A Treatise on the Family
Stein, Kenneth
I can do no better than to repeat the inappropriately appropriate close of one of his sections on Gogol: So to sum up: the storv uoes t h i s way: and back into the chaos from which they all...
...buried...
...I don't expect anyone to agree with everything in this book," he writes...
...It is this theory that Becker appropriates to explain the various phenomena of family...
...In the course of a discussion of radio and television arguments he writes of how he impaled the reputation of Jane Fonda on a "Dick Cavett Show" when his opposite number was the actor Donald Sutherland, a friend of La Fonda...
...If you are always being bumped around this rude world, always ending up on the raw end of deals, then perhaps Roy Cohn can be of service...
...Neither Rusher nor Cohn ismuch -concerned here with promoting conservative politics, although neither author hides his political preferences...
...L e t us consider Rusher's mellow meditation for a moment...
...As for Mr...
...Becker explains that there is division of labor within the household for much the same reasons as within industry...
...Rusher tells how the hour was won by sneaking in the last word--a reference to Jane wearing "a tooth of Ho Chi Minh's on a necklace...
...second, he acts so that the marginal benefit of a dollar spent on one activity equals, the marginal benefit of a dollar spent on any other...
...After assailing Rusher for several minutes and coming off much the worse for it, the host fmally who are willing to stop being the Caspar Milquetoasts of the world...
...However, if we accept a notion of self-interest narrow enough to fall short of tautology, then an analysi~ of the family follows logically...
...But in my experible, fantastic climax, mumble, mumble, nameless and soundless ships...
...Most problems in real life are filled Mitchell S. Ross is the author of The Literary Politicians and An Invitation to Our Times...
...To which Rusher suavely responded, "In a small way, Mr...
...And when you consider the cases the author has to argue, you know that it has to be good...
...Rusher...
...The Bible says that the meek shall inherit the earth...
...Anyone who has ever encountered or witnessed the man in debate can attest that Rusher is as formidable an opponent as you could ever hope to find...
...Self-interest, construed broadly enough, can easily be viewed as the basic motivation behind human action...
...Two results spring from these assumptions...
...T h i s is an attractive approach...
...Gordon, he suffered a heart attack and died not too long after running into Rusher...
...Both books include many instructive and entertaining anecdotes...
...I can do no better than to repeat the inappropriately appropriate close of one of his sections on Gogol: So to sum up: the storv uoes t h i s way: and back into the chaos from which they all had derived...
...HOW TO WIN ARGUMENTS William A. Rusher / Doubleday / $10.95 HOW TO STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS--AND WIN Roy Cohn / Simon & Schuster/$13.95 Mitchell S. Ross Here are two fresh pieces of evidence that America's book publishers are thinking of you...
...Indeed, he is ambitious enough to want to explain not only the economics of the far/lily but the family itself, using the assumptions normally used to explain economic transactions...
...Now, Gary Becker comes forward to remedy all that...
...No, ladies and gentlemen: Rusher and Cohn will roar with approval at the arrival o f their royalty checks as the American publishing industry marches on, churning out how-to books that promise and then deny those suckers--the book buyers--an even break...
...Two hundred years of studying markets has produced a coherent, Kenneth Stein is a free-lance wrT"ter who works in Cambm'dge but lives in New York...
...I am reminded of the occasion, for some reason not mentioned in How to IVin Arguments, when Rusher invaded my home precinct in Detroit in order to do battle with a local imprecise), "Tell me, Mr...
...In How to Win Arguments he freely shares the stories of some of his triumphs (and disappointments) with us...
...with peculiarities deriving from human idiosyncrasy, and the how-to book, far from providing us with real assistance, ultimately leaves us with a sense of the hollowness of its advice and the loneliness of our own situations...
...Docile soul that I am, I found much in both texts to enlighten me...
...and beautifully simple, set of generalizations about man's behavior...
...First, economic man acts so that the marginal costs of his activities axe equal to their marginal benefits...
...I do want to give encouragement and support to those take charge of their own lives, those who are willing to stand up for their rights!' Very noble, very nice...
...How is Arnie Average to match such strokes in his own arguments...
...At this superhigh level of art, literature is of course not concerned with pitying the underdog or cursing the uDDerdo~ It anneals to that secret denth television host, a fabled fire-breather of liberal bent...
...Of course, "broadly enough" may be so all-encompassing that the theory loses all predictive value...
...If your tongue tends to become tied whenever you enter into high-minded coll0quies, then maybe William Rusher is your man...
...He 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1982...
...Gordon, in a small way...
...Cohn's is the more practical of the two books...
...Roy Cohn's book, too, is filled with shrewd advice, but how much of it will ever prove useful to readers who aren't half as fast on their feet as Cohn himself...
...Rusher continues: "Actually I knew that what she wore was a piece o f metal salvaged from a U.S...
...bomber shot down over North Vietnam, but I had playfully chosen 'a tooth of Ho Chi Minh's' as about equally offensive from an American standpoint and rather more comical...
...Both Rusher and Cohn are mainly filling the basic prescription of how-to books: Help the reader help himself...
...Why was this so...
...I write for those who would Do I represent this great liberal rot you're talking about...
...Cohn sneaks in a few conventional jabs at the welfare state and Rusher's book comes dressed with a friendly jacket blurb from John Kenneth Galbraith, calling it " a n amusing and informed treatise...
...The modern economic approach, as Becket describes it, "assumes that individuals maximize their utility from basic preferences that do not change rapidly over time...
...I suspect it is that these books, like all how-to books, are intrinsically weakest where they might be most helpful: By addressing themselves to readers in general they address themselves to nobody in particular...
...Never mind the.ethical question for now (Sutherland sulked that "conservatives are always doing this sort of thing" but he was given no time for a real rebuttal): The point is that beyond such obvious steps as preparing and organizing yourself, the key to winning an argument is to be William A. Rusher...
...But surely Roy Cohn realized long ago that his brand of street wisdom cannot be transmitted through a how-to book, even as William Rusher knows that the publication of How to IVin Arguments will not inspire the spawning of Rusherian advocates across the Republic...
...His is an attempt that is, at times, brilliant, and always elegant, but an attempt that ulti mately, because this analysis is in appropriate to nonmarket transac tions, fails...
...Becker begins A Treatise on the Family by telling us that he will attempt to "analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, 'prestige, and other nonmaterial behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior...
...Rusher's the more literate...
...And yet . . . when I recently--needless to say, with the greatest reluctance-became involved in some disputes involving my personal affairs, and I attempted to apply the authors' wisdom to these, I found it almost totally useless...
...A TREATISE ON THE FAMILY Gary Becker/Harvard University Press / $20.00 Kenneth Stein "Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution, y e t . " --Mac West I I " k.Jntil now, economists examining human institutions have kept away from the family, ignoring the household's dynamics even while using it as a fundamental unit in their calculations...
Vol. 15 • February 1982 • No. 2
