recognizing the constraints under which we act," Wrage con- cludes, "and giving the larger goal of maintaining world order prior- ity over ending oppression, we are likely to do better by ourselves, by world order, and by the oppressed."
"The U.S. Ambassador" by James W.
Do Diplomats Spain, in The Washington Quarterly (Spring 1983), Dept. 8010, Transaction Periodicals Consortium, P.O. Box 1262, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. 08903.
Despite high-level summit meetings,...
Alan Mur- The Lure ray, in Congressional Quarterly Weekly Re- (Feb. 19, 1983), 1414 22nd St. N.w.,Export Subsidies Washington, D.C. 20037.
Rising protectionism in world markets and sizable job losses at home are making it more and more difficult for Congress to abide the prin- ciples of free trade. Advocates of a "fight fire with fire" strategy are winning new support on Capitol Hill for at least one countermeasure, a big boost in federal export subsidies.
Exports are becoming increasingly...
Robert M. Kaus, in Har-per's (Feb. 1983), P.O. Box 2620, Boulder,
Industrial Czar? Colo. 8032 1.
To critics of President Reagan's brand of free-market economics, pro- posals for a European-style national "industrial policy" have a growing appeal.
Most industrial policy advocates, writes Kaus, a Harper's editor, are either "preservationists" or "accelerationists." The first group, led New York investment banker Felix Rohatyn, worries most about the urban decline and...
The Future of Gene Bylinsky, in Fortune (Feb. 21, 1983),
3435 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif.
The Factory 90010.
The last major revolution in American manufacturing occurred when Henry Ford opened the first assembly line in 1913.Today, reports By- linsky, a Fortune editor, another big breakthrough is on the horizon.
Coming up are so-called flexible manufacturing systems. Conven- tional assembly lines are relatively rigid: Each machine performs a sin- gle, narrowly defined function. Any cha...
Christopher Jencks, in The New York Re-Discrimination view ofBooks (March 3 and 17, 1983), P.O. Box 940, Farminedale, N.Y. 11737.
Are "affirmative action" quotas and other compensatory federal anti- discrimination efforts unnecessary?
Thomas Sowell, an influential black UCLA economist, believes they are, and his arguments in such books as Ethnic America (1981) have supported the Reagan administration's retreat from social activism. But Jencks, a Northwestern University sociologist, takes...
excluding blacks from the pool of job candidates will be undercut competitors and forced to relent. Jencks concedes that this may be true in professional fields (such as law) where discrimina- tion is not universal. But he argues that lower-class black men may face increasing job discrimination as crime rates and other "statistical" stigmata of ghetto culture worsen.
Since 1965, affirmative action has raised minority employment by between six and 13 percent over what it would have been...
104 percent to $19,800. Mortgage
payments consumed 19 percent of family income in 1980, up modestly
from 17 percent in 1970. Renters fared less well. Average rents jumped
125 percent, consuming 27 percent of tenant income in 1980 as opposed
to 20 percent in 1970. And renters' family incomes in 1980 were only 67
percent of the US. average, while those of homeowners grew to 125
percent, widening a gap that first appeared during the 1940s.
More than half of all American blacks and Hispanics...
Kieran Egan, in Teachers College Rec-
ord (Winter 1982), Columbia Univ., 525
Children Learn West 120th St., New York, N.Y. 10027.
American educators have been strongly influenced the child devel- opment theories of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980). Yet Egan, professor of education at Canada's Simon Fraser University, con- tends that Piaget's evidence is seriously flawed.
Piaget held that children pass through four fixed stages of "logico- mathematical" development. Using...
Edward Jay Ep- stein, in The New Republic (Feb. 7, 1983), 1220 19th St. N.w., Washington, D.C. 20036.
Does Soviet Communist Party leader Yuri Andropov play tennis? Lis- ten to Glenn Miller records? Write comic verse?
Yes, U.S. newspapers told the American public in describing the former KGB chief last November when he succeeded Leonid Brezhnev. Yet virtually none of these piquant details can be verified, says Epstein, author of Between Fact and Fiction.
When he was head of the Soviet secret police,...
the Post to have been entertained Andropov denies the story.
The early mistakes of the press, Epstein concludes, stemmed not from sinister Soviet "disinformation" but from its own uncritical thirst for "color," obligingly provided by self-appointed "Andropov experts." The newspapermen should simply have admitted their ignorance. "He [Andropov] stands at the head of Russia," says Epstein, "but we don't even know how tall."
"Television News...