Autumn 1984
The War on Poverty
In Essence
Walter Dean Burnham, Paul R.
Abramson, Thomas R. Dye, Lee Sigel- Democrats' Fate man, and others, in Society (July-Aug.
1984),Box A, Rutgers-The State Univer- sity, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903.
Even as the Democratic Party gathers its considerable forces for the No- vember elections, its long-term future is, once again, a matter of debate.
To Burnham, an MIT political scientist (and a key advocate of the theory that U.S. political parties undergo "critical realignments" every 30 years...
two to one. The party, notes Sigelman, who teaches at the University of Kentucky, is "one of the oddest political coalitions ever assembled" and is nature and tradition given to bickering, turmoil, and more than a dash of excitement. As Will Rogers put it more than half a cen- tury ago: "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."
"After the Congressional Veto: Assessing ew Checks the Alternatives" by Robert S. Gilmour and Barbara inkso on Craig, in Journal of
And...
Henry Fair- lie, in The New Republic (Mav 28, 1984). 1220 19th St. N.w., washington, D.C. 20036.
Once "it was impossible to think of the practice of politics without the eloquence with which kings and politicians tried to move individuals and multitudes." Today, laments the New Republic's Fairlie, oratory has no place in American politics.
Of course, television is responsible for much of the change. Before the advent of broadcasting, public gatherings and newspapers were the sole outlets...
Linda E. Demkovich, in Na-
Cloudy Future tional Journal (June 23, 1984), 1730 M St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
Nobody in Washington wants to admit it before the November elec- tions, but public officials of both political parties who are looking for ways to reduce federal budget deficits are contemplating cuts next year in that most sacred of federal programs, Social Security.
The retirement program itself seems assured of solvency for the fore- seeable future, thanks to the $165-billion...
Samuel P. Huntington, in Politi-cat Science Quarterly (Summer 1984), Vistas 2852 Broadway, New York, N.Y.
10025-0148.
Democracy has planted new flags in recent years, notably in Spain, Ar- gentina, and Greece. But Huntington, a Harvard political scientist, is not optimistic about the overall prospects for the spread of representa- tive government.
For more than a century after the American Revolution, democracy was on the rise around the world. Its momentum faltered around 1920, only to revive...
promoting economic development and free-market economies and increasing its influence in world affairs, the United States may be able to aid the democratic cause.
"Why Trust the Soviets?" by Richard J. Barnet, in World Policy Journal (Spring 1984), World Policy Institute, 777 United Nations Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10017.
Distrust and ill will have poisoned relations between the United States and the Soviet Union since the late 1970s. Yet "it is a dangerous delu- sion to believe that...
govern- ments." This ground swell of public opinion, along with the high cost of the arms race, opens the door to a "historic" transformation of U.S.- Soviet relations.
"Europe's Nuclear Superpowers" byCreating TWO New George M. Seignious I1 and Jonathan Paul Yates, in Foreign Policy (SummerSuperpowers 1984), P.O. Box 984, Farmingdale, N.Y. 11737.
Talk of the nuclear "superpowers" brings just two countries to mind, the United States and the Soviet Union. But...
Great Britain and France could make them nuclear powers of the first rank-and pose nearly as much of a challenge to Washington as to Moscow.
Both of these U.S. allies already maintain small nuclear forces: a combined total of 300 warheads in land- and submarine-based missiles. Moscow's installation of new SS-20 missiles targeted on Western Eu- rope and European doubts about Washington's commitment to defend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at all costs prompted the Anglo-French plans....
George
Sternlieb and James W. Hughes, in Soci-
ety (Mar.-Apr. 1984), Box A, Rutgers-
The State University, New Brunswick,
N.J. 08903.
1980, an American home-buying binge that had lasted nearly 50 years had come to an end. But Sternlieb and Hughes, both urban- planning specialists at Rutgers, warn of the dangers of letting the American dream of home ownership die.
The foundations for the 50-year spree were laid during the New Deal. The federal government, by offering insurance on both deposits...
Peter D. Skaperdas, in
Of the States Federal Reserve Bank of New York Quar-
terly Review (Winter 1983/84), 33 Liberty
St., New York, N.Y. 10045.
Most economists' eyes now are on the river of budgetary red ink gush- ing from Washington, D.C. Forgotten is the fiscal importance of Amer- ica's state and local governments.
In 1983, their combined outlays totaled $430 billion, as compared to Washington's $796 billion, notes Skaperdas, a New York Federal Re- serve Bank economist. While the federal gov...
IODICALS
ECONOMICS. LABOR. & BUSINESS
"State and Local Governments: An As- The Fiscal olicy 'sessment of their Financial Position and
Fiscal Policies" Peter D. Skaperdas, in
Of the States Federal Reserve Bank of New York Quar-
terly Review (Winter 1983/84), 33 Liberty
St., New York, N.Y. 10045.
Most economists' eyes now are on the river of budgetary red ink gush- ing from Washington, D.C. Forgotten is the fiscal importance of Amer- ica's state and local governments.
In 1983...
national product in 1950 to 10.5 percent (or $322 billion) in 1982. On a per capita basis, that amounts to a fivefold increase (in constant dollars). He blames the cost explosion on the rapid "monetariza- tion" of medical care.
Before World War 11,medicine in the United States was "quasi- eleemosynary": Hospitals relied heavily on charitable donations, young interns worked at hospitals in return for their room and board, and physicians who sought admitting privileges at a...
gardening and rural embellishment" as evidence of America's growing refinement. He also saw it as an antidote to the characteristically American "spirit of unrest": Growing plants in a way encouraged men to put down their own roots.
Between 1818 and 1857, some 40 horticultural societies had sprung up in towns and cities across the youthful republic. It might be said that the gardening movement bloomed-and has never withered.
"Trying Higher Education: An Eight
A Failing Grade...
Daniel C. Hal-lin, in The Journal of Politics (Feb. 1984), Dept. of Political Science, Univ. of Fla., Gainesville, Fla. 32611.
American television journalists turned against the U.S. government during the 1960s, "lost" the war in Vietnam, and have been systemati- cally undermining public trust in American institutions ever since.
That view enjoys wide currency today. But Hallin, a political scien- tist at the University of California at San Diego, found little support for it in a survey...
PERIODICALS
PRESS & TELEVISION
not challenging Washington's policies. And in fact, TV reporters pre- paring stories on the Vietnam War (excluding antiwar protest in the United States) relied just as heavily on government spokesmen after Tet as they had earlier and rarely questioned their reliability.
Beyond mirroring changing events, Hallin contends, newsmen re- flected the dissolution of consensus, particularly among national lead- ers, behind the U.S. war effort. As Max Frankel of the...
Mar-
tin Benjamin, James Muyskens, and Paul
Saenger, in The Hastings Center Report
(Apr. 1984), 360 Broadway, Hastings-on-
Hudson, N.Y. 10706.
Americans routinely turn the latest tools of medicine into instruments of vanity. Indeed, some doctors have become virtual sculptors, per- forming cosmetic face-lifts, hair transplants, and orthodontic work. Soon, thanks to laboratory genetic technology, they will also be able to control children's height.
Human growth hormone (hGH) has long been available...
Mark Lilla, in Partisan Review (no. 2, 1984), 121 Bay State Rd., Boston, Mass. 02215.
Since the turn of the century, philosophers in the United States and Great Britain have been preoccupied with increasingly esoteric studies of language. In the process, they have become "peripheral to American intellectual life," writes Lilla, executive editor of the Public Interest. But he sees signs of a "postmodern" revival in American philosophy.
Anglo-American philosophers first focused...
Mark Lilla, in Partisan Review (no. 2, 1984), 121 Bay State Rd., Boston, Mass. 02215.
Since the turn of the century, philosophers in the United States and Great Britain have been preoccupied with increasingly esoteric studies of language. In the process, they have become "peripheral to American intellectual life," writes Lilla, executive editor of the Public Interest. But he sees signs of a "postmodern" revival in American philosophy.
Anglo-American philosophers first focused...
asexual parthenogenesis:
Each seed will grow, without being fertilized, into an exact genetic
copy of its parent plant.
Sex has some obvious advantages. For a species adapting to a chang-
ing environment, "the myriad natural variations that sex produces can
spell the difference between success and failure, survival and extinc-
tion." The chief disadvantage of sex is uncertainty. Because male and
female each contribute half of their offspring's genes, the result can be
the worst...
Her-man F. Mark, in American Scientist (Mar.-Apr. 1984), P.O. Box 2889, linto on, Iowa 52735.
Nearly everything in the industrialized world seems to be made of plas- tic or at least to contain some of it. Yet it was only a few decades ago that scientists began to understand this remarkable material.
As is so often the case with great discoveries, writes Mark, Dean Emeritus of the Polytechnic Institute of New York, plastic was first cre- ated accident. In 1846, Swiss chemist Christian Schoenbein...
Rochelle L. Stanfield, in National Journal
For Electricity S AD^. 14, 1984). 1730 M St. N.W., Wash- ington, D.C. 20036.
Americans take electricity almost as much for granted as they do the air they breathe. "Flick the switch," says National Journal correspondent Stanfield, "and the lights are sure to go on." But in Washington and at util- ity company headquarters around the country, specialists are debating how to ensure that the lights will still go on during the next century.
The...
Car- lisle Ford Runge, in The Journal of Con- temporary Studies (Winter 1984), Transaction Periodicals Consortium. Dept. 541, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903.
The Reagan administration's efforts to "privatize" large tracts of feder- ally owned land auctioning it off to individuals and corporations strike some critics as a sellout to "special interests."
In fact, says Runge, a University of Minnesota economist, "privatiza- tion" is chiefly motivated by...
Car- lisle Ford Runge, in The Journal of Con- temporary Studies (Winter 1984), Transaction Periodicals Consortium. Dept. 541, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903.
The Reagan administration's efforts to "privatize" large tracts of feder- ally owned land auctioning it off to individuals and corporations strike some critics as a sellout to "special interests."
In fact, says Runge, a University of Minnesota economist, "privatiza- tion" is chiefly motivated by...
natural gas, but methanol or synthetic gas can also be used. The cells are enormously efficient. They capture about 40 percent of the energy in natural gas; conventional gas tur- bines, contrast, achieve only 30 percent efficiency.
A fuel cell provided electricity and drinking water for the two U.S. as- tronauts who flew Gemini V in 1965, but there have been problems bringing the technology down to earth. A small demonstration plant in New York City is already a year late for start up thanks to...
Dave Kehr,
in American Film (May 1984), American
Film Institute, Box 966, Farmingdale,
N.Y. 11737.
Although Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers might not consider them wor- thy of the name, three of Hollywood's most successful movies last year-Flashdance, Staying Alive, Yentl-were musicals.
Movie musicals have changed drastically over the years, notes Kehr, film critic for the Chicago Reader. During the "golden age," from Monte Carlo in 1930 to My Fair Lady in 1964, the hallmark of the...
Christopher Clausen,
in The Georgia Review (Spring 1984), Uni-
versity of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30602.
Sherlock Holmes surely would have enjoyed unraveling the mysteries of his own existence.
Starting with A Study in Scarlet, in 1887, author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) made a career for his famous character that spanned three other novels and 56 short stories over 40 years. The Holmes canon cov- ers so much ground, writes Clausen, who teaches at the Virginia Poly- technic Institute, that it...
Christopher Clausen,
in The Georgia Review (Spring 1984), Uni-
versity of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 30602.
Sherlock Holmes surely would have enjoyed unraveling the mysteries of his own existence.
Starting with A Study in Scarlet, in 1887, author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) made a career for his famous character that spanned three other novels and 56 short stories over 40 years. The Holmes canon cov- ers so much ground, writes Clausen, who teaches at the Virginia Poly- technic Institute, that it...
PERIODICALS
ARTS & LETTERS
complains, "there just isn't much new opera to be seen." Among the 87 opera companies that make up OPERA America, opera's equivalent of a national trade association, the most frequently performed work during the 1981-82 season was Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, written in 1851. Of the 47 operas that were performed at least 10 times during the season, only 13 were creations of the 20th century (and six of those were Puc- cini operas from the early 1900s).
A l...
an efflores- cence in the arts. "The identity of a people and of a civilization is re- flected and concentrated" in culture, Kundera writes. "If this identity is threatened with extinction, cultural life grows correspondingly more intense."
But even as culture was increasing in importance in captive Central Europe, it was declining in Western Europe. Indeed, Kundera be- lieves, the mass-communications media have supplanted culture there: Sophisticated Western Europeans now discuss...
MacGre- And Germany gor Knox, in Journal of Modem History
(Mar. 1984), University of Chicago Press,
P.O. Box 37005, Chicago, 111.60637.
Among scholars, decades of debate have made it harder to see what Adolf Hitler's Germany and Benito Mussolini's Italy had in common and what distinguished their fascism from the other major totalitarian ideology of the 20th century-Marxism.
Knox, a University of Rochester historian, says that the confusion arises because scholars refuse to take the two dictators...
Book Reviews
by Amnon Rubinstein
Schocken, 1984
192 pp. $14.45
by Carry Wills
Doubleday, 1984
272 pp. $18.95
by Carlo Ginzburg
translated by John and
Anne Tedeschi
Johns Hopkins, 1984
209 pp. $18.50
by Kenneth Silverman
Harper, 1984
479 pp. $29.95
by Tzvetan Todorov
translated by Richard
Howard
Harper, 1984
274 pp. $17.95
by Vera Schwarcz
Yale, 1984
284 pp. $19.95
by George Fields
Macmillan, 1984
213 pp. $14.95
by Edward C. Banfield
Basic, 1984
244 pp. $15.95
by Seamus Heaney
Farrar, 1984
85 pp. $13.95
by John Raeburn
Ind. Univ., 1984
231 pp. $17.50
by John W. Reps
Missouri, 1984
570 pp. $89.50
by F. J. Pettijohn
Univ. of Chicago, 1984
260 pp. $25
by Gerard K. O'Neill
Simon & Schuster, 1984
299 pp. $16.95
by Stephen H. Schneider
and Randi Lender
Sierra Club, 1984
576 pp. $25
by R. C. Lewontin,
Steven Rose,
and Leon J. Kamin
Pantheon, 1984
322 pp. $2 1.95
By Sally Price. Univ. of Mich., 1984.
224 pp. $12.50
By Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. Cambridge, 1983.
297 pp. $9.95 paper
By Jonathan C. Randal. Vintage, 1983.
317 pp. $5.95
Essays
's painter Hector Poleo, born in 1918. Tough, hard-working, laconic, the Andino is a product of his bleak moun- tain habitat, which figures prominently in Venezuelan history, first as the road to the mythical kingdom of Eldorado, later as the country's chief coffee-growing region and home to Venezuela's caudillos (strong men).
The WilsonQuarterly/Autumn1984
48
Venezuela stands out among its Latin American neighbors. On a continent beset dictatorships and periodic coups, Venezuela boasts more...
's painter Hector Poleo, born in 1918. Tough, hard-working, laconic, the Andino is a product of his bleak moun- tain habitat, which figures prominently in Venezuelan history, first as the road to the mythical kingdom of Eldorado, later as the country's chief coffee-growing region and home to Venezuela's caudillos (strong men).
The WilsonQuarterly/Autumn1984
48
Venezuela stands out among its Latin American neighbors. On a continent beset by dictatorships and periodic coups, Venezuela boasts more...
n, being a Caraquefio-a resident of Cara- cas-has until recently meant having the best and most that money can buy. Blessed with a cool, temperate climate, the City of Eternal Spring is nestled in a 3,000-foot-high mountain val- ley, 11 miles long and three miles wide. It is as modern as any North American metropolis. Gleaming white office buildings and apartment blocks crowd the slopes of the valley. The twin glass towers of the Simon Bolivar Center, housing government offices, and the three 56-storied...
Gucci, Pierre Cardin, and Yves Saint Laurent. The supermarkets boast, among other items, Kraft mayonesa, Cheez Whip pimentdn, and Colgate dental crema. Affluent Venezuelans have also taken a liking to imported Scotch. In 1980, they pur- chased 1.8 million cases of the whiskey, making them the world's Number One per capita consumers. At Christmas, fir trees are flown in from Canada. Mercedes Benz sedans are a fa- miliar sight on downtown streets.
Not surprisingly, the cost of living in Caracas has...
When Esquire magazine turned 50 last year, it released a much-ballyhooed golden anniversary number devoted to "50 Who Made the Difference" over the past half century. Celebrity writers such as Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, and Tom Wolfe were enlisted to profile "American Originals" as diverse as Dwight D. Eisenhower and Muhammad Ali. Despite their differ- ences, nearly all of Esquire's elect had one thing in common: They were themselves celebrities, household names.
One exception-a...
Jacob Riis of the courtyard at 22 Buxter Street, Manhattan, about 1890. The poor in the slums, Riis wrote, "are the victims, not the masters, of their environment; and it is a bad master."
No one disputes that poverty exists in America. But how serious is the problem? Who are the poor? Why are they poor? Are there more poor people than there used to be? On such questions there is little agreement. Budget director David Stockman contends that failure to count the value of noncash benefits...
In early 1950, in that year of transition from the first half of the century to the second, Life magazine's editors paused to editori- alize on the state of the U.S. economy. They found the country still "hip-deep in a postwar boom" that had been under way for more than four years. The editorial did not mention poverty. There was a passing reference to four million unemployed citi- zens but no indication that the country was troubled by a siz- able number of people who were even chronically hard up, let alone impoverished.
a combination of factors, including industrialization, population growth, and the blossoming of social science, Western governments, led Great Britain, began looking at poverty afresh and experimenting with new strategies for ameliorating the condi- tion of the poor.
As Gertrude Himmelfarb points out in The Idea of Poverty (Knopf, 1983), the half centuries on either side of 1800 were times of ferment in social theory. In the preindustrial England of 1750, poet Thomas Gray could speak of the "short...
public agencies and private institutions
"Maritime Strategy or Coalition Defense?"
Abt Books, 55 Wheeler St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138. 116 pp. $19.00.
Author: Robert W. Komer
America's loss of its nuclear "edge" over the Soviet Union during the 1970s makes U.S. conventional mili- tary strategy more important than ever before.
Indeed, Washington has been forced to ponder the kind of choice that eventually confronts all great powers: Should the nation adopt a land-based &...
the Wilson Center's East Asia Program, June 6,1983.
Few Americans would deny that theirs is a "litigious society." U.S. law schools, for example, graduate 35,000 students every year; in all of Japan there are fewer than 15,000 practicing attorneys.
Such comparisons, however, can be misleading. Michael K. Young, who teaches law at Columbia University, notes that Japanese undergraduate law departments turn out 38,000 gradu- ates yearly. Most take the entrance exam for the Legal Training...
In February 1947, barely 18 months tomary two growls. Below his mane after an American-made atomic appeared the company's celebrated bomb known as Little Boy leveled motto: Ars Gratia Artis, "Art For Art's the Japanese city of Hiroshima, Sake." Then came what purported to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released to be a newsreel, showing canisters of the world what would today be film-supposedly, copies of the film called a "docudrama" about the that the audience was about to see- making...
LECTIONS
Earlier this year, the Johns Hopkins University Press published Joseph T. Shipley's "discursive dictionary of Indo-European roots," a rich compendium of words from our lost mother tongue. English and more than 100other "daughter languages" can today trace their origins back to Indo-European. Shipley's thousands of entries, each an eclectic mag of fact, anecdote, and deft quotation, reveal the author's ksero wit, eye for the ozd, and sheer love of dinghu.We present some...
