by editors, editors@JournalofSustainability.com
When economist Peter Brown dropped by the Journal of Sustainability last fall on his way to a conference in Santa Fe, he left us a copy of his book, "Restoring the Public Trust: a Fresh Vision for Progressive Government in America." In it, Brown meticulously debunks the myth of the Free Market. Brown takes the further step of providing an alternative model for a responsible, sustainable society. Given the recent catastrophic failure of de-regulation (a Free Market accessory) and the dishonesty of certain politicians, Brown's book could not be more timely. Thing is, it was published 14 years ago.
"Restoring the Public Trust" comprises two parts: "I. Loss of Faith in Government and the Crisis in Political Theory," and "II. Restoring the Public Trust."
The jewel of Part I is Chapter 3, "What's Wrong with the Right," a withering attack on Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" (the Bible of the economic Right). Brown deals with the positions of Friedman and the "libertarian Right" (the current identifier is "economic conservatives" in contrast to "social conservatives") as a series of misrepresentations: the Right misrepresents our choices, they misrepresent language, they misrepresent ourselves, our motives and our morals, they misrepresent government, they misrepresent the relation of economics to government, and they misrepresent the past. The inconsistencies and absurdities in the Right's position are alarming. They reject coercion, but they depend on it to enforce contracts, and to break monopolies and unions. Their model of the American family is Robinson Crusoe (self-reliant and independent), but like the rest of us they still depend on the benefits of living in civil society with its distribution of labor and public goods. They think only markets and money have meaning, but they allie themselves with social conservatives who think values have meaning (and that shared values are possible). They claim we act only in our self-interest, but their own intellectual sources such as Darwin and Adam Smith promote the evolutionary and social importance of altruism. I only wish that Brown had dealt with the idea held by many economic conservatives that the problem is that the Right has not gone far enough.
In Part II, Brown proposes a model of the government as Trustee. Such a model, he points out, makes more sense than the Right's model of goverment as Umpire. For example, our moral sense requires us to take care of the vulnerable. An umpire does not take care of the vulnerable, but a Trustee does. It is an interesting idea, though Brown missed an opportunity to evaluate an example from real life, namely the trustee-guardian relationship between the Federal government and the Indian tribes. Perhaps we could wish for a companion volume.
"Restoring the Public Trust: a Fresh Vision for Progressive Government in America," by Peter G. Brown. Boston, Beacon Press, 1994.