Volume 6, Number 5 · March 31, 1966
The Way of the World
By George Lichtheim
Modern Capitalism: The Changing Balance of Public and Private Power
by Andrew Shonfield
Oxford, 456 pp., $10.50
Every now and then, that overworked encomium 'a major contribution' imposes itself upon the reviewer of a work on current affairs. In the case of Mr. Andrew Shonfield's study of economic planning in the Western world since 1945, the author's distinction is of help in overcoming one's initial reluctance to employ a tired cliché. His vantage-point—he is Director of Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs—is an unusual one for a writer on economics, but then Mr. Shonfield is primarily concerned with the record of governments and central banks in Western Europe and North America. For this purpose, access to official information, and the ability to meet the key personalities on equal terms is as important as professional training. Possibly Mr. Shonfield would disclaim any authority beyond that of the 'generalist.' There is some evidence that theoretical economics is not his forte, a handicap he shares with the reviewer. But in an 'institutional' study this hardly matters. What does matter is that Mr. Shonfield has had the courage to write the kind of large-scale survey of current affairs everyone has been waiting for. His book is an important one, not least for the wind of iconoclasm that whistles through its pages: even with respect to Keynesian economics and other sacred cows hitherto in undisturbed possession of their respective pastures.
Review, 3496 words
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