The Future That Doesn't Work
EmmettTyrrell, R. Jr.
BOOK REVIEW The Future That Doesn't Work: Social Democracy 's Failures in Britain Edited by R. EmmettTyrrell, Jr. / Doubleday / I6.95 Tom Bethell There is now a good deal of...
...This is surely an accurate diagnos!s, but what is interesting about it, in a way, is how plainly it does not apply to the United States...
...on greed, in other words...
...They are resisted, if at all, "by nothing more impressive than the soft underbelly of the bourgeoisie, quivering with guilt...
...Waterloo--unquestionably one of the most significant battles in history--waged in June 1815...
...Keegan's exploration into some of the side issues of armed conflict...
...Fifteen years ago, at Oxford, Jay was a leading light of the trendy left, a Wykemist and a wit, president of the Oxford Union...
...American union members are quite different from their British counterparts in other respects...
...This last discussion is especially interesting in that it deals in some detail with the so-called Kitchener Divisions or "New Armies...
...One would think it would have been so easy for Carter to have said: the Federal Power Commission was the problem...
...They shun detente, and in fact are much more pro-capitalist than most of the quasi-intellectual elite to be found in government and at the universities...
...The country is large enough, and the constitutional integrity of the separate states is still strong enough that it is possible to emigrate, in effect, within the country, and escape from some of the problems that have bedeviled England...
...There is in fact a good deal of social mobility in England today, but, as Worsthorne points out, the problem is that "the successful self-made man cannot avoid moving into a life that associates him with a past social system that was rooted in inherited privilege, since the pattern of life at the top dates from those days...
...The article by Schwartz, who is a member of the editorial board of the New York Times, is admirably clear and straightforward, but the other three, I fear, are rather heavy going, and one wishes that Lenkowsky's in particular were easier to read, because among his mass of statistics and comparative data he presents some important and unconventional explanations of the slow growth of British productivity...
...Another interesting feature of this volume is Mr...
...Thus there is no particular sympathy for unions...
...In a sense the author whose presence is perhaps most telling here is Peter Jay, the newly-appointed Ambassador to the U.S...
...John Keegan's treatment of battle is uni~lue...
...They are discussed in four essays here, by Harry Schwartz ("The Infirmity of British Medicine"), Samuel Brittan, the economic commentator for the London Financial Times ("The Economic Tensions of British Democracy"), Leslie Lenkowsky ("Welfare in the Welfare State"), and Peter Jay ("Englanditis...
...These units participated in large numbers in the British attacks during this tragic period on the Western Front--a campaign which practically eliminated a whole generation...
...Because of the powerful rhetorical imbalance (government: means well / market: greedy) he will inevitably end up saying, Folks, it was the oil companies...
...Nevertheless, I suggest that even though the U.S...
...He then tries to develop answers to the all-important question--at least for those who practice my particular trade--how would I/you/he (or now she) behave in battle...
...We always knew Carter was only kidding when he ran against Washington...
...work force that is unionized has actually been decreasing since the 1950s (down from one-third of the work force then to one-fourth today...
...Hubert H. Humphrey and Edward M. Kennedy have been staying up at night reading the History of Trade Unionism...
...It is obvious to this reviewer that Mr...
...The percentage of the U.S...
...Mythologically speaking, they are still the underdogs, the underprivileged, with all the benefits that such a stares bestows in an age dedicated to the cause of social justice...
...But Washington is thrilled, of course...
...For example, he discusses where the generals are during the actual fighting...
...Take the "energy crisis," a classic case of government intervention leading to increased government control...
...The writings and analyses of S.L.A...
...Needless to say, this solicitousness on the part of the government is not at all welcomed by the producing states, who would rather keep their hardship and their free gas market...
...In the same way, when socialists are derided for doing such a poor job they always respond that the society in question doesn't have enough socialism at any given moment...
...Although he has many objectives in the publication of this volume, a central mission is to try to tell the reader what it is like to be in battle...
...Here he is--and who would have thought it would come to pass--on the same team as Peregrine Worsthorne, Irving Kristol, and James Q. Wilson, warning us against the dangers of social democracy...
...The author draws liberally from such works as Junger's Storm of Steel, and such authors as Napier, Chandler, F.Y...
...Doubleday / I6.95 Tom Bethell There is now a good deal of intellectual resistance to the ideals of social democracy, to the "fundamental tenet," as R. Emmett Tyrrell describes it in his introduction, "that government must attend to every need of the citizenry...
...and finally the terribly costly campaign of July 1916 along the Somme River in Northern France...
...Thus sympathy, and the influence of the "cultural legitimizers" are on the side of the unions...
...This is because of the Law of Compounded Error...
...it is to the blacks...
...Whatever the motivations for social democracy, it is extremely difficult to reverse the expansion of government programs once it begins--there is so much rhetorical advantage on the side of the government...
...In addition, we are still sufficiently unregulated economically to allow many opportunities for union members to shift over to managem e n t - t o go into business for themselves...
...is beginning to slide down a slope remarkably similar to Britain' s, this is not because Sens...
...Q~mOi0Ul~gOoI044~i6Q0Qo0QO0QQ~m0mI0OI0O0Q~qgBQ8Qa6QQQ~Di~6I~i0O0B~OI~w0QgQ~g~qeoiQi000MI0BaO0QD~B0QOMoQOM0ggB9gg~O~MiMQ40qQ0D0oQ006QIIaOQ0QQQBgg9B~ BOOK REVIEW The Face of Battle JohnKeegan / Viking / $10.95 George S. Patton III Mr...
...I am well aware of how absurd this is in present circumstances, since so many trade unionists are now the ~ouveaux riches and take home wage packets that make them the envy of professional people...
...least believes that their chances of survival are slim...
...It is a joy to quote further: Trade unionists today enjoy a special dispensation, a unique exculpatory glamor that takes much of the sting out of public criticism...
...Whereas British union leaders (at least) are frequently pro-Communist, American ones tend to be antiCommunist...
...Today, however, Jay has clearly seen another light...
...Unfortunately, as far as practical policy is concerned, socialist measures seem to be gaining greater acceptance...
...Keegan devotes the greater part of his book to Agincourt, fought in October 1415...
...On the other hand, I do intend to discuss wounds and their treatment, the mechanics of being taken prisoner, the nature of leadership at the most junior level, the role of compulsion in getting men to stand their ground, the incidence of accidents as a cause of death in war and above all, the dimensions of the danger which different varieties of weapons offer to the soldier on the battlefield...
...But still, there is no doubt that the Pox Britannica is a serious disease, much in need of the careful diagnosis that it is given in this book, even if the cure is neither prescribed nor readily apparent...
...In light of this folly, can anyone believe that socialism is dead, or that social democracy has no future...
...If it applies to anyone in the U.S...
...30 The Alternative: An American Spectator June/July 1977 The Alternative: An American Spectator June/July 1977 31 Worsthorne (who is associate editor of the London Sunday Telegraph) argues that the unions are on top in England today because they are the only group in the nation that enjoys high "class morale...
...trade unionists do not enjoy a "special dispensation" and their power is if anything decreasing--witness the recent defeat of the common situs picketing bill on Capitol Hill...
...In pursuit of this g o a l , Mr...
...They are "still allowed to enjoy the benefit of brazen historical propaganda, in which they always appear as David fighting Goliath...
...I must say something about trade unions, and here it is a pleasure to turn to the essay by Peregrine Worsthorne, "New Lads On Top...
...If Congress succeeds in passing legislation that provides federal funding of Congressional campaigns, then the power of the unions will decline even further...
...Marshall also play a role within these pages...
...Now comes President Carter, and he proposes to extend FPC control to the intrastate market as well, and to lower prices therein, in order to alleviate "hardship...
...Once government has intervened in the marketplace, throwing supply and demand out of whack--as a rule causing shortages--the standard response is to increase the extent of government intervention...
...The government tries--oh, does it try--to make things work out nicely for everyone: It is well-intentioned and so there is always political support for allowing it to try harder still...
...It seems to me that this is the most important respect in which the "British Disease" is not catching on here...
...In fact, such a measure would tend to isolate Congressmen from a// " special interests" and for that reason is to be deplored...
...In the years to come one can foresee, as plain as a pikestaff, a massive new bureaucracy in Washington (one can almost hear the piledrivers already at work on the foundations) housing thousands of workers trying to apportion energy equitably, and to price it justly--and all because of government intervention in the first place...
...Our trade unionists are not in the position of appearing to belong to a different, "downtrodden" class, nor "do they in fact...
...American unions favor economic growth, and are among the strongest opponents of environmentalism...
...His treatment of one of the great secrets of success in war, the will to advance, to close with and destroy--what I have often called 32 The Alternative: An American Spectator June/July 1977...
...So there is hope for us yet...
...Having spent fourteen years describing and analyzing battles to officer cadets in training at historic Sandhurst, the British counterpart of West Point, he was eminently qualified to put this fine study together...
...Rather, it is because it is in the nature of social democracy that elected representatives will promise the people that the government will do more and more for them, and so, when confronted by two candidates, one of whom (recklessly) promises more while the other (prudently) promises less, the electorate will generally opt for the former...
...I seriously doubt that Senator Kennedy has ever heard of the Beveridge Report, for example, but he lays before us a similar prospectus because he wants to be reelected, because he no doubt believes that if only good intentions can find their way into law then Utopia will follow, and because (a special case here, but not uncommon) he is no doubt guilt-ridden, having inherited so much money...
...He touches on the moral aspects of battle...
...Keegan's goal is best put in his own WO l ' d s ." I do not intend to write about generals or generalship, except to discuss how a commander's physical presence on the field may have influenced his subordinates' will to combat...
...This is perhaps the crucial point...
...What are these dangers...
...This book, consisting of nine separate essays by British and American authors, is a contribution to that resistance movement...
...The private sector, on the other hand, depends for its efficiency and effectiveness on the blind, callous, indifferent marketplace, in which everyone is trying to maximize his share of the wealth...
...Battle fatigue and its handmaiden, the self-inflicted wound, are also addressed...
...I think it is largely true that we are following Britain's path (with one very important exception, the trade unions, which I shall come to later), but is this because we are still under the spell of the Webbs, William Beveridge, and Harold Laski, or because there is some systematic characteristic of social democracy that ensures that "creeping socialism" will keep on creeping, in no matter what country ? I am inclined to the second alternative, although there can be no doubt that the Fabians and their cohorts have wielded tremendous influence, as Colin Welch points out in an unusually irate commentary...
...Now which seems better: a system based on greed or a system based on good intentions ? In his provocative essay, Irving Kristol argues that since socialist societies have, in practice, departed so widely from the ideal, the idea of socialism is no longer intellectually respectable...
...In short, it is Tyrrell's thesis that America has stood intellectually in relation to Britain as the provincial does to the cosmopolitan, and thus we are embarkTom Bethel/, a British subject, is contributing editor to the Washington Monthly and V/ashington editor for Harper' s. ing on the same course--as it were out of deference...
...No doubt Milton Friedman was exaggerating when he said that we were only ten years behind the British...
...This is especially true for Teamsters, who, one may recall, largely supported Nixon...
...Another strand of cautionary thought is to be found in the essays by Irving Kristol ("Socialism: Obituary for an Idea") and Colin Welch ("Intellectuals Have Consequences...
...But no...
...I do not intend to offer a two-sided picture of events, since what happened to one side in any battle I describe will be enough to convey the futures I think are salient...
...By holding down prices in the interstate natural gas market, the government created shortages in non-gas-producing states, because sellers, insofar as they could, opted to sell their gas within the state that produced it, this transaction being beyond the reach of the Federal Power Commission...
...What feelings are generated by the all-prevailing fears of death, disability, maiming, or (and well pu 0 the fear of placing men in mortal danger as a combat commander when one knows or at Major General George S. Patton III is Commander of the Second Armored Division, United States Army, at Fort Hood, Texas...
...That, at bottom, is the English disease, and that is why we have it here too...
...This is a brilliant piece of writing--worthy of George Orwell, I feel-and alone worth the price of the book...
...Brown, and Stephen Crane, all of whom this reviewer has been exposed to from an early age...
...Jay is the son of a former Labour cabinet minister and the son-in-law of the present Prime Minister, James Callaghan...
...Most fortunately for this country, the British apparatus of class distinction does not exist here...
...Institutionally, in other words, there is still the illusion of class rigidity, still the illusion of a hereditary system...
...Keegan is a competent teacher of battle and an excellent one at that...
...The theme on which they play variations is sounded, again, by Tyrrell: "The provincial earnestly denounces the hellishness of social programs, the cosmopolitan sniffs that no less a civilization than Great Britain has had such programs for years--and so the provincial collapses before a roar of ridicule from the trendies...
Vol. 10 • June 1977 • No. 9
