In Pursuit is a philosophical exegesis on what is wrong with contemporary social policy analysis. In some ways it is a sequel to Murray’s Losing Ground, having much in common with Part IV (Rethinking Social Policy) of that influential book. Though this is a more enterprising work, it is also a less successful one, leaving the reader with a sense that Murray’s real goal is to provide a somewhat novel argument for a libertarian conception of the common good.

Murray concludes In Pursuit by stating that “much of what central government must do first of all is to leave people alone, and then make sure that they are left alone by others—that people are restrained from the use of force against each other.” What else should government do? That’s about it. It is no wonder that three pages later Murray approvingly cites the libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick. But whereas Nozick was content to argue against big government on the principle of individual liberty, Murray seeks to up the ante by arguing that the pursuit of happiness is best fulfilled by having the government do next to nothing. Now it is one thing to show why government programs usually fail, quite another to maintain that the minimal state is man’s best hope for attaining human happiness.

“The purpose of government,” Murray says, “is to facilitate the pursuit of happiness of its citizens.” Here he is at one with the Founding Fathers, making the case that government exists to enable men and women to use their resources in a way that liberates and promotes happiness. Borrowing from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Murray makes the case that material resources, safety, self-respect, and enjoyment are central to the pursuit of happiness, and that limited government best facilitates that process in the long run.

As for Maslow’s other need—”belongingness”—Murray maintains that this is best achieved through the other enabling conditions. He quite rightly insists that the “little platoons” of work, family, and community (church should have been added) form “the nexus within which the pursuit of happiness is worked out.”

Murray wants to challenge the conventional thinking in social policy analysis, and he is most persuasive when he takes the public policy community head-on, demonstrating how unexamined suppositions regarding the nature of man act to undermine program effectiveness. Rarely, as Murray points out, do the makers of public policy even bother to question what problem they are supposed to be solving. Do they know how to measure success? If poverty programs reduce the present incidence of material hardship, but at the same time increase the future likelihood of welfare dependency, to what extent can they be scored a success? These are the kinds of questions that need to be raised by the human services industry.

If there are three prescriptives that Murray offers for better program development, they are that a) social policy should be framed from the perspective of the individual, b) social policy needs to be sensitive to the interconnectedness of the constituent properties of human happiness, and c) social policy should set limits, recognizing the need for a stopping point.

To put it another way, a social policy that neglects the role of how self-interested individuals will respond to government programs is bound to fail. Much the same can be said of programs that are instituted without their creators having thought through the cause and effect relationship that exists between the attainment of one good (e.g., the acquisition of material rewards) and the attainment of another (self-respect). A social policy that puts no limits on its ambitions will necessarily inhibit the pursuit of happiness.

If Murray were satisfied to contribute these kernels of wisdom, his book would be nothing but a sequel to Losing Ground. But his reach is much higher, extending to a contentious portrait of the individual, society, and the state.

For Murray, human beings “acting in a private capacity if restrained from the use of force have a remarkably good history.” To those who say what of slumlords, racists, and other assorted rip-off artists, Murray replies that none would stay in business for very long without the connivance of the state. Indeed he argues that unless impeded by the state, people will a) tropistically create the conditions under which material resources will be satisfactorily attained, b) establish norms of safety, c) develop norms of self-respect, and d) create intrinsically rewarding activities. In short, the pursuit of happiness is contingent on the near absence of the state.

But as Murray knows, it is precisely because private persons do use force, and have indeed done so throughout all of history, that government is necessary. And why doesn’t Murray inform us of the details of the “remarkably good history” that men and women have established when the use of force has been held at bay? Are the cardinal sins of greed, envy, lust, and so on, always predicated on the use of force? Is there any society, culled from all the anthropological literature, that Murray can point to as instructive?

Part of the problem with Murray’s portrait is his unwillingness to grapple with history. He prefers to engage us in endless “thought experiments,” most of which, he readily concedes, have little to do with the real world. So he works out analytically, to his satisfaction, what he cannot demonstrate with ethnographic research.

What is one to make of a social critic who thinks it “odd” that social problems even exist? Who says that it is “damned odd” and “unnatural” that the schools are a mess? Murray seems to think that because having good schools and good teachers is in everyone’s interest, it is a function of statist distortions that the crisis in education exists. Moreover, his “thought experiments” allow no role for racism, sexism, NEA’s, or ACLU’s, but in the real world of prejudice, interest groups, and ideology, social policymakers must deal with the cards they’ve been dealt. And this much must be said: the ultimate dealer is not government, but inherently flawed men and women. It is private persons, after all, who create public institutions.

If the source of all evil for Marxists is capitalism, for libertarians it is the state. Those who believe in original sin will not be impressed by either explanation. And that is why they will find this volume wanting, despite its insights into the failures of contemporary social policy analysis.

[In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, by Charles Murray (New York: Simon and Schuster) 341 pp., $19.95]