Progressive Book Clubs

"Collapse" by Jared Diamond

2007-09-15T19:24:00.000-04:00

"The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore

2007-08-16T13:31:00.000-04:00

"On Human Nature" by Edward O. Wilson

2007-07-15T15:59:00.000-04:00

"Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic," by Chalmers Johnson

2007-06-09T12:23:00.000-04:00

"War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning," by CHRIS HEDGES

2007-05-20T11:18:00.000-04:00

"Globalization and Its Discontents," by Joseph E. Stiglitz

2007-04-07T22:19:00.000-04:00

"American Fascists," by Chris Hedges

2007-03-10T11:43:00.000-05:00

Book List: A-C

2006-05-07T03:04:00.000-04:00

A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall (Hardcover - Sep 2000)
America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives And The Global Order By Stefan Halper, Jonathan Clarke (Hardcover - June 21, 2004)
America Beyond Capitalism : Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, And Our Democracy By Gar Alperovitz (Hardcover - Oct 15, 2004)
An American Requiem : God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us by James Carroll (Paperback - April 1, 1997)
An Army of Davids : How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths by Glenn Reynolds (Hardcover - March 7, 2006)
At Risk : A Novel (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) By Stella Rimington (Paperback)
Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won The Abortion War By William Saletan (Paperback - October 2004)
Blood and Oil : The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum by Michael T. Klare (Paperback - August 1, 2005)
Bowling Alone : The Collapse And Revival Of American Community By Robert D. Putnam (Paperback - August 7, 2001)
Certain Trumpets: The Nature Of Leadership By Garry Wills (Paperback - May 9, 1995)
Civil Disobedience and Other Essays (Dover Thrift Editions) by Henry David Thoreau (Paperback - May 20, 1993)
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (Paperback - December 27, 2005)
Common Sense (Dover Thrift Editions) by Thomas Paine (Paperback - April 22, 1997)
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (Paperback - December 27, 2005)
Constraint Of Race: Legacies Of White Skin Privilege In America By Linda Faye Williams (Paperback - Aug 30, 2004)

Book List: D-M

2006-05-07T03:03:00.000-04:00

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (Mass Market Paperback - Sep 2001)
Democracy Matters : Winning The Fight Against Imperialism By Cornell West (Paperback - Aug 30, 2005)
Don't Think Of An Elephant: Know Your Values And Frame The Debate--The Essential Guide For Progressives By George Lakoff, Howard Dean, And Don Hazen (Paperback - Sep 2004)
Enough : Staying Human in an Engineered Age by Bill McKibben (Paperback - February 1, 2004)
Fair Play by Steven Landsburg (Hardcover - November 8, 1997)
Fear's Empire: War, Terrorism, And Democracy By Benjamin R. Barber (Hardcover - Sep 29, 2003)
Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Roughcut - May 1, 2005)
Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz (Paperback - April 2003)
God's Politics : Why The Right Gets It Wrong And The Left Doesn't Get It By Jim Wallis (Hardcover - January 1, 2005)
How Democratic Is The American Constitution? Second Edition By Robert A. Dahl (Paperback - December 1, 2003)
Iraq Confidential : The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein by Scott Ritter, Seymour Hersh (Hardcover - October 10, 2005)
Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire by Anne Norton (Hardcover - September 10, 2004)
Making A Place For Community: Local Democracy In A Global Era By T. Williamson, Et Al (Paperback - September 1, 2003)
Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff (Paperback - May 1, 2002)

Book List: N-S

2006-05-07T03:02:00.000-04:00

Neo-Conned! Again : Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq by Joseph Cirincione (Foreword), et al (Hardcover - December 15, 2005)
Nickel And Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America By Barbara Ehrenreich (Paperback - May 1, 2002)
No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs By Naomi Klein (Paperback - April 6, 2002)
Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison by United States Constitutional Convention, James Madison, and Adrienne Koch (Paperback - April 1987)
Our Endangered Values : America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter (Hardcover - November 1, 2005)
People's History of the United States : 1492 to Present (P.S.) by Howard Zinn (Paperback - August 1, 2005)
Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign To Rig Our Tax System To Benefit The Super Rich - And Cheat Everybody Else By David Cay Johnston (Hardcover - December 29, 2003)
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace by Gore Vidal (Paperback - March 10, 2002)
Rebuilding The Democratic Party From The Grassroots : The Ultimate Guidebook For Democrats By Shawn M. O'Donnell, Drucilla Baduirna (Paperback - June 30, 2005)
Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag (Paperback - Feb 1, 2004)
Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author by Michael T. Klare (Paperback - March 13, 2002)
Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity by Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales (Hardcover - Feb 18, 2003)
Strong Democracy : Participatory Politics For A New Age By Benjamin R. Barber (Paperback - Feb 1, 2004)
Summer For The Gods: The Scopes Trial And America's Continuing Debate Over Science And Religion By Edward J. Larson (Hardcover - Jun 1997)

Book List: T-Z

2006-05-07T03:01:00.000-04:00

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report Of The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States (Indexed Hardcover, Authorized Edition) By National Commission On Terrorist Attacks (Hardcover - Aug 31, 2004)
The Battle For God : Fundamentalism In Judaism, Christianity And Islam By Karen Armstrong (Paperback - Mar 31, 2001)
The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World by John Ralston Saul (Hardcover - September 22, 2005)
The End Of Work By Jeremy Rifkin (Paperback - May 11, 2004)
The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics (Paperback)) by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, and Clinton Rossiter (Paperback - April 1, 2003)
The Future Is Up to Us by Nelson Peery (Paperback - May 2002)
The Global Class War : How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win it Back by Jeff Faux (Hardcover - January 11, 2006)
The Great 401 (K) Hoax: Why Your Family's Financial Security is at Risk, and What You Can Do about It by William Wolman, et al (Paperback - April 2003)
The Great Wells Of Democracy: The Meaning Of Race In American Life By Manning Marable (Paperback - Oct 2003)
The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear by Paul Rogat Loeb (Editor) (Paperback - August 2004)
The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right by Michael Lerner (Hardcover - February 1, 2006)
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America	The Whitehouse
The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need By Juliet B. Schor (Paperback - May 1, 1999)
The Populist Persuasion: An American History By Michael Kazin (Paperback - October 1998)
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised : Democracy, The Internet, And The Overthrow Of Everything By Joe Trippi (Hardcover - July 1, 2004)
The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents are Going Broke by Elizabeth Warren, Amelia Warren Tyagi (Paperback - August 1, 2004)
The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz (Paperback - August 2000)
The Working Poor : Invisible In America (Vintage) By David K. Shipler (Paperback - January 4, 2005)
The World Is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman (Author) (Paperback - 2005)
Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights by Thom Hartmann (Hardcover - October 4, 2002)
Walden by Henry David Thoreau (Hardcover - Sep 19, 1995)
What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank (Hardcover - June 1, 2004)
When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten (Paperback - May 10, 2001)

Review: What's the Matter with "What's the Matter With Kansas"

2006-01-08T15:00:00.000-05:00

What's the Matter with "What's the Matter With Kansas"

When I heard a new book group was going to meet this month at Stacy's Coffee Parlor in Falls Church, Virginia to discuss "What's the Matter with Kansas" by Thomas Frank, I thought it was a good time for me to take a look a book being recommended by a lot of people I know.

If you are looking for a book bemoaning the fact that Kansas is now a red state, reminding you of the fact that there is great economic disparity, that farming continues to employ fewer and fewer people, that family farms are suffering, for a book that rants against capitalism and conservatives, and that defines who is liberal and who isn't, then "Kansas" is for you. I was looking for a lot more, however—in particular, I was looking for insight and explanation.

Having studied economics at both the undergraduate and graduate level, I was particularly interested in Frank's treatment of Vernon L. Smith, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize for economics, and professor at George Mason University in Virginia. Labeling Smith's work, much less understanding it, is extremely challenging. Smith was one of two recipients of the 2002 award. Here's what the Prize committee released about this award:

"Psychological and experimental economics

Traditionally, much of economic research has relied on the assumption of a “homo œconomicus” motivated by self-interest and capable of rational decision-making. Economics has also been widely considered a non-experimental science, relying on observation of real-world economies rather than controlled laboratory experiments. Nowadays, however, a growing body of research is devoted to modifying and testing basic economic assumptions; moreover, economic research relies increasingly on data collected in the lab rather than in the field. This research has its roots in two distinct, but currently converging, areas: the analysis of human judgment and decision-making by cognitive psychologists, and the empirical testing of predictions from economic theory by experimental economists. This year’s laureates are the pioneers in these two research areas.

. . .

Vernon Smith has laid the foundation for the field of experimental economics. He has developed an array of experimental methods, setting standards for what constitutes a reliable laboratory experiment in economics. In his own experimental work, he has demonstrated the importance of alternative market institutions, e.g., how the revenue expected by a seller depends on the choice of auction method. Smith has also spearheaded “wind-tunnel tests”, where trials of new, alternative market designs – e.g., when deregulating electricity markets – are carried out in the lab before being implemented in practice. His work has been instrumental in establishing experiments as an essential tool in empirical economic analysis."

(http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2002/press.html)

Now it would be one thing if Frank were to come along and dispute Smith's work and to point out any errors—fraudulent or otherwise. But he doesn't. What he does is label Smith a "high priest of capitalism with an unshakable faith in his god's goodness and mercy." I don't claim to be an expert on Smith's work, but contrary to Frank's implication, I don't find any evidence that Smith makes any reference to god, to goodness, or to mercy, and he shouldn't—he's a social scientist.

Frank goes on to accuse Smith of guilt by association with Koch Industries. According to Frank, Koch Industries is the nation's second largest privately held company, based in Wichita, who's founder was a charter member of the John Birch Society, whose heirs have been involved with the Cato Institute, Libertarians, Republican candidates, zany free market policy recommendations, etc. "Koch money has also been instrumental in advancing the academic career of Vernon L. Smith. He was brought to George Mason University by a Koch Foundation grant . . . "

First, I would point out that Smith didn't arrive at George Mason until 2002—the year of his award. Smith expresses his indebtedness to many, including the Purdue faculty from 1955 to 1967 for their support of his first experiment.

Second, I do sympathize with Frank's emotional guilt by association reaction. For instance, every time I see an advertisement for a manufacturer of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, I wonder whether Lehrer is in the pockets of what Eisenhower labeled our military industrial complex. But Lehrer's association with WMD manufacturers doesn't cause me to discount everything Lehrer has to say, nor should the fact that Koch likes what Smith says cause anyone to discount the validity of Smith's work.

One can of course ask whether it is fair to extend my criticism of Frank's section about Smith and Koch et. al. to a broader criticism of "Kansas" as a whole. I think this extension is entirely appropriate, in great part due to the fact that a core thesis advanced by Frank is that Kansans don't behave in their own self interest. I think it is no coincidence that Frank writes about Smith, because Smith has devoted his professional career to this very question—to what extent do people behave in their own best interests? I don't think that Frank does anything to advance that discussion.

The first paragraph of Smith's Prize Lecture seems instructive. Quoting David Hume, the lecture begins:

"When we leave our closet, and engage in the common affairs of life, (reason's) conclusions seem to vanish, like the phantoms of the night on the appearance of the morning; and 'tis difficult for us to retain even that conviction, which we had attained with difficulty . . . (Hume, 1739/, p 507)"

(http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2002/smith-lecture.pdf)