LIVING AS EQUALS edited by Paul Barker. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1996. 165 Pages. Cloth $24.95. ISBN 0-19-829205-8.
Reviewed by James C. Foster, Department of Political Science, Oregon
State University.
Between the covers of this slim volume, LAW AND POLITICS BOOK REVIEW readers will find essays by seven prominent academics who address "general themes of social inequality and justice" (p. 143). Four of the contributors are notable British scholars: A.B. Atkinson, Paul Barker, E.J. Hobsbawm, and Dorothy Wedderburn. One, Ronald Dworkin, holds appointments at University College, Oxford, and New York University. Another, Albert O. Hirschman, is Emeritus at the Institute for Advance Study at Princeton. A third, Amartya Sen, formerly of All Souls College, Oxford, currently is at Harvard.
LIVING AS EQUALS is a festschrift celebrating the life, work, and concerns of Eva Colorni. Colorni died of cancer in 1985 at the age of forty-four. Her father was Italian socialist philosopher, Eugenio Colorni, who was killed in 1944 while taking part in the anti-Fascist Resistance. Her mother was Ursula Hirschman, Albert O. Hirschman’s sister. Colorni studied at Pavia University. She taught economics in India at the Delhi School of Economics and, from the early 1970’s until shortly before her death, at the City of London Polytechnic (now, London Guildhall University). Five of the essays collected in LIVING AS EQUALS are revised versions of talks—commencing in 1987—that were delivered under the auspices of the Eva Colorni Memorial Trust, established in her memory in 1985. Paul Barker’s essay serves as an introduction. Amartya Sen’s contribution was written specially for this book. Sen was Colorni’s husband. All of the contributors knew Colorni personally. Literally and figuratively, then, LIVING AS EQUALS is a family affair, a collection of essays that Sen describes as "on some of her favourite themes, by some of her favourite people" (p. 10).
Paul Barker sounds the volume’s keynote in his brief introduction. He writes that Eva Colorni "was passionate about the constant need for greater equality." Barker adds: "Living as equals isn’t a race with a single finishing post. It is a moving target." (p. 8). Essays subsequent to Barker’s take up various aspects of debates over social equality. A few LAW AND POLITICS BOOK REVIEW readers will recognize some of the arguments made in these essays. Elements of Ronald Dworkin’s 1987 Eva Colorni Memorial Lecture, "Do Liberty and Equality Conflict?" were developed in print both before and after he delivered it, in two PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS articles and in FREEDOM’S LAW: THE MORAL REASONING OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. A more extensive version of Albert O. Hirschman’s 1990 lecture, "Two Hundred Years of Reactionary Rhetoric: The Futility Thesis," saw print a year later in his book, THE RHETORIC OF REACTION: PERVERISTY, FUTILITY, JEOPARDY. Most LAW AND POLITICS BOOK REVIEW readers will discover engaging arguments thoughtfully presented. Although these essays pertain tangentially to law and courts per se, their authors intervene in enduring controversies central to judicial politics.
For instance, Amartya Sen explores the apparent clash between social welfare and balanced budgets. In particular, he challenges the dichotomous view that pits enlarging and honoring commitments to socially disadvantaged people, on the one hand, against what is termed "fiscal conservatism" in the United States. Sen characterizes this clash as "a battle between two different good things" (p. 16). The watchword of his discussion is enlarged participation—"the central social commitment" (p. 21)—in consideration of public expenditures: "What is important to resist at this time is placing of some parts of public policy beyond the domain of public debate, while keeping other parts firmly open to critical onslaught" (p. 34). Reading Sen’s nuanced essay could deepen a class discussion of, say, contemporary debates over funding elementary and secondary education in the United States. Read it while comparing the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions in SAN ANTONIO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. v. RODRIGUEZ and PLYER v. DOE with numerous state funding decisions like CLAREMONT SCHOOL DIST. v. GOVERNOR, recently decided by the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
Another example: E. J. Hobsbawm offers a cautionary tale in his essay, "Are All Tongues Equal? Language, Culture and National Identity." He analyzes the coincident rise of the nation-state and the policy of one official language per country. Hobsbawm concludes his argument with this provocative observation: "So long as language is not as firmly separated from the state as religion was in the United States under the American constitution, it will be a constant and generally artificial source of civil strife" (p. 98). One can challenge both Hobsbawm’s assertion of that the American constitutional separation of church from state was "firm" (shades of Thomas Jefferson’s hotly-debated metaphor) and his characterization of civil strife over state-sponsored religion—and language—as "artificial." Nevertheless, his essay could be read profitably in the context of class discussions of bilingual education, California Proposition 187, and immigration policies generally. Try it in conjunction with a line of U.S. Supreme Court decisions interpreting the constitutional limits on immigration tracing back to 1837 and MAYOR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK v. MILN.
Thirdly, A.B. Atkinson’s essay, "Promise and Performance: Why We Need an Official Poverty Report," is a thought-provoking—some might say fanciful—argument in favor of an annual objective assessment in the United Kingdom of levels need and of social policies designed to ameliorate indigence. Of course, one response occurring immediately to a jaded American reader of this proposal is one that Atkinson seeks to rebut: " . . . the Americans have had [an official poverty line] for thirty years and it has made no difference" (p. 136). Whether or not one is persuaded by Atkinson’s response to this objection, his idea has the merit of raising the issue of poverty in relation to employing social science data to establish policy goals and to evaluate governmental performance. This writing could be used as grist for informative class discussions of judicial policies handed down in U.S. Supreme Court decisions such as EDWARDS v. CALIFORNIA, SHAPIRO v. THOMPSON, and GOLDBERG v. KELLY.
In sum, this short book is long on potential teaching utility. I imagine
that Eva Colorni would be pleased. Unfortunately, the book’s $24.95 price
tag renders it an exorbitantly costly supplement. Have your library acquire
it and put it on reserve.
DWORKIN, RONALD. (1981). "What is Equality? Part 1: Equality of Welfare." PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 185-246.
DWORKIN, RONALD. (1981). "What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources." PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 283-345.
DWORKIN, RONALD. (1996). FREEDOM’S LAW: THE MORAL READING OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
HIRSCHMAN, ALBERT O. (1991). THE RHETORIC OF REACTION: PERVERSITY, FUTILITY, JEOPARDY. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
EDWARDS v. CALIFORNIA, 314 U.S. 160 (1941).
SHAPIRO v. THOMPSON, 394 U.S. 618 (1969).
GOLDBERG v. KELLY, 397 U.S. 254 (1970).
SAN ANTONIO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. v. RODRIGUEZ, 411 U.S. 1 (1973).
PLYER v. DOE, 457 U.S. 202 (1982).
CLAREMONT SCHOOL DIST. v. GOVERNOR, slip opinion, 97-001.