University of UtahWestern Political Science Association

The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics by Peter SteinfelsReview by: Darryl HattenhauerThe Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Dec., 1979), pp. 506-507Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/447916 .

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506 Western Political Quarterly

amount of analysis. He correctly turns the work over to Adam Smith after only a few dozen pages and lets the philosopher speak for himself.

Like Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, editions of Arator by John Taylor of Caroline have not been widely available for many years. The Liberty Press effort is printed from the 1818 Petersburg, Virginia edition, the last personally seen through the press by the author. Although M. E. Bradford's introduction to the most recent edition is short, it is characterized by a particularly strident tone. Brad- ford plainly laments what he sees as the American nation's fall from grace over the past two centuries. In that span of time, he explains, "something foreign has been injected into the American political bloodstream: something private, ideological, and abstract, deriving its power from authorities outside the historic American context." None of the old verities remain for Bradford, but he seems to say the past is not entirely lost. To evoke the remembrance of a more heroic age, one need only pick up the simulated leather tome, give a firm tug to the bound-in ribbon bookmark, and delve into the agrarian philosophy of Arator.

Again, Liberty Press has produced reprints of two philosophical works that are not easily obtained and they have provided another edition of an important biog- raphy. The three books are beautifully executed volumes, and each can be had for under ten dollars. Book bargains of such magnitude are rare in this age of double- digit inflation.

B. R. BURG Arizona State University

The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics. By PETER STEINFELS. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. Pp. 335. $11.95.)

One of the most important developments in recent years has been the rise of the neoconservatives, who hold influential positions in journalism, education, and government. Although Steinfels contends that the neoconservatives are correct in finding that the decline of religion has contributed to the decline of America, he argues that their "powerful political outlook," developed in "telling critiques of ccntending political views," nonetheless "threatens to attenuate and diminish the promise of American democracy." He finds that their elitism and opposition to governmental efforts to redistribute income aggravate the decline in participatory democracy.

Tracing the development of neoconservative thought, Steinfels points out the importance of the neoconservatives' experiences in the changing intellectual cur- rents since the return to normalcy. The neoconservatives belong to the generation of sages that was born into the disillusionment of the twenties, developed during the rise and decline of American socialism in the thirties, and matured as theorists of pluralism, consensus, and the cold war during the forties and fifties. He finds that as ex-Leftists they preserve their hostility to what they perceive as the roman- ticism of the Left; as pluralists they tend to overlook the propensity of some groups to dominate others and of some leaders and representatives to bypass their consti- tuents; and as modernists they play down the ideology and moralism implicit in their ostensibly pragmatic politics. In their preservation of these attitudes in face of the assault by the New Left and the counter culture, they do not offer much that is really new. What is new is that a large number of centrist liberals who were im- portant in the fifties have moved to the right and underscored the values of stability, tradition, and continuity at the expense of income redistribution and de-escalation of the cold war. While he examines neoconservatism in general, Steinfels also probes the thought of three of the most important neoconservative thinkers, Irvin Kristol, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Daniel Bell, in an effort to show how each compares and contrasts with the general pattern of neoconservative thought.

The neoconservatives object to government spending because, they say, it overloads the government with impossible demands, erodes cultural authority by encouraging the masses to trust in the "New Class" or "adversary culture" of pro- fessional do-gooders - who comprise the "university-government-media complex" - and further encourages popular demands for participation in public affairs.

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Book Reviews and Notes 507

Thus one neoconservative, Samuel P. Huntington, complains of an "excess of dem- ocracy." Steinfels counters that the Kennedy-Johnson domestic programs, often slammed by neoconservatives, did not place excessive demands on government and high costs on business. He reminds us that the Kennedy-Johnson administrations reduced corporate taxes and subsidized the private sector. Steinfels adds that the neoconservatives do not trace overload to the excessive demands placed on govern- ment by "business, the military, or 'middle America.' " The neoconservatives, then, give the impression that radical intellectuals are lavishly subsidized while the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber. Steinfels refutes the notion that the Left dominates academia, and he hints that we should not blame the "adversary culture" for the lack of respect for authority; rather, we should blame the author- ities for not being respectable. As for the "excess of democracy," Steinfels argues against sacrificing participatory democracy to pluralist elitism, but he skirts the issue of how and to what extent elitism can be limited.

In sum, Steinfels gives a critical reading of the neoconservatives. He takes them at their word and often hangs them with it. Although Steinfels is unlikely to change anyone's mind, his work should be most interesting if you are an effete intellectual radic-lib who has entertained the notion that the neoconservatives are right. Steinfels will not disappoint you. The neoconservatives will.

DARRYL HATTENHAUER University of Minnesota

Bakke, DeFunis, and Minority Admissions: The Quest for Equal Opportunity. By ALLAN P. SINDLER. (New York: Longman, Inc., 1979. Pp. 358. $6.00.)

The Bakke and DeFunis cases raise issues which are political as well as legal and as such "pose ... a dilemma for the nation and for us as citizens, not simply for the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court," according to Allan P. Sindler, Dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. This is a position with which I strongly agree. Unfortunately, Sindler's treatment of the issues suffers from a lack of objectivity toward the policy debate.

It is unfortunate when a scholar allows his personal bias to distort his analysis. He does not state his rejection of preferential admissions in a forthright manner but rather uses emotionally loaded terms to convey his dislike. For example, he claims that reliance on "reverse discrimination" to aid disadvantaged minorities was a "morally wrenching dilemma." In describing those opposed to preferential admissions he claims their concern was with ". . . the social imperative of holding fast to the values of color-blind policy and individual advancement through per- sonal qualifications and merit." Surely Sindler is not naive enough about public policy regarding race in the United States to believe that a "color-blind policy" has ever existed or that advancement has been based on merit alone.

Sindler makes clear that he has no problem with preference in admissions per se (i.e., alumni's children, wealthy donor) but only with race as a basis of preference.

Rather, he argues that the American version of equal opportunity has always involved acceptance of a large inequality of results. He seems to say that since inequality was true in the past, the practice is acceptable for the future-a premise which I reject.

Despite the bias of the book, it is informative and brings together much mate- rial on the Bakke and DeFunis cases. Sindler does a very good job of raising a num- ber of troubling issues in the area of equal opportunity and disadvantage which do not get attention in the litigation surrounding Bakke or DeFunis. A major issue revolves around the question of "qualified." Two chapters are devoted to the question of determining qualifications. A number of difficulties are inherent in the concept of "comparative qualifications." These chapters are very well developed and bring considerable insight to this troubling area.

The chapter on "Equal Protection of the Laws and Racial Classifications" provides a helpful context within which to consider DeFunis and Bakke. Certainly

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