remnant of a failed soviet past.Ê Without legal institutions capable of upholding the rule of law, and with governments intent on plunder, it is little wonder the abandonment of socialist controls has yielded little in many African nations, where tried. His arguments on property closely follow those of Hernando de Soto, stressing the importance of the security provided by Western-style legal institutions for markets to function.

LindseyÕs book provides a well-rounded economic account of the past 150 years, taking the reader from the high point of world economic freedom when Britain abolished the corn laws in 1846, through two world wars to today to illustrate his central theme. He also attempts to reconstruct the rise of centralisation.

Lindsey argues that the rapid change unleashed by the Industrial Revolution disrupted life for many and brought the certainties of village life to an end, replacing them with the uncertainty of markets. These changes must have helped the appeal of collectivism, which was seen initially to offer greater efficiency combined with the certainty and simplicity of the era passed. Whether or not this was the core driver of the ÔIndustrial CounterrevolutionÕ, other factors he refers to must have played more and less important roles in different places. The Taylor Ôscientific managementÕ school, feeding off a confusion between economies of scale and control in the industrial and political spheres, was significant in the US, while political opportunism by Bismark in Germany helped spread collectivism across Western Europe.Ê

Whatever the key factors were, Western societies still seem to associate economic liberalisation with weaker communities. This is well documented by the chapter ÔRecasting the Safety NetÕ, where we can see possible parallels between efforts today to justify government intervention on social grounds and the seeds for collectivisation a century ago. Now, however, these arguments are almost exclusively used to retard the unwinding of government controls, not advance them into new areas.Ê

Along the way the reader will come across countless invaluable and interesting facts, anecdotes and histories. Brink LindseyÕs book provides a compelling account of why centralisation is in retreat, and is an important counter to the technologically-driven accounts of globalisation.

Guy RundleÕs essay The Opportunist: John Howard and the Triumph of Reaction doesnÕt provide much of an understanding of John Howard. It does, however, provide a valuable insight into the values and prejudices of its author and the milieu that he inhabits, that sub-culture of what Imre Salusinszky has termed Wetworld, known as 'ArenaworldÕ, which may be defined by those who read Arena Magazine and subscribe to its worldview.

It does not tell us much about Howard because it is not an attempt to come to terms with Howard as a human being. Rather it is an exercise in the dehumanisation and demonising of Howard as a creature who has no real ideas, no principles, or any real kind of social vision. Howard is presented as crafty, cunning piece of work who succeeds by preying on peoplesÕ fears and anxieties. In fact he is not even a man: but a Ôshort-trousered boy-man striding through a series of foreign capitals like TintinÕ (p. 6). Alternately, he is the agent of the evil forces of international capital, Ôfirst and foremost a servant of the corporate world and its aim of extending itself into every corner of contemporary lifeÕ ( p. 16).

Howard appears to be behind every perfidious act that Rundle can identify the Coalition as having perpetrated, from the PatrickÕs waterfront affair to the anti-drugs campaign which he describes as Ôa black comic allegory of John HowardÕs incomprehension of the contemporary worldÕ ( p. 43). Howard is the enemy of liberalism, having exploited the chimera of political correctness to prevent freedom of speech, and is not even a real conservative, just an Australian equivalent of Tricky Dicky Nixon.

Rundle sees HowardÕs role in the anti-drugs campaign as sinister indicating his Ôdesire to control how people talk to their children, to hold stubbornly to the idealised family of a bygone dispensationÕ (p. 43).
In fact Howard can do no right. According to Rundle the Ôcharacteristic manoeuvres of the Howard era [are] . . . an attack on the rule of law, on the separation of powers, a disdain for the judiciary, an ideological gloss on
social and economic relations and, when all else fails, crude attempts at social engineeringÕ (p. 43). Howard is not a real human being but some sort of abstract demonic force threatening all that Rundle and Arenaworld consider to be good and decent.

Some of these charges are quite serious and we should be asking, are they true? Of course the inhabitants of Arenaworld do not believe in political correctness because that is their natural mode of speech. For those of us, however, who dare to disagree with its dictates it is, I can assure you, a reality. The claims about rule of law, separation of powers and the judiciary are interesting because they indicate that Rundle doesnÕt really understand the Australian political system. This is not surprising as his knowledge of Australian political history is equally defective. In his account of the 1980s he has HowardÕs 1988 speech on Asian immigration as occurring prior to the Joh for PM campaign that took place during the 1987 election!

The fact of the matter is that under the Westminster system of responsible government there is no real separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature as ministers sit in and are, in theory, responsible to parliament. Therefore, the claim that the executive is using the legis-lature as a rubber stamp does not add up to much and is no indication of something evil and sinister. It is a reality of responsible government. Howard has not been any-thing special in this regard. All governments attempt to do it and it is unlikely to be remedied while Australia retains responsible government. And in any case no Prime Minister can rubber stamp the Senate.

What Rundle does is to put together a disconnected set of actions and then to claim that there is an underlying pattern to them that can only be explained by reference to the evil and crafty intentions of John Howard. This desire to discover some sort of conspiratorial pattern where there is none is something that this book shares with the One Nation volume The Truth.

One of the primary virtues of this essay is the insight that it provides into the social and political philosophy of Arenaworld. Unfortunately, despite Peter CravenÕs claims for Rundle as a social theorist in the Introduction, there is not much depth to the ideas that this essay presents. Consider this statement for example: For the liberal, societies are based on contracts; for the radical on the working out of a holistic human plan. For the conservative they arise from deep-seated forms of unity that run beneath whatever political disputes may arise (p. 26).

Surely there is more to these major political theories than this. In what sense does Rundle mean that contracts are the foundation of the social order for liberals? Does he mean that liberals view society as a contract like Locke or perhaps Rundle is merely seeking to indicate, following Henry Maine, that social evolution has seen the replacement of status by contract as the basis of social interaction. Certainly one can be a liberal without believing in a social contract. Regarding his second definition, do all radicals believe in holism or just those seeking to impose a totalitarian form of radical change? But it is his discussion of conservatism that is most worrying. Rundle has read Roger Scruton and decided that Howard cannot be a conservative because he doesnÕt measure up to the Scruton template. Little does he know that ScrutonÕs variety of conservatism has been described (Gordon Graham in Politics in its Place ) as Ôbeing closely allied to FascismÕ. So at least now we know that Arenaworld doesnÕt think Howard is a fascist!

This really is poor stuff as it doesnÕt make any attempt to appreciate the diversity and richness of liberalism or conservatism or radicalism. Nor does Rundle have an inkling of the difficulty of trying to understand what conservatism, in particular, means in a ÔnewÕ society such as Australia.

What is more interesting is the implicit worldview that underpins RundleÕs analysis and constitutes what might be described as Arenaworld ÔcommonsenseÕ. The key ideas of this view are that the market and community stand in total opposition to each other and that the history of the past few hundred years has been the tale of the market slowly destroying the traditional institutions of community until finally, in a globalised world, we are left with a world composed of alienated individuals just waiting to be manipulated by the forces of capital.

The problem is that Rundle simply assumes this view of the world, he does not argue for itÑafter all, it is simply commonsense. Alas, it is nothing of the sort. It is a highly ideological view of politics, society and the coming of the modern world. It is an ideology that has its Australian roots in the peculiar history of Melbourne where it has been shared by both the Left in Arenaworld and the Right in the shape of B.A. Santamaria, John Carroll and Robert Manne.

There is no room here to make a proper critique of this ideology but it is worthwhile making a couple of points. The first is that it can be argued that the rise of capitalism encouraged sociability and the development of social harmony by overcoming earlier forms of human interaction based on violence. Secondly Rundle argues that until a few hundred years ago everyone lived in closed societies and that voluntary associations did not emerge until the 19th century. Such associations, however, have been characteristic of European society since the Middle Ages and can be seen as crucial to the subsequent development of ÔorganicÕ European political institutions. In fact, Rundle would do himself a favour if he threw away his copy of Scruton and read some Oakeshott.

This leads to the final issue: if Howard has been such a malevolent force, why has he been so successful? For Arenaworld the answer is obvious: he has won by tricks and deceit. According to Rundle, Howard is an irreparable reactionary and lost in the past with his support base being Ôthe older end of the social scale, to the narrowly Anglo-Celtic, to the non-urban. These are all, in terms of comparative influence, on a hiding to nothingÕ (p. 47). Instead, according to Rundle, Howard should have been putting together a coalition of trendies, gays, ethnics, a sort of liberal equivalent of the rainbow coalition, as these people represent the future. This strikes me as a fantasy of Arenaworld whose vision rarely extends beyond Fitzroy. Rundle also states that Howard Ôis virtually at oneÕ with the Ôemotional priorities of One NationÕ but that at the same time Ôhe is carrying a large number of the Australian people with himÕ (p. 53). But how can this be if only 10% of Australians ever voted for One Nation?

So, if we accept RundleÕs analysis, HowardÕs Battlers should probably be renamed HowardÕs Losers. But the irony is that they still exist in sufficient numbers to have returned Howard to power with an increased majority. The problem is that Arenaworld doesnÕt understand the Australia that exists beyond the inner suburbs of Melbourne and it doesnÕt have a clue regarding Howard. RundleÕs analysis of Australian politics and John Howard demonstrates this all too clearly.

Reviews by Peter Saunders

Middle Class Welfare
By James Cox
Wellington, New Zealand, New Zealand Business Roundtable, 2001, NZ$34.95249 pp,
ISBN 1 877148 72 5 

Poverty and Benefit Dependency
By David Green
Wellington, New Zealand, New Zealand Business Roundtable, 2001, NZ$34.95107 pp,
ISBN 1 877148 71 7 

The New Zealand Business Roundtable is to be congratulated for providing us with two stimulating, well-informed and well-written books on different aspects of New ZealandÕs troubled welfare state, each authored by a renowned expert in the field.Ê

James Cox concentrates on the big-spending universal servicesÑeducation, health and superannuation. David Green focuses on the various benefits and income transfers such as Sickness, Invalid and Unemployment Benefit, the Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) and Family Support. Both authors pinpoint the financial costs and the socially deleterious effects of present and recent policies, and both outline radical alternative solutions.

As its title implies, Middle Class Welfare is about the millions of dollars which the government spends on services for people who could well afford to pay for these things themselves. Indeed, it turns out that, by and large, this is exactly what they are doing already! Cox shows, for example, that the top 60% of taxpayers pay 84% of all the tax collected in New Zealand, but these same people also claw back 46% of all government social expenditure. They take 71% of all the public spending on education, 55% of government health spending, 39% of income-tested benefits, and 25% of superannuation assistance. As Cox notes, ÔA high proportion of welfare state services are [sic] received by households that are simultaneously paying large amounts in taxÕ (p.182). The middle classes are paying out with one hand and receiving the money back with the other.

Not only is this ÔchurningÕ extremely inefficient and wasteful, it also generates a number of serious negative consequences. It puts decision-making power in the hands of the least well-informed people (politicians and bureaucrats), it politicises great swathes of public life, it necessitates high levels of taxation that then create economic disincentives, it Ôcrowds outÕ private alternatives that may be more suitable, and it leads to inter-generational inequities. Needless to say, it also erodes personal liberty.Ê All of this, Cox discusses.

David Green, meanwhile, is concerned about the extraordinarily high levels of welfare dependency in New Zealand. Between 1991 and 1996, at a time when the economy was expanding strongly, the number of people receiving Sickness Benefit rose by 68%, those on InvalidÕs Benefit increased by 44%, and numbers receiving the DPB went up by 11%. In 1975, only 5% of the working age population relied on benefits; by 1996 it was 21%.

Green locates the problem in the change in the way we think about ÔpovertyÕ. ItÕs not just that we routinely exaggerate the number of people who are said to be poor (although in an excellent chapter on issues of measurement, Green shows that this is certainly the case). It is also that we have lost the habit of asking why people are poor. Since the 1960s, it has too often been assumed by policy professionals and pressure groups that poverty is a ÔstructuralÕ problem and that individuals cannot be held responsible for the consequences of their own life choices. Green robustly challenges such thinking and advances a strong case for making the restoration of individual self-reliance the cornerstone of any programme of welfare support.

What is particularly attractive about both of these books is that they do not stop at the analysis of what is wrong with the present arrangements. Both authors are happy to chance their arm and outline what they believe we should do to put things right.

Having shown that many people are already effectively financing their own welfare services, Cox unsurprisingly suggests that ways should be found to short-cut the churning and to let them take more responsibility for their own requirements.Ê Drawing on cross-national comparisons, he shows that, when governments cut back on the services they provide, individuals increase private purchasing to make up the difference (that is, public expenditure really does Ôcrowd outÕ private). Armed with this evidence, he suggests that the New Zealand government should stop subsidising higher education altogether, should increase subsidies to private schools to encourage more parents to opt out of the public system, and should means test access to socialised health care and age pensions so as to limit them to the minority of the population that cannot afford private insurance and savings.

James Cox looks to Australia, and beyond that to Japan and South-east Asia, for examples of how New ZealandÕs health, education and age pension systems could be cut back and to some extent privatised. David Green, by contrast, looks to the United States, and particularly Wisconsin, for his inspiration.

Green is frustrated that recent changes to the New Zealand benefits system have had so little effect, and he follows Lawrence Mead in suggesting that marginal changes to economic incentive structures are not the answer to the growth of welfare dependency. Rather, it is necessary to change the way people think about social responsibility, and to achieve this, we need to insist on the obligation to find work and become self-reliant. Where Wisconsin has led, New Zealand should follow.

Both of these books left me with a number of unanswered questions. Both authors, for example, recognise the problems with means-tested in-work benefits for low income families, yet both end up accepting that they may nevertheless be required as part of a reformed welfare system. Green says rather weakly that Ôin-work benefits may be defensibleÕ (p. 81), and Cox is driven to the conclusion that Ôfurther means testing should not be ruled outÕ (p. 195), but neither explains how to avoid the well-known problems (such as disincentive effects) associated with means testing.

There are other problems too. Cox, for example, is happy for the government to force people to educate their children and to take out private health insurance, but he is uncomfortable with compulsory superannuation (p. 40). I am unclear why compulsory health insurance is acceptable while compulsory superannuation is not.

Similarly, Cox (pp. 205-6) suggests that the government should increase subsidies to private schools and health care in order to encourage more people to switch from the state system. But it strikes me as odd to set about cutting government spending by increasing subsidies. I am also not convinced that large numbers of people will abandon a ÔfreeÕ system, even if subsidies are put in place to encourage them to do so (the Australian experience with private health insurance is not encouraging).

I also remain sceptical about David GreenÕs belief that a country like New Zealand could emulate the example of Wisconsin in cutting welfare dependency. Green himself accepts that a large part of the American success in cutting the welfare rolls was due to the vibrancy of the economy during the 1990s, and he notes en passant that New Zealand would need to introduce sweeping changes in labour market regulation if those currently on benefits were to be required to find jobs (p. 76). I think heÕs right, but this is a crucial condition that needs to be met if all his other recommendations have any chance of working, and it is a bit disconcerting to find it dealt with in just one paragraph.

And underpinning all of these misgivings is the nagging doubt about the political feasibility of the reform agendas put forward by Cox and Green. Cox himself hints at the problem when he notes that Ômarket liberal ideas are held by only a small percentage of the populationÕ, and that Ômajority opinion supports government intervention to address social and economic problemsÕ (p. 204). Cox believes all this will change, but I am more pessimistic. But if things are to change, we need to win the battle of ideas. Both of these books provide us with some pretty heavy armoury.

It seems everyone has a view on happiness.Ê Joan Collins, the Dalai Lama and over 100 others have released new titles on the subject since the beginning of 2001. Michael Argyle takes a different approach to most. In his text, The Psychology of Happiness, he examines what science can tell us about happiness based on a comprehensive review of available research. The text is not a self-help bookÑrather it attempts to answer key questions about happiness: What is it? How do we measure it?Ê What are its components? What determines how happy we are?

Michael Argyle is well placed to express his view. The first edition of this book released in 1987 is recognised as a ÔclassicÕ text in the history of happiness literature. Professor Argyle has himself conducted research that the book draws upon.

Argyle goes to great pains to incorporate all available research. With 35 pages of references it is almost as if he attempting to prove that this is a serious field of study. Many readers will no doubt be surprised how much research has been conducted on happiness. Readers of the first edition may be equally surprised as to how far the field has developed since ArgyleÕs first edition 15 years ago. To this new edition Argyle states that he has added Ômaterial on national differences, the role of humour, money, and the effect of religionÕ. More telling is how many of the references are dated since the first edition.

Argyle begins by discussing how researchers study and measure happiness. In doing so he explains the difference between Subjective Well Being (SWB) and Objective Well Being. Subjective Well Being is a measure of happiness conducted by asking survey respondents how they felt about their life. Objective Well Being is a measure of observable variables, such as life expectancy, that we believe are important for a good life.Ê

The distinction is important. We learn that there are no satisfactory objective measures of happiness. Thus any effective measure of well-being needs to include some subjective measures. Argyle elaborates on the many problems of measuring SWB. SWB measures are open to response bias; surveys on cultural differences do not exist for most historical periods and are expensive to conduct.

Despite the challenges, great progress has been made. Researchers measuring SWB have been able to deconstruct happiness into separate but related dimensions of positive effect (that is, joy and other positive emotions), satisfaction, and negative effect (depression and anxiety). In a few chapters Argyle covers a lot of ground ranging from the biochemistry of positive emotions to theories of social comparison and adaptation to life events.Ê

The bulk of the book is spent reviewing a range of topics and their relationship to happiness. There are separate chapters examining the relationship of happiness to humour, social relationships, leisure, work environment and employment, religion, money, and personal characteristics.Ê These chapters are fascinating reading. Although some of the findings are to be expected, many are not obviousÑit is encouraging to discover that my happiness will likely increase with age and that not winning the lottery was possibly a good thing.Ê

There are some important messages. On money Argyle concludes that in prosperous countries, ÔMaking individuals or countries richer has very little effect on their subjective well-beingÕ. Social relationships are described as ÔperhapsÕ the Ôgreatest single causeÕ of happiness. Argyle also provides interesting insights into what can be quite complex relationships. For example, it appears that religion has positive effects on happiness but that this is significantly due to the social support and the sense of purpose and meaning that religion typically provides.

Argyle devotes a chapter to reviewing national differences in happiness. In international happiness surveys Australia consistently ranks alongside Iceland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries as some of the happier nations. A key reason is our extraverted nature (important in building social relationships) in addition to our Ôgood weatherÕ and economic prosperity. There are of course issues with cross-country comparisons such as conducting surveys in different languages and different social norms that may significantly bias results. Unfortunately the only way to address these issues and to obtain a historical perspective is to resort to objective measures (for example, suicide rates).

A key take-away from this work is that the research into the psychology of happiness has now come so far that policymakers, economists and others interested in social policy must take this field of psychology seriously. There is growing evidence that despite substantial growth in many traditional measures of progress people are not getting substantially happier. Happiness research is an obvious step in solving this paradox. Unfortunately the social policy reader may be left with an empty feeling of where to from here. It is not immediately obvious how much of this research can be put to good use.

Argyle typically does not comment on social policy. This is probably a good thing. Occasionally he strays from his expertise in psychology to make policy statements, unfortunately without applying the same rigour. After providing a well-researched and convincing discussion on implications of unemployment to well-being he switches tack and without justification or evidence claims that Ôbanning overtime would save a quarter of a million jobs in BritainÕ.

Herein lies the key challenge in using this research for social policy. Are there opportunities to improve well-being by guiding behaviour through social policy or is it better simply toÊ leave individuals to act in their own best interest? I believe opportunities exist but more work, more than is in this book, is required to draw these out.

One of the strongest messages is that we should pay more attention to this field of study. Argyle notes that far more research effort has been devoted to depression than to happiness. I find it concerning that we persist with using only objective measures of progress even though they are recognised as ineffective for measuring happiness. If we are to find the policy implications of happiness research then more economists and policymakers need to understand this research.

The psychology of happiness is a complex field. There is a plethora of theories, research measures and definitions. But for those who have yet to encounter the significant developments that the field of psychology has to offer this is an excellent overview.

 In his book, Capturing the Culture, American film critic Richard Grenier made the comment that the WestÕs cultural and intellectual elites Ôfind this society morally wretched, in fact, miserably lacking in the shining values that give life meaningÕ. This statement is borne out in Mark LillaÕs book, The Reckless Mind, which studies the lives of some of the 20th centuryÕs most prominent intellectuals and thinkers, and their adherence to totalitarian doctrines and attitudes.

Consisting of essays, which originally appeared in the New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement, LillaÕs book studies the lives of eight prominent thinkers. The chapters deal with Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Alexander Kojeve, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. A long opening chapter looks at the intellectual love affair between Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt. The concluding chapter, ÔThe Lure of SyracuseÕ, analyses the nature of what Lilla calls the philotyrannical mind in the 20th century.

The chapter on Heidegger, Jaspers and Arendt beautifully evokes the intellectual friendship that can develop when people share a love of philosophy. This relationship broke down, however, when Heidegger attached himself closely to the Nazi Party in the early 1930s, joining the party openly in 1933 when Hitler became Chancellor. Jaspers, in particular, tried to convince his old friend and former colleague that his commitment was a mistake. Heidegger for his part distanced himself from Jaspers, whose wife was Jewish, during his rectorship at Freiburg University. Arendt fled to France, and then onto the US. Even after the Nazi defeat and the revelations about the death camps, Heidegger refused to apologise for his part in the regime, forcing Jaspers and Arendt to conclude that despite his philosophical brilliance, Heidegger was morally a lost cause.

The chapters on Carl Schmitt and Alexander Kojeve are of particular interest. Neither thinker is well-known in the Anglo-Saxon world, though their influence on European thought was and is profound. Schmitt came from a bourgeois Catholic background and rose to become one of the chief legal experts of the Third Reich, defending the concept of the Fuhrerprinzip as a necessary measure in the so-called war against the Jews.

SchmittÕs continued intellectual influence on the German Right is extraordinary given his Nazi record. What is even more extraordinary is the interest of the radical New Left in Germany who seem to have adopted him as an important thinker, drawn to his scathing attacks on liberalism and democracy.

Unknown outside France, Alexander Kojeve was the son of middle-class Russian parents who fled Russia in the wake of the October Revolution in 1917, despite his own conversion to communism. Attracted to radical political and mystical doctrines, and an ardent admirer of Stalin, Kojeve expounded a strange philosophy that combined Hegel, Marx, Heidegger and Nietzsche to a small audience of left-wing intellectuals in Paris in the 1930s.

Announcing the End of History, Kojeve preached the death of nobility and human greatness, and saw as inevitable the triumph of the universal and homogenous state, which he identified with the liberal capitalist West. His teachings influenced a whole generation of French thinkers, and contributed greatly to the rise of existentialism and postmodernism in the postwar world.

Perhaps the most fascinating chapter is the final one, in which Lilla seeks to rescue the idea of the intellectual from the moral relativism and totalitarianism that many ofthe intellectuals in the 20th century have worshipped. Drawing on PlatoÕs idea of the philosopher as a man in love with abstract ideas of Beauty and Goodness, Lilla argues that intellectuals need self-discipline if they are not to let this love become an all-consuming obsession with forcing the world to conform to abstract concepts.

Lilla has hit upon an important point: most of the intellectuals discussed in these essays were caught up in essentially theological and mystical questions. Despairing of a fallen, materialistic world, full of evil and suffering, and lacking in spiritual beliefs and values, many turned to radical political doctrines and parties as a way of correcting the imperfections of the world. Many concluded that these imperfections could only be eradicated via the cleansing fire of totalitarian dictatorship, which would force the human race into conformity with their version of the ideal world.

As Orwell made clear in his classic novel 1984, totalitarianism was a new religion for many, who hoped it would usher in the Millennium of peace and plenty for the human race. By replacing the union of humanity with God at the end of time, totalitarian doctrines sought to build the perfect society in the present, rescuing a fallen humanity through radical measures and state-sanctioned programmes.

Following Plato, Lilla argues that intellectuals need to restrain their love for abstract virtues, and realise that the Good will never be implemented in an imperfect world. The Philosopher King must learn to rule over his own inner world before he can hope to have any influence on the outside world. And what must the intellectuals do when a society refuses to accept the philosopherÕs account of the True and the Beautiful? According to Lilla, Plato counsels withdrawal, maintaining a critical distance and awaiting more hopeful times.

Along with Paul JohnsonÕs Intellectuals and Tony JudtÕs The Burden of Responsibility, LillaÕs book is a worthy contribution to the philosophical history of the 20th century and of Western intellectuals.

Review by Michael Rush

Frontiers of Legal Theory
By Richard Posner
Harvard University Press, 2001, 435pp, $US35.00ISBN 0 674 00485 X

 Richard Posner is well-known for at least three things: being a pioneer of the law and economics movement; a judge of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals; and a prolific author of an astonishing array of judgments, articles and books. The first two elements of his prominence are evident in Frontiers of Legal Theory. The third is encountered more indirectly. Posner has published a further two books in the same time taken to read and review this piece of scholarship. It could be however, that this comes at a cost. Posner sets some high standards for this book. Too high in fact.

The introductory chapter of Frontiers of Legal Theory informs the reader that the book has two aims. The first is to assemble a range of ideas from apparently unrelated non-legal disciplines and Ôbring them into a coherent and illuminating relation with each otherÕ. The reason? Ô[t]o bridge the conventional academic boundaries that have made legal theory sometimes seem a kaleidoscope or even a heap of fragments rather than a unified quest for a better understanding of the lawÕ.

The second aim grows out of the first. That is, to examine contributions from economics, history, psychology, epistemology, and statistical inference, and make them Ômore accessible and useful to practitioners, students, judges, and the interdisciplinarians themselvesÕ. The reason? Because Ô[w]e need legal theory above all to help us answer fundamental questions about the legal system, for it is precisely knowledge about the system, as distinct from knowing how to navigate within the system, that the lawyerÕs or law professorÕs conventional analytic techniques do not yieldÕ.

The objectives Posner outlines are laudable. The practical effect, however, of the manner in which Frontiers of Legal Theory is collated and presented, makes their achievement unattainable. It is worth considering the book from these two perspectivesÑits collation and presentation. Their effect on the substantive aspects of the book also warrants attention.

Posner does not hide the fact that the book is largely a collation of his previous work in these disparate fields. Public lectures and published articles are revised and reprinted. The impact of this on Frontiers of Legal Theory is that nothing previously written in other Posner books is reproduced here. Therefore, the non-legal theories presented (defined as the tools from non-legal disciplines to analyse the law), are limited. Excluded from the list are, among others, feminism, law, literature, and critical legal studies.

In fairness, it might not be possible to represent all non-legal disciplines, their methodologies, tools and analysis of the law in one compendium. But this detracts from the book. Instead of including the most influential or interesting theories from various non-legal fields, what is presented are simply those theories which havenÕt been collated into a book authored by Richard Posner. This does not seem an appropriate way to establish a table of contents.

We might accept, however, that the ÔcollationÕ problem is not crucial. Insights from important fields of economics, history, psychology, epistemology, and statistical inference are still represented. But this, unfortunately, does not remedy the ÔpresentationÕ problem. Each of the chapters representing the non-legal disciplines chosen vary considerably in style and consistency. What one might have expected to see, given the terms of the opening chapter and title of the book, was an approach approximating the following structure. First, an introduction to the particular methodological approach of the discipline under scrutiny. For example, what are the tools of a sociologist or psychologist? Second, an application of the disciplineÕs tools to particular legal issues (or even the same legal issues so the reader can contrast the results). Then, finally, a critique and comparison of the disciplineÕs approach and outcomes.

This general style is adopted only sporadically. What occurs more often is that a particular discipline is presented, and then rejected in favour of the economic approach. In some cases Posner takes material written by other academics as his starting point. He does this in his analysis of historicism in legal scholarship. At other times, Posner eschews this Ôresponse-basedÕ method, and simply presents his own research and thinking. Considerations of citation counting, adversarial court procedure, or the free speech market are examples.

It is evidently difficult to collate meaningfully a wide range of papers and lectures, given for different purposes and audiences, into one single volume. The lack of consistency and synthesis between the chapters and between the material chosen for review would not seem to bring them Ôinto a coherent and illuminating relation with each otherÕ.

The ÔpresentationÕ problem also exists in the dearth of signposting and headings throughout Frontiers of Legal Theory. And this book is no Fellowship of the Ring. It cannot be consumed in one sitting. On numerous occasions chapters extend 40 pages and Posner does not draw breath. It requires effort not only to absorb the various insights, but also place them in relation to each other and the book more generally. More time could have been devoted to structure and organisation.

In respect of the substantive scholarship, it is difficult to comment generally on the book. The style and content varies from chapter to chapter. Some pieces were particularly absorbing, PosnerÕs response to behavioural law and economicsÕ studies, and review of the impact of norms as an informal means of social control, being just two examples. I would have preferred an analysis of PosnerÕs defence of the rational choice model. Or considering PosnerÕs views on normative law and economics moving from utilitarianism to pragmatism, a response to the attacks from Ronald Dworkin on the moral force of the wealth maximisation criterion. As noted however, there are, regrettably, other issues that distract from this task.

The introductory chapter of the book engages the reader like a compelling movie trailer. But while the concept and casting was excellent, the feature-length version disappoints. If given the chance to recapture the essence of Frontiers of Legal Theory for the video jacket-cover, I should simply say: ÔLegal theories from epistemology to psychologyÑmeditations in the tea room with Richard PosnerÕ.

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