Rating: 
Summary: Read this book, for your head and your heart
Review: A wonderful book that draws out the links between a healthy family and a free society. It has bones to pick with both state and corporate involvement (e.g. daycare) in the most critical of tasks: forming young savages into grown-ups who can not only take care of themselves, but can--and will--take care of _others_. If a society wishes to endure, there really is no good substitute for mom AND dad AND virtue.This book has given me insights into my own parenting, and I am proud to say that Jennifer is a friend and neighbor of mine.
Rating:
Summary: Libertarian Economist Finds Love
Review: Dr. Morse is a trained economist with high academic credentials under her belt (taught 15 years at Yale). This book decribes her personal journey from believing that every person should only as their personal self interst dictates to believing that the family must be based on self-giving love. And, that only through self-giving love is an adult really fulfilled. Speaking with the passion of a convert and the precision of a memeber of the academy, Dr. Morse spins a story that will be missed by those who choose career, hobbies, money or pleasure over children and spouse at their peril. A strong voice for traditional values, especially motherhood.
Rating:
Summary: A genuinely original book
Review: Few books actually break new ground, but this book is one of them. By adopting a Romanian orphan and then having a biological child, Morse came to realize that one of the key concepts of economics, upon which the discipline is based, is defective. "Economic man," egotistical and preference-maximizing, seemed remarkably like her Romanian son, neglected in a primitive orphanage and now unable to bond normally with his loving family. This insight from real life led Morse to some remarkable thoughts about the family and its role in producing people capable of living and prospering in a free society. This is a very readable and intriguing book. It made me think a lot about individualism, families, and what makes a free society tick.
Rating:
Summary: Hillary Roback?
Review: I can summarize LOVE & ECONOMICS with a true story: While I was a child, my (full-time) mother -- while in a state of total exasperation - lamented to me, "The hardest job in the world is raising children." Being the perfect child :-), I simply thought that her statement was a gross exaggeration. Raising my own child and having a greater variety of jobs than my mother ever did, I can say that my mom's original comment is a gross understatement. I think that Roback and her colleagues at the Hoover Institute may have heart attacks as a result of my first reaction to LOVE & ECONOMICS. Many of the ideas Roback presents carry the identical theme found in Clinton's IT TAKES A VILLAGE. Here we find Clinton suggesting ideas like: We have two choices, to guide our children around negative influences and toward positive ones, or to allow our children to wander without us through a labyrinth of the predators which include violence, recreational sex, substance abuse, reckless conduct, and other immoralities. Do we live in an evil world? 59% of the children born in our regional hospital are born out of wedlock. Who is going to guide these children? Familyless children are the peers of my child. This is a fear that is shared by both liberals and conservatives. Roback addressed the above stated concept by noting that in the late 60's, our society embraced a "me first" philosophy. We remain egocentric. This egocentrism that Roback has identified is the heart of the problem for the American family. She shocks us with some critically important information. Both Liberals and Conservatives embrace egocentrism. They do for different reasons, but they both do it. The important historical/sociological issue is, there are no credible voices that reject the "me first" philosophy. In fact, Roback may be the first. Even social institutions such as the Church (conservative and liberal) embraces egocentrism! What hope do children have? Roback states that our only hope is reshaping the American family. Focus on children, not ourselves. I can make three additional but unrelated reactions to LOVE & ECONOMICS. First on a scholarly level, Roback attempts to define, describe and/or explain the contemporary American family by employing one of two philosophical devices, reductionism and/or emergentism. Both efforts fail miserably. However, this is not the fault of the author. "Family" cannot be understood by employing either micro or macro concepts. There is simply no adequate language to articulate many of the complex concepts addressed in this book. Roback did the best she could with the theoretical frameworks currently available. Roback failed to provide an economic explanation for the current family structure - but maybe that wasn't the point she wanted to make. She seems to be saying that children are an economic liability not an asset. They consume economic resources. They are economically unproductive and establish roadblocks for their parents' economic productivity. Those who are preoccupied with seeking wealth should not have children. Lastly, I know both my sisters would dearly enjoy reading this book, but neither one would even consider it. Both found the title profoundly and patently offensive. It took me a very long time to understand their perspectives. I sensed that neither of them thought that the word "love" and "economics" should be in the same sentence. I think they would have read it, if it was entitled something like, THE LAISSEZ-FAIRE FAMILY. Don't be like my sisters. Roback's work is worth reading. She is insightful, humorous and a solid writer.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought provoking!!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it without reservation to anyone who has an interest in family issues, whatever their point of view. My enjoyment was no doubt enhanced by the fact that I am basically in sympathy with Roback-Morse's point of view. I share both her concerns and her basic political values as a libertarian. I thus found her articulating many of my concerns, often more eloquently than I have done, and found her analysis, for the most part, satisfying. I am sure that she and I are in the minority, but this should not detract from the book's appeal. (My praise should not be interpreted to mean complete agreement with everything that Roback-Morse says and I will indicate some areas of disagreement below.) It is articulate and avoids being shrill about very controversial matters. It is a voice of old fashioned sanity in a world of rapid, often frightening, change. It is likely to offend many in different places on the political spectrum, but it offers a point of view that is reasoned, often subtle (more than appears at first glance) and worth considering carefully. It is written as a popular text, but it has a lot to offer the scholar as well. The subtitle "Why the Laissez Faire Family Doesn't Work" is a little misleading, perhaps overly provocative. The truth is Roback-Morse is not attacking laissez faire libertarianism, though her presentation often suggests that she is. This is because of her concern with the place that the family occupies in modern socio-political discussions. There is an irony. The feminist-Left has a very radical "libertarian" approach to the family in that they emphasize the role of "freedom of choice" and individual autonomy, especially for women, in way that is quite out of tune with their interventionist approach to social issues in general. Their approach turns out to be not so different from that of radical libertarians proper who appear to have very little truck with "traditional" family values, and view them as encumbrances on individual autonomy. Roback-Morse devotes a lot of energy to convincing her libertarian friends that she has not abandoned them and that libertarians should actually absorb her thesis into their credo. Her argument is quite subtle. She argues that a free society depends, as all good libertarians know, on the acceptance and smooth functioning of private property rights, including the fulfillment of contracts and commitments, and the latter depends on individuals exercising mature mutual respect and self restraint. Free societies depend on prior and continuously affirmed moral frameworks. Secondly, and persuasively to my mind, such frameworks have no hope of being established and reinforced if the institutions of marriage and the family are in disrepair. So, those who support freedom should also support those moral institutions that bolster the family. These arguments in favor of two-parent committed families are very passionately and persuasively presented and draw on a diverse literature including the role of Hayekian tacit knowledge as part of our valuable social capital. Marriage and the family are seen to embody "natural" wisdoms that are in danger of being lost. As much as I sympathize with the general point of view, I think Roback-Morse's method of reconciling libertarianism with a commitment to "traditional" family values is the wrong method. I think the truth is much simpler. Libertarianism is surely not really in opposition to a principled approach to the family; it is completely orthogonal to it. Libertarians believe these are private matters about which libertarian theory per se has nothing to say. But, by the same token, libertarians cannot in any way object to individuals exercising their right of free speech in attempting to persuade others of the importance of certain types of institutions and behaviors for the very achievement of the type of society that they value. This book is, in the final analysis, an essay in persuasion. Roback-Morse offers no suggestion that government should impose or enforce the morality she so passionately affirms. The real enemies of libertarianism are compulsion, coercion and appropriation not moral commitment or even the right and necessity of moral judgment. Finally, I found the chapters on love and religion a little too parochial for my taste - I think the book would be better without them. Also some of Roback-Morse's claims struck me as too sweeping, unnecessarily so. For example, her characterization of the role of the husband as moral authority, necessary to back up the mother (the father being the "strong man" figure), does not ring true in many Jewish families where the role of the proverbial Jewish mother has a key and very powerful moral component that is not at all dependent on the father for credibility. One other example, Roback-Morse does a good job of documenting the costs of institutionalized child-care that is implied by parents choosing to work full time. She might have emphasized that it is indeed working parents and not just working mothers that is the issue here. Undeniably the role of women in the market has changed and the clock is not going to be turned back on this. At the same time, however, fathers can and are playing a greater role in the details of their children's lives - I speak from experience. If anyone can substitute for the mother it is the father, though both are crucial in the development of healthy children. They are both substitutes and complements. But these are quibbles, read the book, its great!
Rating:
Summary: It Takes the Family to Raise a Child
Review: Saving our children, families and nation, that is what Jennifer Roback-Morse is attempting to teach us with such insight. From her first adopted child from Romania being neglected to the love of her first born child and seeing a difference that love and attention can give to a child. Jen relates to us that having stability in one's childhood will lead to a stable up bringing for our future adults and a stable society in general. Morse tells us how having a moral code that will guide children through their lives. The touch, closeness, warmth and love of a family environment is needed, so much so, to grant a strong foundation that a child can build on. Loving guidance, warmth, direction and loving discipline will give a child the direction they will need in life. It will give them a view, a vision, of where they are going and where they need to be. It takes the family to raise a child; to positively affect a village, town or city; to influence a nation to greatness. That is the story that Dr. Morse is teaching us.
Rating:
Summary: It Takes the Family to Raise a Child
Review: Saving our children, families and nation, that is what Jennifer Roback-Morse is attempting to teach us with such insight. From her first adopted child from Romania being neglected to the love of her first born child and seeing a difference that love and attention can give to a child. Jen relates to us that having stability in one's childhood will lead to a stable up bringing for our future adults and a stable society in general. Morse tells us how having a moral code that will guide children through their lives. The touch, closeness, warmth and love of a family environment is needed, so much so, to grant a strong foundation that a child can build on. Loving guidance, warmth, direction and loving discipline will give a child the direction they will need in life. It will give them a view, a vision, of where they are going and where they need to be. It takes the family to raise a child; to positively affect a village, town or city; to influence a nation to greatness. That is the story that Dr. Morse is teaching us.
Rating:
Summary: Towards a New Economics
Review: Since the 1970s, the Chicago school of economics has applied the standard economic assumption of self interest outside the ordinary workings of the commercial marketplace. The public choice school of economics analyses the workings of a government system where politicians, administrators and indeed everyone involved in the system is motivated by personal gain. Criminal behavior is one more career choice. Children are conceived as consumption items for the benefit of the parents.
This way of thinking - which has now spread to many economists well outside Chicago -- provoked strong objections from the beginning. Among other problems, the critics argued that such an economic approach failed to take account of trust, loyalty and moral conviction in human affairs.
Chicago and other economists, however, dismissed these critics as simple minded moralists who were opposed to the advance of "economic science." They cannot make that claim, however, with respect to a new critic, Jennifer Roback Morse. Morse is a well respected member of the economics profession who nevertheless thinks that there is much more to the world than self interest.
In the commercial market place, as Morse describes herself, she remains a libertarian in her convictions. Within the family, however, Morse has concluded that the pursuit of self interest alone would mean the end of the family as we have known it. The experience of being a mother with two children (one adopted) taught Morse lessons more powerful than any she had learned in her education as an economic professional. As a devout Catholic, she also found that her own religious convictions could not easily be squared in the domain of the family with the standard economic ways of thought.
As Morse describes it, a marriage based on self interest by itself would be almost pathological. It would be impossible to live with a husband, or a wife, who was seen as loyal to the marriage only as long as it gave them "more utility." The old fashioned idea of love may not have any clear meaning within the framework of economic analysis but it remains for Morse an essential element of a successful marriage and the raising of children.
Morse is part of a wider current questioning of the methods of economics. The idea of "social capital" became fashionable throughout the social sciences in the 1990s as an essential element in economic growth. A "new institutional economics" is challenging many of the basic conclusions previously derived from economic models. Even some leading economists are now finally acknowledging that culture and belief are important factors in economic outcomes.
Most of this writing, however, is turgid and directed to other social scientists. Morse has rejected not only some of the foundational assumptions but also the heavy handed jargon and mathematical formulations characteristic of economists. Instead, she writes in a clear prose that aims to be accessible to a wide public. This may serve to discredit her with her fellow economists but it will win her high praise from many others.
Much of what Morse says will not be news to people who are already living lives committed to marriage partners, neighbors, and community. A focus on self interest, however, has become an accurate description of more and more people in contemporary society. When marriage is increasingly seen in such individualistic terms, it should not be surprising that half of new marriages today are expected to end in divorce.
Economists at Chicago and elsewhere did not create the "me generation" but they have tended to legitimize its preoccupation with self in the guise of "science." Not only economics but the field of psychology as well offers a social science grounded in "whatever works for me."
Morse's work should be read as a powerful plea for a return to the old fashioned verities in family life. However, she does not simply assert the necessity of moral behavior but argues logically and carefully for this conclusion. Her book is for the thinking person who understands intuitively the meaning of love but has found it difficult to give this an adequate expression in the contemporary vocabulary of the social sciences. Adam Smith regarded himself as a moral philosopher and Morse is trying to reassert this older tradition.
Economists should read this book but they probably will not. It might force some of them to rethink some of their fundamental assumptions. Rather than confront the necessity of basic change in the approach of economics, it is easier to continue with the familiar. Moreover, the approach of economics for many members of the profession is not only a method of analysing the world but an article of their own religious faith.
Morse offers a new and sophisticated voice for people who simply want to understand the world better and are not worried about the formal method. By distaining the formalisms of the social sciences, she is able to articulate in plain English a set of essential ideas for the workings of family and other non-commercial areas of the life of any society. It is a brave effort and Morse deserves high praise for taking on the pervasive cynicism of our "modern" age.
Rating:
Summary: Towards a New Economics
Review: Since the 1970s, the Chicago school of economics has applied the standard economic assumption of self interest outside the ordinary workings of the commercial marketplace. The public choice school of economics analyses the workings of a government system where politicians, administrators and indeed everyone involved in the system is motivated by personal gain. Criminal behavior is one more career choice. Children are conceived as consumption items for the benefit of the parents.
This way of thinking - which has now spread to many economists well outside Chicago -- provoked strong objections from the beginning. Among other problems, the critics argued that such an economic approach failed to take account of trust, loyalty and moral conviction in human affairs.
Chicago and other economists, however, dismissed these critics as simple minded moralists who were opposed to the advance of "economic science." They cannot make that claim, however, with respect to a new critic, Jennifer Roback Morse. Morse is a well respected member of the economics profession who nevertheless thinks that there is much more to the world than self interest.
In the commercial market place, as Morse describes herself, she remains a libertarian in her convictions. Within the family, however, Morse has concluded that the pursuit of self interest alone would mean the end of the family as we have known it. The experience of being a mother with two children (one adopted) taught Morse lessons more powerful than any she had learned in her education as an economic professional. As a devout Catholic, she also found that her own religious convictions could not easily be squared in the domain of the family with the standard economic ways of thought.
As Morse describes it, a marriage based on self interest by itself would be almost pathological. It would be impossible to live with a husband, or a wife, who was seen as loyal to the marriage only as long as it gave them "more utility." The old fashioned idea of love may not have any clear meaning within the framework of economic analysis but it remains for Morse an essential element of a successful marriage and the raising of children.
Morse is part of a wider current questioning of the methods of economics. The idea of "social capital" became fashionable throughout the social sciences in the 1990s as an essential element in economic growth. A "new institutional economics" is challenging many of the basic conclusions previously derived from economic models. Even some leading economists are now finally acknowledging that culture and belief are important factors in economic outcomes.
Most of this writing, however, is turgid and directed to other social scientists. Morse has rejected not only some of the foundational assumptions but also the heavy handed jargon and mathematical formulations characteristic of economists. Instead, she writes in a clear prose that aims to be accessible to a wide public. This may serve to discredit her with her fellow economists but it will win her high praise from many others.
Much of what Morse says will not be news to people who are already living lives committed to marriage partners, neighbors, and community. A focus on self interest, however, has become an accurate description of more and more people in contemporary society. When marriage is increasingly seen in such individualistic terms, it should not be surprising that half of new marriages today are expected to end in divorce.
Economists at Chicago and elsewhere did not create the "me generation" but they have tended to legitimize its preoccupation with self in the guise of "science." Not only economics but the field of psychology as well offers a social science grounded in "whatever works for me."
Morse's work should be read as a powerful plea for a return to the old fashioned verities in family life. However, she does not simply assert the necessity of moral behavior but argues logically and carefully for this conclusion. Her book is for the thinking person who understands intuitively the meaning of love but has found it difficult to give this an adequate expression in the contemporary vocabulary of the social sciences. Adam Smith regarded himself as a moral philosopher and Morse is trying to reassert this older tradition.
Economists should read this book but they probably will not. It might force some of them to rethink some of their fundamental assumptions. Rather than confront the necessity of basic change in the approach of economics, it is easier to continue with the familiar. Moreover, the approach of economics for many members of the profession is not only a method of analysing the world but an article of their own religious faith.
Morse offers a new and sophisticated voice for people who simply want to understand the world better and are not worried about the formal method. By distaining the formalisms of the social sciences, she is able to articulate in plain English a set of essential ideas for the workings of family and other non-commercial areas of the life of any society. It is a brave effort and Morse deserves high praise for taking on the pervasive cynicism of our "modern" age.
Rating:
Summary: What's love got to do with it?
Review: What does the free-market have to do with the family? What does libertarianism have to do with community? What does the minimal state have to do with social order? Indeed, what does love have to do with economics? Good questions indeed. Those opposed to libertarian principles will of course answer these questions differently from those in favour. But Jennifer Roback Morse offers an interesting third proposal. She notes that attacks on the family have not just come from welfare statism on the left. It has also come from radical individualism on the right. Interestingly, while she is a political and economic libertarian, she is aware of the shortcomings of moral and social libertarianism. Thus she is far from hostile to libertarianism. She is, in fact, a free-market economist. But she is not blind to the short-comings of laissez-faire social policy. Indeed, she believes it to be unworkable. Says Dr Morse, "We cannot afford to take a completely laissez-faire attitude toward the family and the issues that surround it." So how does a libertarian defend marriage and family? Well, that is what this book is all about. She attempts to show that a genuine libertarianism must be one stripped of its "bankrupt materialism" and must be open in fact to the supernatural. That is, a secular, atheistic society does not contain within itself the ability to long sustain a free people. A free society requires three legs to stand on, as Michael Novak long ago pointed out. It needs economic liberty, political liberty, and moral-cultural liberty. The last, which includes the importance of religion, has too often been ignored in this discussion. A minimalist state is one that depends on a substantial component of its citizenry exercising self-control and self-constraint. People making sacrifices for others, foregoing instant gratification, controlling anti-social desires are what make for a free society. And these kinds of virtues are basically learned and developed in the home, and buttressed by religion. The internalised ethic of love, self-control and cooperation can nowhere better come into being than in the home, where mothers and fathers model such virtues to their children. The cooperation and restraint needed for a society to last is first and foremost found in the home. It is in the home that a naturally selfish and me-centered child learns the rules of social harmony and cooperation. All of these virtues can be subsumed under the word love. And love, as the author reminds us, is not an emotion or a feeling, but is in fact willing the highest good of another. "Love is the force that moderates self-interest and makes it possible for self-interested people to live together without causing each other too much trouble." If it is rare for an economists to talk about love, it is even more rare to hear one talk about God. As a Catholic, she knows that in God we have an infinite supply of love accessible to us. "A society of free people requires more human connections, more generosity, and more love than almost any other kind of society we can imagine. Surely the existence of an inexhaustible supply of love, available to anyone for the asking, is of more than passing importance for a society like ours." But I have so far spoken in generalities. Also found in this book are detailed chapters of the importance of marriage, family and the problems of day care, and other related topics, all backed up with thorough documentation. For example, her chapters on the importance of fathers, or the dilemma of daycare, or the shortcomings of cohabitation, offer good assessments of recent research on those questions. Taken together, here we have major social, economic and philosophical themes addressed with an eye to detail on the public policy connections. And we have a rare blend of a mother's concern for family coupled with the tough analysis of an economist. The result is an informative and an incisive look at some of the most pressing social issues of the day. A welcome volume for all concerned about families and society.
|
