Josiah Lee Auspitz, in The Public Interest (Spring 1982), P.O. Box 542, Old Chelsea,
N.Y. 10014.
America's two major political parties are busy reforming themselves -again. A committee of 60 Democrats headed North Carolina Gov- ernor James B. Hunt has been working to change the way the party nominates presidential candidates and allocates convention delegates. Two Republican reform committees are also at work. But Auspitz, a project director for the Washington-based Sabre Foundation, worries that...
shortening the pri-
mary season and creating regional primaries-may favor established
politicians too much. "Parties were once used to make sure that citizen
pressures did not get out of hand," he concludes. "Now we may need
them to make sure they are felt at all."
Congressional "Voluntary Retirement From the U.S.
House: The Costs of Congressional Ser-
Dropouts vice" John R. ~ibbing,in Legislative
Studies Quarterly (February 1982), Com-
parative Legislative...
time- consuming quorum calls and votes on meaningless issues (such as choosing the National Dance), a new breed of Congressman intent on posturing for the media, and by a fragmented subcommittee system. The congressional reforms of the 1970s are partly to blame. Now that committee chairmanships are not awarded by seniority, there is less incentive to stay in office.
Older retirees (over age 60) were more likely to cite the diminished advantages of seniority or the desire to try something new "before...
the Europeans themselves during the '70s, made Europe's predicament even more apparent: Theoretically, the United States could survive a nuclear war unscathed limiting the conflict to an exchange of missiles in Europe and western Russia.
Should they choose to shed their "dependence" on America, the Europeans have three options, says Draper. They can follow the French "nuclear" path; eschew nuclear weapons but build up their con- ventional defenses to maintain an anti-Soviet...
the possible costs. In a nuclear exchange, even the winner would be severely punished. A small deterrent force is sufficient, since an attacker can never be certain of destroying all of the defender's nuclear weapons.
The danger of "irrationality" may be exaggerated. In the past, even "irrational" Third World rulers, notably Uganda's Amin or Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi, have backed down when faced with the threat of superior conventional enemy force; there is no reason to think...
PERIODICALS
What Budget "Is the Federal Budget Out of Control?" bv Richard W. Kopcke, in New England Deficit? ~>onomicReview (NOV.-D~C.
1981), Re- search Dept., Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 600 Atlantic Ave., Boston, Mass. 02106.
A federal budget deficit simply reflects the government's irresponsible penchant for spending more than it earns; right? Wrong, says Kopcke, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The federal budget is not even a conventional budget. Its...
"Image and Reality: The Railway Corporate-State Metaphor" bv James A. ward, in Business ist tor^ R~V& (Winter 19811, 216 Cotting House, Soldiers Field,
Boston, Mass. 02 163.
Mark Twain first used the phrase "robber barons" to describe the rail- road moguls of 19th-century America. The name stuck because it cap- tured the public's view of the new tycoons-more arrogant, greedy, unscrupulous than the businessmen of old. But, argues Ward, a...
"a less obtrusive set of men more attuned to the paths of compromise and stability."
Pension Power "Pension Power" A. H. Raskin, in The Journal of the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies (Winter 198 1 /82), The Institute for Socioeconomic Studies, Airport Road, White Plains, N.Y. 10604.
The "fiercest labor-management battles of the 1980s" probably will be over control of more than $650 billion in employee pension funds, ac- cording to Raskin, a former New York Times...
the federal government.
Some unionists say it is possible to do good and still do well; they
point to the Dreyfus Third Century Fund, a money market fund that
weighs companies' environmental, consumer protection, and
minority-hiring records, in addition to profits. In 1980-81, Dreyfus
bettered the average stock-market performance a wide margin.
SOCIETY
"Freud and the Soul" by Bruno Bet- telheim, in The New Yorker (Mar. 1, 1982), 25 West 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10036,
"A cure...
Charles
P. Roland, in TheJournal ofsouthern His-
the 'New South' tory (Feb. 1982), % ~ennetiH.Wall, Dept. of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30602.
Since World War 11, the Old Confederacy has undergone striking changes: In place of agricultural poverty, it has seen growth in industry and prosperity; in place of Democratic solidity, there have been Repub- lican sweeps; in place of Jim Crow, there have been integration and black political power.
But, notes Roland, a University of Kentucky...