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Title: Miles to Go: A Personal History of Social Policy by Daniel Patrick Moynihan ISBN: 0-674-57441-9 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: October, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A call to arms for a political social science
Comment: First, let's realize what this book isn't. It is not a collection of previous essays, although it excerpts heavily from a number of essays, both from the 60s and the 90s. It is also not a memoir.
It's an argument for a different role for the social sciences in policy making. First, it's an argument by repeated example of the predictive power of the social sciences. And, second, it's a call for social scientists and the government to start doing work seriously on the issues of the day.
So, first. He's telling us that we can do social science that tells us things about the world that we live in. Like what? One, government supervision of the economy from WWII to the present day. Two, his observation in the 70s that the Soviet Union was already in the early stages of collapse. Three, his argument that the illegitimacy rates where (1) going to skyrocket and (2) that it would be a problem. He tells us that these were not mysterious phenomena and that had the data not been ignored, public policy could have addressed them appropriately. This is important, partly to remind us of it, but also to challenge some writers on the right, such as Thomas Sowell, who argues, essentially, the opposite.
Second, this book argues that both the social scientists and the politicians need to take social science seriously. And, furthermore, part of the problem is the liberal professionalization of "Do Gooders". Why wasn't illegitimacy attacked in the 60s and 70s? Because some of the people on the left really are as morally squishy as the people on the right say they are! They were afraid to push a family structure, especially a "traditional" one.. Furthermore, he argues, that this phenomenon had been described by Durkheim in the Rules of Sociological Method.
This book is, in the end, a call for a scientifically-informed moderate social policy. A social policy that is not afraid to speak of "values" and, indeed, "family values", but is also understands the sociology behind the modern/urban/liberal context. Furthermore, it's proof-by-example that it is achievable.
Rating: 4
Summary: A wealth of wisdom
Comment: I must first note that this book is extremely poorly edited. It oscillates from current commentary to previously published essays and articles without significant distinction. This along with an introduction that occupies a third of the book makes for a frustrating read. Moreover, Moynihan doesn't always state what he is trying to say so the reader must be alert for not-so-obvious implications.
Having said all this, this book is a true resevoir of wisdom. In tackling issues from moral decline to welfare reform to the drug war to "Reaganism," Moynihan both parts ways with contemporary liberalism while offering sharp critiques of past and current policies. Ever the social scientist, Moynihan is quick to demonstrate how "conventional wisdom" can be utterly wrong while at the same time dismissing those who would sieze on simplistice generalizations of scientific research in furtherance of radical agendas.
A difficult read but well worth it.
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Title: The Gentleman From New York: Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- A Biography by Godfrey Hodgson ISBN: 0395860423 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 16 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $38.00 |
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Title: Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Intellectual in Public Life by Robert A. Katzmann ISBN: 0801860717 Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Pr Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Secrecy: The American Experience by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Richard Gid Powers ISBN: 0300080794 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Beyond the Melting Pot, Second Edition: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City by Nathan Glazer, Daniel P. Moynihan ISBN: 026257022X Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 15 June, 1970 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: On the Law of Nations by Daniel Patrick Moynihan ISBN: 0674635760 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: February, 1992 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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