The Lost Language of Cranes:

...28 0 Two years, $49 one chapter in The Capitalist Revolution class" in advanced capitalism, Berger Canadian postage: $2 a year...

...Indeed, the conclusions of the fail us because they speak to the very tion, like The...

...tion of socialism adopted by the the basic relation of inferiority to the metseventy-five parties of the Socialist In- ropolitan powers...

...Berger welfare outlays in the market economies, is coming...

...Is South Africa a Berger defines capitalism as a market father's love...

...For defere with the main thrust of the argument...

...fighter...

...But when he is and liberation, and so on...

...It also follows unifying theme, it is that those events that tional approach which Berger so rigor- "empirically" that capitalism is more make us most human - disease, despair, ously eschews here - in the case of productive, has greater personal freedom shame, sexual difference - render us South Africa...

...medium for thiss empirical message and will elevate our private narratives into a So I looked forward to an interesting has, he tells us, "no a priori principles to shared experience...

...What bothered me was not the politics brief summary, for instance, of the labor In Family Dancing (Warner Books, of The Capitalist Revolution but its tone theory of value which has nothing to do 1984), his first collection of short stories of voice and the methodological assump- with it...

...One problem with this Address world would give anyone permission to argument is that the data show, alas, that say that Bulgaria is socialist...

...capitalisms are democratic) and all If these stories could be said to have a Strangely, it is precisely the defini- socialisms dictatorships...

...From the terminally ill Commonweal: 558 spects made us neglectful of our Thoreau, Henry Adams, and several Singapore, and Taiwan as capitalist sucpolitical duties...

...Berger asks at one economy and socialism as a command coming of age as they come to terms with point...

...that is the basic method (Continued on page 568) most alone...

...a woman intellectual harrumphing, mainly to fundamentally flawed, and even decep- whose daughter believes she was born in show that no moral, or other, prejudices tive, methodology which got to me...

...capes from the tyranny of his own definitions that he is interesting and even (Continued from page 558) But then there is a curious aside which somewhat unpredictable...

...solid work in the past, but because of the In his brief remarks on the "new E l One Year...

...Peter L. Berger Basic Books, $17.95, 272 pp...

...Heretical Imperative, as book might be summarized as Fifty experience from which we believe ourwell as those which came before, like the Propositions about Capitalism Good, selves to be exiled...

...other important writers saw things differ- cesses, they are authoritarian and diImplicit in Kammen's book, and in ently...

...Neverthe- impact of Confucianism, that require one the political institutions it bequeathed less, the framers deserve to be celebrated to go beyond Weberian categories of both explain and sustain America as a as brilliant political philosophers who modernization (though I think that modern republic...

...simplifications of Marx that ensue, a and say: that is how it was...

...for the "taking" of the data should not be When Berger briefly takes up the hidden in value-laden definitions which theme of monopoly, state planning, and set up "value free" deductions...

...Literature presupchallenge to my own ideas and if I did not proclaim...

...It is precisely when Berger thus esThe capitalist revolution (cont...

...sequences as an empirical issue...

...wealth from the Census, the richest 1.9 It is too bad that one has to be con- percent of our households have a mean Name stantly irritated throughout this book by net worth of $1,069,880 and the bottom the invisible hand of Berger's defini- 11 percent of the households have mean Address tions...

...If ignorant of, say, the Gary Hart campaign 1 he can cite South Korea, Hong Kong, of 1984...

...I will pass over the vulgarizations and which we may point as a myth of origin Instead I got non-stop irritation...

...Berger is merely the books we read to find a public voice that ity (with Thomas Luckmann...

...He does not pro- poses this dream of a common language, prepare myself for conversion to Rea- claim his principles, he merely practices the hope that we may find in someone . ganism, I still anticipated something them...

...And the criteria of relevance tion...

...It is the abandoning her two children...

...outer space...

...pressed by the seriousness of his work, this method discloses is impeccably con- Often the myths of the dominant culture by studies which came after that transi- servative...

...Robert Jones Michael Harrington EACH of us in our own way lives on the outside...

...I was, of course, perfectly aware out...

...banks, the International Monetary Fund, The point is, as John Dewey so well and the Reagan administration, might put it, that the data are never given...

...10038 easily even into Berger's definitions...

...The Constitution may have suc- rigiste examples of capitalism...

...Yes, world market would totally frustrate deby the market-economy/command- indeed...

...He then their homosexuality...

...Weber anticipated this possibility to a degree that Berger does not recognize...

...In this case, I truly wish that Commonweal: 568...

...different statements about the empirical pendency theory never argued that the That thrust is essentially structured distribution of the phenomenon...

...The Mexicans, who ternational in June: "the most profound, have recently seen their living standards comprehensive, and international de- plummet at the insistence of the world's mocracy...

...This is an utterly analysis of the relationship between gave sympathetic voice to a variety of partisan tract pretending to be a humble, money and individualism which is the characters who found themselves sur"value free" translation of the "empiri- exact opposite of the one he held...

...There is an almost gives the game way...

...and an account of Marx's published two years ago, David Leavitt tions which justified it...

...Still, I had been im- turns out that the empirical reality which how life is lived outside its boundaries...

...Yet Tocqueville, told us the truth about human nature...

...After sum- sure of himself, which is most of the occasional qualification, an admission marizing that "All democracies are time, he is simply a disingenuous faction that contemporary capitalism sometimes capitalist...

...And so we look to the fascinating Social Construction of Real- Socialism Bad...

...Foreign $5 from which I actually learned something...

...Moremuch other scholarship as well as the ceeded in preserving liberty for two cen- over, their history and development inidea of the forthcoming Bicentennial, is turies, but not for the reasons that the volve cultural factors, like the economic the assumption that the Constitution and framers had in mind in 1787...

...For instance, his discussion of deviates from the market model or that many capitalist societies are not democ- the third world, with the exception of there are markets in some Communist racies, " Berger then comments, "It East Asia, is based on a refutation of societies, but these are essentially ex- goes without saying that a different defi- Lenin...

...And each of us imagines T o MY surprise, I read Peter Berger's that somewhere exists a central core to new book in a constant state of irrita- experience, a kind of perfect middle tion punctuated by occasional gusts of ground, from which we have been cast anger...

...FALL BOOK ISSUE Books:LANGUAGE OF 'FACC & OF LOVE THE CAPITALIST REVOLUTION THE LOST LANGUAGE FIFTY PROPOSITIONS ABOUT OF CRANES PROSPERITY, EQUALITY, David Leavitt AND LIBERTY Knopf, $17.95, 319 pp...

...no democracy is socialist...

...And there would be an even velopment in the poor countries, but that economy polarity which also predeter- greater revolution in the "empirical" it would misshape it so that even when mines the data and therefore the conclu- data if, say, Berger were to use the defini- progress was made, it would not change sions to be drawn from them...

...Even the least militant among us at the outset that Berger is a thinker who share a desire to be less inarticulate with has moved from the center to the neo- of his entire book...

...Not so strangely, it the culture at large and to have it known conservative right...

...writes, "It is permissible to say, flatly, he does so primarily within an Arthur Send COMMONWEAL to: that Belgium is a capitalist society and Laffer framework, i.e., asking whether Bulgaria a socialist one...

...I say this not simply because of his assets of minus $3,455...

...According to the recent analysis of With notification, as a gift, from: ment forthwith...

...and several young men democracy today...

...an-ugly girl trying to win her are allowed to intrude...

...they provide empirical evidence for this asserare taken...

...The problem leftist redistribution has already gone so Name is, neither I nor, what is more important, far as to kill the capitalist goose that lays the democratic socialist movement of the the golden eggs...

...And comments: "Rather than de- (on the Soviet model) economy...

...Quite so...

...One prised and set adrift by ordinary life: a cal" evidence into hard-headed conclu- gets used to that sort of thing and it is mother dying of cancer and afraid of sions...

...else's story a truth to lay claim to, and to more solid than the usual neo-con fluff...

...There is a considerable amount of worth only a sigh, not a rage...

...Which is easy enough, and a mistended parentheses which do not inter- nition of `democracy' would permit very reading of dependency theory...

...In these stories, fine democracy in terms of some standard 11 empirically" surveys the very selective Leavitt seemed obsessed with mothers of universal adult suffrage, I think it evidence yielded by such a preconcep- and revealed a disquieting talent for more useful to omit this matter from the tion and concludes - without a single evoking the betrayals their lives have definition and then to explore the range value judgment, of course - that all brought them: betrayals by husbands and of democratic participation and its con- democracies are capitalist (though not all children, by age and their own bodies...

...sees it as inherently anti-capitalist, a noa It is significant that East Asia does not fit tion which is quite sixtyish and blissfully COMMONWEAL 15 Dutch St-, New York, N.Y...

...If I thought this famous redistribution did not take City, State,Zip it were, I would quit that socialist move- place...