THE MYTHMAKERS: AN ESSAY ON POWER AND WEALTH.
By Bernard D.Nossiter '47. Boston: Houghton MifflinCo., 1964. 244 pp. $4.00.
This is a volume of eight vigorously written essays, each dealing with an important economic issue of the 1960's. All of the essays deal with essentially domestic problems of the United States, and all of them reflect strongly the liberal (in the New Republic rather than the 19th Century sense) convictions of the author.
In the first two chapters Nossiter examines some economic policies of the Kennedy administration - its anti-recession measures, its behavior during the steel price dispute, its tax program. These chapters show that Nossiter is a first-rate reporter and interpreter of the Washington scene. The gist of Nossiter's account is that "in every significant area - wage policy, tax policy, international trade and finance, federal spending - the (late) President showed a keen understanding and ready response to the essential corporate program." Nossiter thus destroys the myth that Kennedy's administration was in any real sense "anti-business" or that the New Frontier meant a change in the established economic structure of the country.
Three chapters in the book deal with the issues raised by the economic power of large business units - the issue of the so-called "administered prices," the concept of countervailing power, and the question of public responsibility of corporate managements. Limitations of space do not permit an adequate summary of the many points made by the author. Let me then just say that a non-professional reader would unquestionably find Nossiter's discussion both enlightening and thought provoking.
Two chapters in Nossiter's volume are concerned with the problems of poverty and unemployment, and with the economic aspects of disarmament. The arguments advanced by Nossiter in these chapters are probably familiar to even a fairly casual reader of economic literature. But they have rarely been expressed with greater clarity or persuasiveness. The book ends with a chapter on the problem of economic planning which, in Nossiter's view, should be tried or experimented with more extensively in this country.
As these paragraphs suggest, I consider Nossiter's volume a valuable addition to the small number of books on economics that could be read with profit by the so-called "informed layman." But even in a review of this type I must add that The Mythmakers contains several statements of dubious validity. To cite one example, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest Nossiter's view that "the sluggish performance of the post-Korean War economy can be attributed in no small measure to the concentrated structure of business" (p. 63). This and some other careless statements weaken to some extent the argument advanced in this interesting book.
Professor of Economics
