Ms. Schwartz-Nobel writes, “is a part ofnour total culture. It cannot be dealt withnin isolation.” The root cause of America’snfood problems, she accurately observes,nis the moral and spiritual malaise producednwhen “a number of the simplentraditional values that had boundnAmerican people and families togethernwere destroyed.” Consequently, only as,nAmerica “reestablishes a sense of communitynand a sense of common destiny”ncan we hope to solve the problems ofnfood production and distribution. Wellnsaid. Unfortunately, as an establishednliberal feminist, Ms. Schwartz-Nobel isnherself so profoundly at odds with then”simple traditional values” of America’snpast that her program for regaining “ansense of community” is both fatuous andnself-contradictory. Only a feminist couldnlament that many Americans have recentlyn”stopped cherishing” some unspecifiedn”values,” and yet not say anword in defense of the traditional familynor marriage in all of her discussion ofnhungry families without fathers. Andnonly a liberal could portray the governmentnwelfare system as “blunderingntoken programs” with “records of inefficiency,ncorruption and failure” and yetn(in the same paragraph) indict PresidentnReagan for reducing these verynprograms. By demanding greatly expandednwelfare. Social Security, andnfood-stamp programs (without mentionnof increased taxes or inflation), Ms.nSchwartz-Nobel is repudiating thenvalue-based bonds of community whosenrenewal she professedly seeks.nWhen the federal government becomesnthe guarantor of individual wellbeing,nthen the claims of family, church,nand community all seem either burdensomenor superfluous and thereforenatrophy. True, Ms. Schwartz-Nobel doesnencourage participation in nongovernmentaln”Hunger Organizations,” andncertainly such efforts are commendable.nHowever, the donation of food is mostnmeaningful for recipient and giver withinnthe broader and deeper relationshipsnof traditional institutions. Though Chev-nTruenessnX’c live in a world where words arenlosing their meanings. One of the mostnoppressive CiccLs of our reality’ is thatnadvertisement deceives: signs abovenbusines.ses do not tell the true .story, acrylicnpretends to be wool, and plumbersncharge a horrendous tee just tor tinkeringnrolet’s jingle lails to mention the feet,nAmericans find even apple pie unsatisfyingnwhen eating at the table of strangers.nliating and dissatisfaction are bothnconcerns of Albert O. Hirschman innShifting Involvements, albeit in a somewhatnperipheral and abstract way. Hisnlarger concern is the development of “anphenomenology of involvements andndisappointments that is meant to accountnfor the swings from private concerns tonpublic action and back.” He thereforendiscusses food simply as a type of consumerngood least likely to disappoint becausenin satisfying a basic physiologicalnneed it repeatedly gives the consumernthe pleasure of moving from actual discomfortnto palpable comfort. By way ofnquotes from Edward Young and SamuelnJohnson, though, Hfrschman does concedenthat even ingestion does not pleasenman the same way it does animals, andnby way of a broad analysis of other typesnof consumer goods he establishes thatnmaterial acquisitions in general are evennmore disappointing. This, so Hirschman’snargument runs, is why people turn fromnthe concerns of personal welfare to pub­nLlBERAL CULTURE~|nnn—not repairing. But wait—there is annoasis of truthfiilne.ss where a word Is -asngood as gold. According to press intbrmation,ntwo punk-rock hands—poeticallynnamed Aggression and the Vandals—nstaged a nxrk concert in Huntington Park,nCalitbmia and dutiftiUy ftilfilled their linguisticnpromise. The ensuing rampagenresulted in:na nx:i( and bottle thnming ri( >t that spreadnover a six-block area as looters shatterednstore windows …. Forty-one people,nmost of them juveniles, were arrestednand 10 policemen were hurt.nShouldn’t we be grateful to Providencenthat there arc people who still care aboutnthe honest relationship between wordnand meaning? Dnlic activism. But since public involvementnis fraught with its own frustrations,nthe movement is cyclic.nThat Hirschman quotes such writersnas Young and Johnson suggests anbreadth of scholarship rare amongneconomists (the book was originallynwritten as the 1979 Eliot Janeway Lectures),njust as his rejection of the simplen”infrahuman wantons” of traditionalnconsumption theory reveals an unusualnresistance to positivist premises.nNevertheless, Hirschman shares toonmany of the limitations of his colleaguesnto be as wise or as readable as the mennhe quotes. His occasional lapses into jargonnare annoying; his frequent citationnof his own previous works seems pedantic;nand his belaboring of the obviousnmakes welcome his apology “for usingnso many words in making plausiblensomething that must seem obviousncommon sense to the general reader.”nThe most serious shortcoming of thenbook, though, is a reductionism similarnto, if not quite as severe as, that fornwhich Hirschman feults other economists:nHirschman reduces man to anthoroughly secular being.n•iiiillnMay 1983n