The Road from Serfdom: The Economic and Political Consequences of the End of Communism
By Robert Skidelsky
Allen Lane/Penguin
214 pp.; $26.95
The collapse of Soviet Communism is the greatest public event of our generation, and books about it, fittingly enough, constitute a growth industry. Amid the welter of self-justifying rationalizations by those who consistently got their subject wrong, some gems are appearing, including this book. A study that omits, say, Pope John Paul II and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn severely shortchanges the cultural sphere and could thereby give the impression that moral and spiritual issues are of little, if any, account. But Robert Skidelsky, a British professor of political economy and a biographer and admirer of John Maynard Keynes, is masterful at what he does treat, mainly economics.
“The great ideological struggle of the twentieth century,” Skidelsky declares, “has been between collectivism and liberalism”–by which he means classical nineteenth-century liberalism, or, in modern America, ” ‘conservatism,’ the doctrine of limited government.” Thus, “the rise and fall of Communism is part of the larger story of how the world tasted the fruit and came to reject the temptation of collectivism.” Those on the Left who experienced in the passing of communism “the defeat of the socialist project” are now, predictably, pessimists–“a wearying lot,” Skidelsky calls them. He, by contrast, is an optimist, who views collectivism as “the most egregious error of the twentieth century” and the end of communism as “the most hopeful turn of the historical screw . . . since 1914.”
Although the title is a takeoff from Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, Skidelsky is no one’s camp follower but offers independent, intricate, nuanced economic analysis. Similarly balanced are his political judgments. If Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had their failings and were partly just lucky that their ideas coincided with the times, they nonetheless “provided the ideological drive and personal leadership that made anti-collectivism a cause.” As intriguing as Mikhail Gorbachev was, he ironically “was canonized outside the Soviet Union for having brought about a result entirely contrary to his intention–Western victory in the Cold War.” The West has its own lessons to learn at this historical juncture: “The state as spender is the last bastion of collectivism. The collectivist age will not be over until state spending has been drastically pruned”–to no more than 30 percent of national income, Skidelsky advises. The general reader may struggle occasionally with fast-moving discussions of economic theory, but the readable style makes the book reasonably accessible.
–Edward E. Ericson, Jr.
American Constitutionalism:
From Theory to Practice
By Stephen M. Griffin
Princeton University Press
340 pp.; $29.95
For a while now the “imperial judiciary” has preoccupied the religious and secular media, leading many observers to reassess the role of the federal courts. These discussions invariably offer competing interpretations of how the American regime was intended to operate, and thus give constitutional scholars something to do besides tormenting their students with the Socratic method.
Stephen M. Griffin, law professor at Tulane University, claims that constitutional theorists have ignored “the important role institutions play in operationalizing the Constitution.” Specifically, they do not explain how an abstract “constitutional grant of power” becomes “the effective exercise of governmental power.” Griffin argues for a more comprehensive theory, and thus provides American Constitutionalism: From Theory to Practice as “an introduction” to a new way of understanding the U.S. Constitution and its operation.
In this tightly written primer, constitutional theory meets legal realism, and the result is occasionally illuminating, but ultimately disappointing. Griffin shows how typical interpretations of the Constitution deal primarily with normative questions (e.g., is judicial review legitimate?), while ignoring more descriptive analyses of the operation of American government (e.g., how the Supreme Court’s size and control over its docket affects its decision-making). Bringing constitutional theory down from the rarefied air of legal scholars to the table of legal realists, he tries to integrate constitutional theory and political science into a sort of unified field theory of American constitutionalism.
But the problem with Griffin’s proposal is that he misunderstands how the Founders designed the Constitution of 1787 to protect individual rights from factious majorities, and does so precisely because he gives too little credence to the constitutional theories he criticizes as incomplete. Griffin retreats too quickly to the comparative politics camp for help, suggesting that the concept of “the state”–with its emphasis on the constraints institutions place on political actors–provides a more accurate picture of American constitutionalism. His flawed analysis of Federalist No. 10, and the American Founding in general, leads him to faulty conclusions about constitutional crisis and reform.
Constitutional theorists would do well to acquaint themselves with the “new institutionalism” Griffin promotes. (An excellent start would be Bernard Schwartz’s recent book, Decision: How the Supreme Court Decides Cases, which gives a behind-the-scenes look at how those “nine little law firms” work.) But American Constitutionalism falters as an “introduction” because it fails to understand the Founders as they understood themselves, thereby muddling rather than clarifying the nexus between constitutional design and institutional operation.
–Lucas Morel
The Hastening That Waits:
Karl Barth’s Ethics
By Nigel Biggar
Oxford University Press
196 pp.; $17.95, paper
Karl Barth is widely regarded as the most important twentieth-century theologian. Despite this stature, he does not fit easily into today’s academic theological universe. Though Barth has been hotly criticized by fundamentalists and many evangelicals, I was once told by a liberal theologian that Barth was “too much of a fundamentalist” to be fully accepted by contemporary American theologians.
Barth’s thinking about ethics does not appear to be likely to remedy this situation. He puts great emphasis on the idea of ethical responsibility as a matter of the individual’s obedience to divine commands, an emphasis that is unlikely to be welcomed by secular ethicists or theologians who wish to emphasize human autonomy. At the same time, Barth raises the ire of theological conservatives by resisting the tendency to see the biblical revelation as a repository of divine commands that can be collected and systematized by the theologian.
Nigel Biggar’s study of Barth’s ethics, in the Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics series edited by Oliver O’Donovan, nevertheless shows that Barth has something important to say to Christian ethicists. Biggar’s study is free of the kind of reverential deference sometimes found in defenses of Barth’s work. He is not afraid to say plainly that Barth erred in a number of important respects: (1) Barth mistakenly thought that because human being and nature have no ontological independence from God they should not become objects of independent reflection. (2) Barth’s theological anthropology leans toward a determinism that lessens human responsibility by implying that human beings cannot resist God’s grace. (3) Barth refuses to try to formulate principles that bear on concrete ethical questions in the mistaken belief that casuistic principles would necessarily lead to legalism and eliminate the need for personal judgment and responsiveness to the Spirit of God in the concrete situation. (4) Barth tends either to leave ethical questions at an overly abstract level or else makes applications to concrete situations without sufficient engagement with concrete, empirical analysis.
One may wonder after noting such criticisms whether Barth needs enemies with friends like Biggar. Nevertheless, “faithful are the wounds of a friend,” and Biggar shows that these problems, while regrettable, are not essential features of Barth’s ethical project. In fact, in some cases Biggar shows that precisely where Barth errs he is inconsistent with his own concerns and even with his practice. More positively, Biggar argues that there is a substantial defensible core to Barth’s ethics. In particular, he shows that the concepts of “divine command” and “personal vocation” remain central to Christian ethics. (It is interesting to note here that contemporary Christian philosophers are also giving increasing emphasis to these concepts.)
The strength of Barth’s ethic lies in his steadfast determination to see human persons as constituted by a relation to God, and their destiny as resting in God’s call to them. Barth’s ethic is “unique in the ethical seriousness with which it takes both God as one who is actively engaged in personal relationship with his human creatures, and the human moral agent as one whose basic identity is given in that relationship.” Prayer and worship to God are not merely “religious acts” but are essential to the “good life” and fundamental to the formation of moral character. As Biggar sees things, Barth does not really deny the existence of “natural goods” or even something like “natural law,” but rather stresses the necessity of understanding these in light of God’s gift to humans in Jesus Christ.
The paperback copy I read was un-fortunately marred by the content of page 184 being printed on page 182 as well, with the resulting omission of what should have been page 182. Fortunately, this material is part of an appendix and does not affect the argument of the book proper.
–C. Stephen Evans
Models for Christian Higher Education: Strategies for Success
in the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Richard T. Hughes
and William B. Adrian
Eerdmans
461 pp.; $30, paper
This widely ranging book contains 14 historical case studies of colleges that are serious about both higher learning and Christian (or ecclesiastical) connections. Eight additional essays try to show how the particular theological vision of a specific faith tradition has shaped the educational practices of colleges in that tradition. It must be noted that some of the case studies lapse into the stale presidential-tenure formula that has long plagued college histories, and so feature p.r. as much as acute analysis. In addition, some of the theological essays are lost in the clouds, spinning out what, in the abstract, ought to be the case, but with very little awareness of how theology has actually hit the ground in real life.
Thankfully, many of the chapters are vigorously engaged with the historical realities of their institutions and their theological traditions. Thus, James Bratt, writing on the contribution of the Reformed to Christian higher education, rehearses the comprehensive theological reach that has made Reformed scholars leaders throughout the twentieth century. But he is also aware that some Reformed have practiced ethnic solidarity more assiduously than theological integrity–or, in his words, have had difficulties “distinguishing the epistemology from the sociology, the contributions–and limitations–of worldview from those of the network.” Likewise outstanding are Monika Hellwig on Roman Catholic resources for higher education, Theron Schlabach’s account of how Goshen College has tried to give practical expression to Mennonite principles, Richard Hughes on strengths and weaknesses for higher education in the Churches of Christ tradition, the frank discussion by Steven Moore and William Woodward of Seattle Pacific’s “uneasy compromise” of competing religious-educational visions, Harold Heie on the “conversation” that generically evangelical institutions could do more to promote, and several of the others.
For readers who hanker after meaningful contrasts, these accounts of California Lutheran, Calvin, Fresno Pacific, Goshen, Messiah, Pepperdine, Point Loma Nazarene, Portland, Saint Benedict and Saint John’s, Saint Olaf, Samford, Seattle Pacific, Wheaton, and Whitworth are a godsend. Even more, the book as a whole, by illustrating so well the reality of Christian diversity as also the reality of variable faithfulness, makes a major contribution to understanding the nature of Christian higher education in America and to charting a path into the future.
–Mark Noll
The Making of Modern Irish History:
Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy
Edited by D. George Boyce and Alan O’Day
Routledge
245 pp.; $59.95, hardcover;
$18.95, paper
The Tree of Liberty:
Radicalism, Catholicism and the Construction of
Irish Identity, 1760-1830 (Field Day Essays, No. 1)
By Kevin Whelan
University of Notre Dame Press
236 pp.; $20, paper
Transformations in Irish Culture
(Field Day Essays, No. 2)
By Luke Gibbons
University of Notre Dame Press
214 pp.; $20, paper
Modern efforts to record the history of Ireland should be of more than passing interest to Americans. Ireland–the predominately Catholic republic as well as the predominately Protestant North–is the only Western European region to match the United States in levels of church attendance and professed belief in God. Americans who worry about the “Christian origins” of the United States could learn a great deal from competing accounts of “Christian Ireland” (was it a Catholic elysium despoiled by marauding British imperialism or a pagan wasteland enlightened by the blessed touch of Protestant truth?). And the reality–but also the intellectual and spiritual landmines–of America’s current culture wars could be nicely nuanced by some attention to Ireland’s own incessant culture wars.
A chief element in those culture wars has always been The Battle for the Past. Within the last half-century Irish history has moved (in a simplified summary) from history exploited for partisan purposes, through a “revisionist” phase where professional historians sought to base their work on factual explanations more than cultural antagonism, into now a post-revisionist phase where the merits of partisan, revisionist, and still other approaches are under debate.
These three books are excellent guides for different aspects of the intense discussion which, among other things, gives Ireland probably the highest ratio of historical monographs per unit of population in the world. The collection edited by Boyce and O’Day is the most wide-ranging, for its 11 essays assess the work of revisionist historians for a number of passionately debated subjects in Irish history (like the control of land or various links with Britain).
Kevin Whelan’s spirited examination of the decisive events at the turn of the nineteenth century (including the failed rebellion of 1798 and the 1801 Union between Britain and Ireland) tries to inject postmodern historical skepticism into the discussions of Irish history. Whelan’s purpose, however, remains doggedly historical, for he concludes that, except for the fact that it failed, the 1798 rebellion displayed many of the same political virtues for which the slightly earlier American Revolution has always been praised. Luke Gibbons’s book collects 14 sparkling essays on modern Irish life–from soap operas, movies, cityscapes, and rural roads to myths of national history–for the purpose of expanding the boundaries for discussing modern Ireland.
For the sake of Ireland, but also for the residual benefit of Americans who know that understanding others promotes understanding of ourselves, the new series from the University of Notre Dame in which the Whelan and Gibbons volumes appear is much to be welcomed.
–MN
Lucas Morel is assistant professor of political science and history at John Brown University. Mark Noll is McManis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College.
Copyright(c) 1997 by Christianity Today, Inc/Books and Culture Magazine. May/June, Vol. 3, No. 3, Page 37
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