Gene Callahan

Critical Realism … or Critical Idealism?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to argue that the school of thought known as Critical Realism and the thinkers involved in the current revival of interest in British Idealism would benefit from interacting with each other. Design/methodology/approach - The paper proceeds by critically examining central tenets in the thought of each school, and exhibit their affinities and differences. Findings - It is found that there are central themes and concerns shared by each school of thought, and that the recognition of such commonalities might prove mutually beneficial to the relevant parties in their goal of positively transforming social reality. Furthermore, the Critical Realist worry about Idealisms “irreality” is shown to be unfounded. Originality/value - The close relationship of the ideas of these two “lines of thought” has not, to our knowledge, previously been highlighted. Having done so in the paper, a useful dialogue may ensue.

Two-Population Social Cycle Theories

Discerning family resemblances in the world of theories can be useful for several reasons. For one thing, noticing that two theories share the traits of a family of theories may help us to understand each of them better. Secondly, noticing the family resemblances may help us to model them more easily. In particular, the modern software development technique of object-oriented programming leverages family resemblances among different software “objects” to increase the ease of development, and so dovetails very well with the effort to pick out “families” on a more theoretical level. In this paper, we note the large family of two-population social cycle theories, all based on a pattern of disruptions and adjustments akin to the well-known predator-prey model.

Dead Ends and Living Currents: Distributism as a Progressive Research Program

Distributism, a social program most closely associated with Catholic social teaching, calls for widespread and decentralized property ownership. Much in distributist thought, when considered in light of standard price theory, is simply untenable. But there is also much in distributist thought that is interesting and viable. We discuss the aspects of distributism best discarded, and the aspects that can serve as the foundation for a progressive research program.

The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies Have Emerged and Declined since AD 500

Bas van Bavel has produced an important historical study, one highly relevant to current discussions about economic policy. The context in which this work is set is the ongoing debate over optimal economic policy. For a time, from the collapse of the Soviet Union until about a decade ago, it seemed that this question might be settled: neoliberalism had triumphed, and the best political economy prescription clearly involved a heavy dose of free markets. Certainly, there was debate at the margins: Should healthcare be publicly provisioned? How big a welfare state should one have? What is the proper role for central banks? These were minor issues, however. Then came the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and all that had seemed settled was at play again. The response to the crisis by free-market advocates most typically ran along these lines: Yes, the crisis was bad, but it was the result of crony capitalism, not of true free markets. If the central banks and the international economic institutions had not gotten in bed with the big banks, this all could have been avoided. Van Bavel’s work provides a very important counter-response: True, but free markets produce crony capitalism, like an acorn produces and oak tree. Van Bavel’s main thesis is that free factor markets work well, for a time, at producing wealth and lifting all boats. With the rise of factor markets and financial elites, though, this changes. As van Bavel puts it, “the rise and dominance of markets for land, labour, and capital are self-undermining, as . . . feedback mechanisms results in welfare declining again and markets losing their quality in facilitating successful and rapid exchange” (2). Van Bavel backs his thesis with extensive evidence from three case studies: Iraq between 500 and 1100 CE, Northern Italy from 1000 to 1500, and the Low Countries between 1100 and 1800. He also touches, much more lightly, on other instances of market societies, such as modern England, the United States, early modern China, and the Roman Empire. After assembling a wealth of historical material, van Bavel claims,

A Review of “Liberal World Orders”: Dunne, Tim, and Trine Flockhart, ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 304 pp.,

complicated networks of power and influence in the Atlantic world during a volatile eighty-year period, at the end of which Britain dominated the slave trade. He provides a thorough analysis of the politicization of the slave trade against the backdrop of the formation of a more modern British state, although he does not quite distinguish between slavery and the slave trade—two altogether different political matters. Freedom’s Debt is therefore a strong academic work suitable for scholars of the slave trade. It shows that the modern conception of freedom owes a debt to the millions of enslaved Africans who enabled it to flourish. Although Pettigrew’s writing style and political language at times make the reading tough going, and the book is not recommended for a general audience or undergraduate students, Freedom’s Debt is an important addition to the historiography of the British slave trade.

89.10,ISBN 978-0-19-726552-9, Publication Date: February 2013

among and between the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean in the first half of the nineteenth century. This migration played into the policy goals of British officials, who sought to limit American expansion into areas such as Florida, but migration raised concerns among white Americans and colonial authorities about the importation of revolt. Through the 1840s, continuing black migration within the Americas took place against the backdrop of US and British confrontations over designs for Texas, competing claims to Oregon, and attempted revolt in Canada. In the 1850s, disputes over the northwestern border of the United States and Canada, African-American migration to British Columbia, and John Brown’s Canadian and presumed British connections gave way to the outbreak of the Civil War. Horne notes that, with the end of slavery, relations between the United States and Great Britain improved, though African Americans continued “to seek leverage abroad against their domestic foes” as they worked to gain access to the rights of citizenship that theoretically became theirs at the war’s end (214). Despite its provocative ideas and its imaginative geographical connections, Horne’s work suffers to an extent from its scope. Key points and details are overlooked or compressed. Here are just a few examples: The poor treatment in Canada of both black loyalists from the American Revolution and black refugees from the War of 1812 is glossed over. The varied branches of the British government and military are often treated almost monolithically as London. Although British abolitionism plays a large role in the book, it is often described solely in political terms, with both its moral and economic dimensions stripped away. That said, there is much to admire in this work, and this short of a review cannot do full justice to either its strengths or its shortcomings. Horne’s revisioning of the history of African Americans in the early republic has laid the groundwork for future research on connections between African Americans, British foreign policy, the abolition movement on both sides of the Atlantic, and American debates over slavery.

Metamorphoses of the City: On the Western Dynamic

advancement in the government through Republican Party patronage. Yellin clearly shows that it was crucial for African Americans to remain loyal to the Republican Party, as it offered them some degree of political protection—and often rewarded their loyalty with fairly well-paying jobs. Patronage, however, was demonized by Wilson and fellow Progressives, and they meant to get rid of it under the guise of good government. Whites such as Wilson, however, merely wanted to remove one of the few systems that allowed for African American economic mobility and, thus, purge African Americans from most rungs of government employment. After Wilson’s administration made segregation the federal norm, not even the election of Republican presidents Warren Harding in 1920 and Calvin Coolidge in 1924 could reverse the trend. In addition, Yellin argues that, by the 1920s, the Republican Party was trying to distance itself from the party of Lincoln, as it sought to appeal to an increasingly conservative white America. Throughout the story, Yellin does a splendid job of documenting not only the racism faced by African Americans, but also the agency of black people as they constantly resisted discrimination and harassment. For instance, the author details the efforts of noted civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter, as well as those of the more moderate Booker T. Washington. Furthermore, Yellin notes the contributions of black periodicals such as the Washington Bee and even acknowledges more subtle forms of resistance, such as lighter skinned African Americans passing as whites. As in any work, there are a handful of flaws in Racism in the Nation’s Service. First, Yellin makes repeated reference to the Progressive Era as he dissects the Wilson presidency, but he does not contextualize Progressivism as a whole. The work would have benefitted from a discussion of why Progressivism emerged, what it entailed, and how Wilson fit into the larger Progressive ideology. Yellin does make some mention of the additional difficulties that black women had as they dealt with sexism as well as racism, but the work also needs to better include women in the narrative. The aforementioned shortcomings, however, do not take away from what is overall a very solid examination of African American life, work, and resistance in our nation’s capital at this turbulent time.

James Madison and the Making of America

were muted in the 1990s is that the contraction of its manufacturing sector dampened the spillover effects. A downside of the structural change that occurred in the US economy in the 1990s was the hollowing out of its manufacturing sector. This was significantly facilitated by a strong US dollar on the back of huge capital inflow associated with financing the dot.com bubble, and by the adoption of free trade agreements that left uncompetitive industries vulnerable. Much of the ICT generated productivity gains were instead enjoyed by China, with its large and growing share of global manufacturing (including in the production of ICT consumer products). Hence, to a considerable extent, the US economy benefited from ICT-generated productivity growth indirectly through the reduction in the prices of imported manufactures, especially durable consumer goods, produced in Asia. Gualerzi’s argument about the importance of ICT investment to US growth would have been enhanced by a clarification of how the different sources of demand—such as government expenditure, autonomous consumption (which he mostly ignores) and other non-ICT investment—contribute to demand-led growth. Indeed, these other sources of growth in demand, which depend on longstanding fiscal and monetary policy, are likely to have exerted an influence on the growth of ICT ‘innovation’ investment. Finally, the argument pays inadequate attention to the role of competition in generating ‘innovation’ investment and in disseminating new technologies. After all, an important force behind the 1990s dot.com boom that financed the great growth in ICT investment was the expectation of high returns. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, Gualerzi’s book makes an important contribution to an understanding of how innovation can play a prominent role in the process of economic growth. I highly recommend it.

Toward a Truly Free Market: a Distributive Perspective on the Role of Government, Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More

Roger Congleton’s book is an extended examination of the rise of parliamentary democracy, in ‘the West’ and in Japan, over the past two centuries. His study leads him to conclude that liberal democracy, where it has taken hold successfully, has done so through a process of gradual reform, rather than revolution. He devises some interesting models to show why we might expect to see this, and looks at a wealth of historical evidence illustrating his thesis. The vast scope of Congleton’s work makes this a daunting book to review, as contained within it are his models of constitutional reform, his case studies of the constitutional history of six different polities (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Japan and the United States), and his methodological musings on the place of his project within the human sciences. By necessity, this review must give some parts short shrift. However, even a reviewer, such as the present one, who is skeptical about the value of particular parts Congleton’s project must applaud both the ambitiousness of his project and the wealth of research that has been poured into it. A number of interesting historical conjectures are contained in this book; for example, Congleton makes the interesting case that European imperialism, which was one of the factors driving the transition from the Medieval world to the Modern, was a kind of prisoner’s dilemma: Each nation would have been better off never embarking on empire building, as expenses typically outran the revenues available from empire, but, given that its neighbors were going to embark on an imperialist course, it had better do so as well, lest it come to be dominated by them. This reviewer is not sure that analysis is correct, but it is certainly worth considering. In any case, the continuing need for royal revenue to support empire-building kept driving monarchs back to their parliaments to ask for funds, and each time they did so, the parliaments grew stronger. Congleton also highlights the link, previously noted, of course, by Marx, between the new production technologies and new political forms: The new economies of scale in farming, textiles, mining, and metal working could not always be realized within the existing late-medieval legal systems. Medieval rules and regulations included a wide variety of internal and external Review of Political Economy, Volume 24, Number 2, 369–374, April 2012

Perfecting Parliament: Constitutional Reform, Liberalism, and the Rise of Western Democracy

The work under review is a fascinating tome that attempts to understand the ‘golden age of piracy’ (circa 1716226) through the lenses of rational choice theory and libertarian political economy. The core of Leeson’s book consists of two separate contentions: one of them, which he defends well, is that pirates, despite their reputation for being deranged sadists, were no less economically rational than the rest of us. His other thesis, which seems to me to be based on little more than wishful thinking, is that pirate societies were examples of working anarchy. Let us turn to the second, more doubtful claim first, since that is the one Leeson addresses first in his book. This reader was immediately struck by the fact that many of the quotes Leeson cites seem to directly contradict his hypothesis. For instance, he quotes a political speech advocating the election of a particular pirate as captain, where the speaker recommends electing a leader who can ‘ward us from the Dangers and Tempests of an instable Element, and the fatal consequences of Anarchy’ (p. 23). The speaker wanted his candidate elected to avoid ‘the fatal consequences of Anarchy’. . . and he thought avoiding anarchy would be a selling point to his listeners. A few pages later, Leeson tells us that ‘each pirate ship required a leader’ (p. 27). Of course, the basic meaning of ‘anarchy’ comes from the Greek anarxia—without a leader. So, if they ‘required a leader,’ they were avoiding, not embracing, anarchy! The pirates themselves discussed ‘how shatter’d and weak a Condition their Government must be without a Head’ (p. 27). And not only did these pirates see themselves as establishing governments, the institutions they created clearly fell under Leeson’s own definition of government: ‘an authority with a monopoly on coercion in the territory it presides over.’ Surely no one could set up their own, competing law agency on the aftcastle of a pirate ship without the captain objecting with a bit of force, right? (Leeson continues the passage quoted above by saying that since it has a territorial monopoly on coercion, therefore, government is ‘based on force,’ but this is a non-sequitur: simply because my wife and I have a monopoly over coercion in our household doesn’t mean our role as parents is ‘based on force’!) Not only did the pirates have a government, they had a pretty intrusive government to boot. As Leeson describes them, the pirate constitutions typically regulated alcohol, tobacco, gambling, sex, had a welfare state, and extensive gun control (p. 70): it sounds more like Massachusetts than libertopia! Review of Political Economy, Volume 23, Number 3, 471–478, July 2011