The Ultimate Resource
Lawler, Philip F.
Stalinist bureaucracy with its secret police and informers--in the West the danger comes from below, from an underclass out of control. But Bellow has not imagined the subject fully. One...
...WlUJAM $13fRON...
...Since competition will eventually bring down prices, the net result will be an increase in the abundance of raw materials, with a concomitant decrease in their cost to the consumer...
...Six critics re-examine the work and reputations of a group of celebrated modem authors...
...Among its many other virtues, Marco Polo, I f You Can is often very funny: "Now," said Reynard, his voice audibly excited, "now--watch t h i s . " The s c r e e n showed 63-65 Unter den Linden, from a discreet distance--"You c a n n o t , my d e a r S e b a s t i a n , place a camera too close...
...No sentiment could be further from Simon's beliefs...
...Is his writing an attempt to create literature or does he siml~y put together attractive ideological tracts...
...Yet few are outright socialists...
...Send your coupon in today so you don't miss a single issue of our new series...
...I-1 Bill me for $7.00...
...Is he merely a pale shadow of Faulkner...
...His style is conversational, even combative...
...economic exploitation has contributed to poverty in the Third World and that America's heavy use of natural resources is "immoral...
...News & World Report, CBS, NBC, ABC...
...First of all, the high spirits, the humor...
...In his view of the world's ecological economy, the "ultimate resource" is humanity--or, specifically, human imagination...
...When the Club of Rome issued its pessimistic Limits to Growth in 1972, popular coverage was intensive...
...We think THE ROCKFORD PAPERS" new sixpart senes will give you six reasons to put us on your permanent reading list...
...labor is divided more efficiently...
...Given that the so-called population explosion is occurring most dramatically among nonwhite people, this campaign contains an implicit racist element...
...Some of their bylines and TV images are familiar to millions...
...He lapsed again into silence, looking down at his desk...
...Gary Vasilash begins our series with a look at a litterateur never well explained but always well sold by the liberal reviewers...
...U.S...
...There is the plain testimony of the historical record: Population growth seems to presage an increase, not a decrease, in the nation's quality of life...
...Page after page, Simon punctures myths of scarcity and offers instead the counsels of optimism...
...Some 54~ of leading journalists count themselves as liberals...
...If he continued to grow at the same rate, I suddenly realized, he would be ten feet tall when he entered the first grade...
...Ironically, such predictions have ignored two of the social scientist's most valuable analytical tools: the historical record and the laws of supply and demand...
...There is indeed a sense in which all of the James Bond novels are jokes, rather good jokes...
...it cannot accommodate the sacrifices men make for their families, or the risks entrepreneurs take for the sake of an innovative idea...
...As it happens, I had myself to do a great deal of work on Eisenhower in connection with a forthcoming book and either BuckIcy knows the recent scholarship or he has correctly intuited the truth...
...r3 Enclosed is ,~.00...
...Take, for instance, the case of "vanishing" raw materials...
...In a key scene, the Soviet dictator gets drunk at Camp David, and Ike's account is both high comedy and fine portraiture: Everyone knew the President was on no account to be interrupted...
...Since I am not a social scientist, I chose the latter option...
...tJRILYN ~ and , ~ t ' GOgDON...
...GOI~ VIDAL Is the author of Myra Breckinridge a brilliant obsewer of manners-as the liberal cdtJcs want us to believe -- or just an astute muckraker see~Jng the annihilation of the conventions that f&m the rudiments of civilization...
...Know what he said...
...THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE Julian L. Simon / Princeton University Press / $14.50 Philip F. Lawler During the past month, my baby son grew two inches...
...In fact, they stoutly spurn the notion that major corporations should be publicly owned...
...Can the author of The Coup and A Month of Sundays be taken asa .morally responsible novelist or only as an astute literary stylist...
...Confronted with this frightening prospect, I saw only two possible alternatives...
...IF_ L DOCI'OltOW...
...Then, too, there is a striking element of contempt for humans of every race...
...They show special fondness for welfare capitalism...
...Why not join our growing list of readers...
...The Ultimate Resource repudiates this myth in a number of ways...
...Quite the reverse: Each act of imagination opens the field for a whole new array of complementary innovations...
...arid lands are reclaimed...
...Named after my grandson...
...He said--now, I quote him e-x-a-c-t-l-y...
...The study involved interviews with 240 journalists and broadcasters working for the most influential media outlets...
...And as Julian Simon argues, anyone using these two tools would have realized that the doomsayers were talking nonsense...
...They're the media's heavyweights, courted by politicians, studied by scholars, pampered by peers...
...T h a t ' s good news," Blackford said...
...Despite acceptance of the economic order, many top journalists expressgeneral discontent with the social order...
...I looked at the interpreter, I mean I looked at the son of a bitch and I said"-We Can Give You Six New Reasons to Subscribe to THE ROCKFORD PAPERS...
...In the long run, as adequate substitutes are developed, consumers will have the option of choosing among competing alternatives...
...dollars only, please) (please ~nt) ADDRESS CITY STATE Z~ ASRPI 37 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 35 question of population growth...
...If supplies run short, prices will rise, impelling users to find substitutes or to do without...
...In an information society, the upper-crust media practitioners are a telling force...
...Following Simon's l e a d , one might speculate that ancient tribesmen had no faith in their ability to create new vistas of wealth, and so they never made the effort...
...imagination feeds on itself...
...The research was directed by S. Robert Lichter of George Washington University and Stanley Rothman of Smith College...
...And that, the ultimate resource, is unlimited...
...Only 1'9% describe themselves as right of center...
...MARCO POLO, IF YOU CAN William F. Buckley, Jr...
...He challenges the reader continuously, in one case volunteering to bet a substantial sum of money against anyone who disagrees with his proposition that the price of mineral resources will decline over time...
...e sedes is called "The /V~numental Literature of Dwarfs...
...The main force of Simon's argument, however, is directed at the Philip F. Lawler is managing editor o f _9 The Global 2000 Report to the d~resident, Policy Review...
...The only possible way to stanch the flow of creativity is to pursue the ideology that Simon attacks--to nourish the belief that the earth's economy is a fixed system, and to stifle new impulses to raise our standards of living...
...Consequently, when the Global 2000 rep-ort'Teiterated the discredited Limits to Growth analysis, few critics noticed the irony...
...If capital is the Where the Media Elite Stand I n the nation's shift from an industrial to an information society, a new elite has risen in the land...
...And faith in the future enables a few brave scholars to buck the popular trend with books like this...
...Contrary to the popular myth, we will never exhaust our supply of vital materials...
...The structure involves interlocking narratives woven together in short, tightly structured chapters, the various narratives finally converging in a surprising climax...
...What secret of economic creativity has been unveiled in that recent period...
...Books containing characters named Odd Job and Pussy Galore are certainly not solemn...
...If oil prices rose last year, they would rise again next year...
...Stephen Tanner takes a look at the author of Ragtime...
...now available from Penguin, $10.00...
...very dangerous opponent...
...But a system based on faith is limited only by the scope of the human imagination...
...At n,y lodge...
...It's the kind of writing that earned us the Freedoms Foundation's 1981 George Washington Honor Medal...
...The same proportion take the view that all political systems are repressive because they concentrate power and authority in a few hands...
...So when a new disaster is predicted, the popular media rush to publicize it, never wondering how soon it will be proved spurious...
...People were misled as to Eisenhower--and politically led--by the famous friendly grin...
...Of course, here too he confronts an overwhelming opposition from the media...
...He meant that the smile represented the taking up of a certain position of distance from the here and now, of being serious, yes, but never submitting to the golden calf of solemnity, because there is more to existence than this transitory world...
...One hopes he will return to the question again, for he--more than any other American novelist save, perhaps, Ralph Ellison--has the imagination, intelligence, and knowledge to write a novel that will make us see the question...
...t Doubleday I $13.95 Jeffrey Hart The reader notices a number of interesting and impressive things in this fourth novel about the adventures of Blackford Oakes, the intrepid Yalie and CIA operative...
...3Otfft URDIKE...
...What makes him so covetous of t~e New York cultural establishment's approval...
...I could begin scouting around for grammar schools furnished with extra-large desks (and basketball teams...
...Some 68% believe the government should substantially reduce the income gap between rich and poor...
...and nonfiction...
...There is the evidence of economic analysis...
...If capitalism is successful, it is not because it takes advantage of man's selfish desires, but because it encourages his nobler instincts...
...Each prediction was based on a simple, naive extrapolation of an existing trend...
...Close to half feel the government should guarantee a job to anyone wanting one...
...Its members work in the news media...
...Peregrine Worsthome, associate editor of London's Sunday Telegraph, says: "1 always benefit from reading The Rockiord Pape~ which seems to me to include some of the best conservative writing of recent times...
...The group profiled by the study is "out of step with the public," Public Opinion opines...
...If my son grew two inches last month, he would sprout two more this month...
...The narrative moves from the Oval Office to Soviet Central Asia, Berlin, and the Lubyanka prison...
...Sla~ my one-y~" (six bimonthly issues) subscription to THE ROCKFORD PAPERS with your Ma 9 issue on William Styron...
...One of the most successful characters in the book is none other than President Dwight D. Eisenhower...
...The President's eyes very nearly popped out...
...For most of human history, mankind did not substantially progress in economic terms...
...Cosmopolitan in their origins, liberal in their outlooks, they are aware and protective of their collective influence," Lichter and Rothman write...
...Another thing you admire about Marco Polo, I f You Can is the tautness of both the prose and the narrative structure...
...It is, a f t e r all, t h e principal KGB office outside of Moscow...
...With The Ultimate Resource, Julian Simon becomes the third member of a formidable triumvirate 36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 that recently has forced popular attention to the role of faith in the economy...
...His contempt for Nikita Khrushchev is total...
...The picture of an emaciated child has become a symbol of population growth in part because of the wrong-headed belief that the world's resources are fixed, that a larger population must be a poorer population...
...These include the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, U.S...
...The public was treated to a bewildering succession of scenarios for disaster--overpopulation, famine, depletion of the ozone layer, shortages of key raw materials --all based on the assumption that the future would be exactly like the present, only more so...
...Faith in the future inspires some men to make extraordinary new strides in development...
...Where stand the media elite ideologically...
...The Ultimate Resource is written as an antidote to these follies, and so Simon has aimed for a popular audience...
...nol.-io-~-w re, turn= to read ~ ROC/O~ORD P/U~.R& Our writing on such issues as the Coki War, liberalism, education, the media, the New Right and the Moral Majodty has brought favorable mention in publications as diverse as the Washington Post, New Oxford Reuiew and the Congressional Record...
...On international issues, a majority of the media elite believe U.S...
...Is he a great writer or a great fabrication...
...But the truly delightful aspect of the book is its persistent iconoclasm...
...Joseph P. Schwartz examines ~ books of Ulxlike...
...A substantial minority - - 28% - - favor overhauling the entire system through "a complete restructuring of its It,asic institutions...
...Once our forebears discovered the practical applications of imagination, they quickly turned that discovery into tangible capital...
...George Gilder, in I~ealth antipoverty, and Pope John Paul II, in Laborem Exercens, each traced the roots of economic growth to their source in individual souls, to the individual's innate desire to create...
...It involves a brilliant disinformation operation conducted against the Soviets, a product of the fertile brain of " R u f u s , " who may be modeled on James Angleton, featuring Oakes as a captured U-2 pilot...
...A system based on no growth assumptions can never enrich the world...
...1 thought it was in Washington.'" It seems to me that there is an interesting point to be made about the presence of humor in this and other books by Buckley, both fiction Jeffrey Hart teaches English at Dartmouth College...
...In the May issue, Virginian James J. Thompson, Jr., reflects upon the conflict between the guilt and the ambitions of a writer who turned his back on the South...
...Betsy Clarke writes on perhaps the most-hyped contempora~ authoresses...
...Know what the son of a bitch told me last night...
...Start my one-yeer subscdp tJon to THE R~RD PAPERS with your May imu~ on winlam Styron -- and rush me your March issue on Kutt Vonr~gut...
...Unlike other resources, human imagination is not a fLxed quantity, and the costs of employing it do not increase with use...
...They make up a new leadership group that "competes for influence alongside more traditional elites representing business, labor, government, and other sectors of society," asserts a major study performed under the auspices of Columbia University's Research Institute on International Change...
...Any schematic depiction of the rise of civilization shows a long, flat curve, followed rather suddenly by the spectacular advances of the last several centuries...
...And other major contributors to the literature of special agentry, such as Graham Greene and John le Carre, seem mostly to specialize in a cigarettebutt cold-coffee atmosphere of gloom and lassitude in which no jokes are told because, after all, it takes a certain amount of energy to laugh...
...At my presidential retreat...
...Are their novels literature or feminist brochures...
...At times this becomes explicit, as when the Campaign to Check the Population Explosion runs an advertising campaign citing the violent crime that comes out of crowded ghettoes...
...On a more serious issue, why does a former Rockefeller Foundation executive observe that " t h e r e is an alarming parallel between the growth of a cancer in the body of an organism and the growth of human population in the earth'.s ecological economy...
...When he is angry, Eisenhower's voice is "ice-coated steel...
...Stephen Macaulay studies this prolific author of best sellers...
...But when the same group reversed its findings in 1976, virtually no one noticed...
...Overwhelmingly, the media elite vote for Democratic candidates in presidential elections...
...When the bubble is burst and sanity restored, the story is relegated to the bowels of the newspaper...
...At one point here he flashes the famous grin, and then snaps to his subordinates that this is the last time they are going to see the grin for a while...
...An economic system predicated on selfishness can never go further than individual interests lead...
...The big guns of the media come down on the liberal side of a wide range of social and political issues...
...The story will remind readers of Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 pilot who was downed and captured by the Russians, and of Col...
...When a nation grows in population, transportation systems improve...
...And they support a fundamental capitalist tenet that people with greater ability should earn more than those with less ability...
...Unfortunately, crises make better news than solutions...
...Finally, there is the evidence of capital accumulation...
...8end to: T'PJE RCX3CFORD PAPERS 934 Ninth Main Roddord, IL 61103 n EJ~lO~d is $7~00...
...Eisenhower was hard as nails, intelligent, completely unsentimental, a "If/ben the Going FYas Good: American Life in the Fifties, Crown...
...KUlCr VONI~E~JIT...
...Fifty-six percent say the people they work with are mostly on the left and only 8% on the right...
...But his portrait of Eisenhower is central and freshly imagined...
...He said, 'Ike, you should watch your language.' Called me 'lke...
...Even greater differences show tip when they rate their cohorts...
...Or I could do some historical research into typical patterns of childhood growth...
...But Ian Fleming was not funny in detail...
...By a three-toone margin, they reject the view that Third World nations would be even worse off without the assistance they've received from the West...
...During the 1970s, however, social scientists preferred the first alternative, and thus created an unprecedented bull market in the doom-andgloom industry...
...It encourages others to have more children, safe in the knowledge that, doomsayers notwithstanding, "the earth's ecological economy" will supply the needs of the new generation...
...Rudolph Abel, the high-level Soviet spy who was arrested in Brooklyn...
...As compelling as the statistical evidence may be in his favor, Simon admits, " i t is the picture of the emaciated child that appears in the popular p r e s s and remains in people's minds...
...Why, Simon wonders, do ecologists capitalize the E in Earth, but not the P in People...
...It was Andre Malraux, I think, who observed that the appearance of the smile in archaic culture reflected the birth, of the human soul...
...UNITED TECHNOLOGIES tangible product of human work and human imagination, then each new person adds to the nation's stock of capital, enriching the lives of the succeeding generation proportionately...
...Here too he refutes the doomsayers, showing how increases in population invariably lead to increases in productivity, thereby posting new gains in the quality of life...
...These are not the sinuous, uncoiling sentences of Buckley's discursive prose, distinctive in its own way, but economical and fastmoving sentences that often possess both elegance and verbal inventiveness...
...They have reported on their project in Public Opinion magazine, which says the findings raise "questions about journalism's qualifications as an 'objective' profession...
...at best, it can reshuffle the dwindling stock of inherited capital...
...At least now there's scholarly confirmation of the ideological and political tilt of many of the folks who declaim dally, in print and on the tube, on the shape of the world...
...In it we try to undo what the liberal culture has done to contemporary American literature...
...But Simon sees other, more pernicious forces at work in the campaign against population growth...
...Buckley also brings in Allen Dulles, Dean Acheson, Nikita Khrushchev, and other historical characters very deftly...
...Thus, he demonstrates that food should become more plentiful and less costly, pollution less severe, minerals more accessible...
Vol. 15 • April 1982 • No. 4
