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In Essence | Autumn 1985
The Swedish Model

Erik Lundberg, in Journal of'Economic
Literature (Mar. 1985), Dept. of Econom-
ics, Stanford Univ., Stanford, Ca. 94305.
From the mid-1930s through the late 1960s, Sweden's pioneering "wel- fare state" defied the doomsayers. Achieving full employment, a low rate of inflation, steady growth, greater income equality, and political stability, the Swedish Model held up surprisingly well.
But in 1974, the long rise of Sweden's gross national product (GNP)
The Wilson QuarterlflAutumn 1985
19

PERIODICALS
ECONOMICS. L...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Unemployment And Crime

PERIODICALS
ECONOMICS. LABOR. & BUSINESS
ended. Stagflation set in. Investment waned. Labor strife grew. The population rose to nearly 8.3 million. Lundberg, an economist at the Stockholm School of Economics, traces the problem to the reigning So- cial Democrats' dogged adherence to an outdated economic blueprint.
During the 1930s, even before John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) proposed that government spending could stabilize a free market econ- omy, Swedish economists were trying to blend...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Poverty Wars

Wilson and Cook, who teach public policy at Harvard and Duke, re- spectively, reject the theory that the unemployment rate is directly linked to the homicide rate. They do not, however, deny that "economic conditions may have some effect on the crime rate," which includes many types of crimes against property.
In 1976, JEC Chairman Hubert Humphrey stated that a "1.4 percent rise in unemployment during 1970 is directly responsible for . . . 1,740 additional homicides." Humphrey...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Supporting Your Elderly Parents

Charles Murray, WQ, Autumn 19841. Murray asserts that "basic social indicators took a turn for the worse" during the 1960s. Jencks, a sociologist at Northwestern Univer- sity, replies that the official overall poverty rate fell from 19 percent in 1965 to 13 percent in 1980, when adjusted for inflation. Medicaid and Medicare, he adds, not only improved poor people's health but also may have helped to lower infant mortality. Life expectancy, in fact, rose more from 1965 to 1980 than from...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Libel Chill

Michael Massing, in Columbia Journalism Review (MayIJune 1985), 700 Journalism Bldg., Columbia Univ., New York, N.Y. 10027.
Following two much-publicized libel trials (Gen. William Westmore- land and Ariel Sharon against CBS News and Time, respectively), in- vestigative journalists in the United States seem to be backing off difficult stories. But are they?
Massing, a contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, be-lieves that "a chill has indeed set in." After interviewing...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
The Televised Church

Gary D. Gaddy and
David Pritchard, in Journal of Communi- Church cations (Winter 1985), The Annenberg
School of Communications, Univ. of Pa.,
3620 Walnut St. C5, Philadelphia, Pa.
19104-3858.
On April 16, 1984, USA Today ran the following headline: "TV Preach- ers Not Hurting Local Church."
This headline encapsulated a two-volume study the Annenberg School of Communications and the Gallup Organization. In 1978 and 1983, Gallup had surveyed more than 1,500 people on their religious-...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
WQ_VOL9_A_1985_Periodical_16
In Essence | Autumn 1985
Marx, The Man

Gertrude Himmel-farb, in Commentary (Apr. 1985), 165 East 56th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
For Lenin, Trotsky, and Mao, there was only one Karl Marx. But since the 1930s, when scholars unearthed Marx's early writings, many Western in- tellectuals have suggested that real Marxism has "a human face."
The new Marxism is based not on the materialistic Das Kapital(1867) but on Marx's earlier writings on alienation and other themes. Meanwhile, writes Himmelfarb, a City University historian,...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Raymond Aron: The Ethics of Responsibility

history."
"Raymond Aron and the History of the Raymond Aron: Twentieth Centurv" bv Pierre Hassner. in
< "
International Studies Quarterly (~ar.
The Ethics of 1985), Butterworth Scientific Ltd, West-
bury House, P.O. Box 63, Guildford GU2 Responsibility 5BH, England; "Raymond Aron" Ed- ward Shils, in The American Scholar (Spring 1985), 181 1 Q St. N.W., Washing- ton, D.C. 20009.
Rarely do those who interpret history become historical figures them- selves. Edward...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Questioning Obedience

"a readiness to accept disagreeable truths." He wrote about the Common Market, Soviet totalitarianism, the thought of Nietzsche and Lenin.
Hassner believes that a quotation from the 17th-century mathemati- cian Blaise Pascal best sums up Aron: "Greatness is not displayed standing at one extremity, but rather by touching both ends at once and filling all the space between."
"Critical Thinking and Obedience to Au- uestio&g thority" by John Sabini and Maury Sil-...

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