Book Review: Black Separatism in the United States

• Author: K. Robert Keiser
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297903200219
• Published date: 01 June 1979
• Date: 01 June 1979
• Subject Matter: Book Review

230

Western Political Quarterly

1970s.

His results refute the popular but fallacious notion that the federal deficit

is the main culprit causing inflation. A critical conclusion of his study is the high

cost of traditional remedies. Restrictive, high-unemployment fiscal policy reduces

inflation but with destructive effects on economic growth and jobs.

Having established the need for more innovative solutions to inflation, the

article by Laurence Seidman considers TIP alternatives. After examining the

choices available to policy-makers, the author concludes that the most effective

policy would include both rewards and penalties imposed

on

employers depending

on the wage increases they grant. Although prices are the ultimate target, they are

to

be controlled indirectly through wage restrictions.

Two of the selections consider the question of feasibility. Dildine and Sunley

discuss the administrative difficulties of TIP,

of

great importance to any meaning-

ful discussion of policy alternatives. The authors tangle with the difficulties

of

levying the taxes, administering the provisions of the law, and monitoring wage

changes. Albert Rees, in his article,

assesses

political feasibility, confronting the

grounds of opposition from both business and labor.

Robert

Crandall move9 from TIP

to

a

cataloging of the ways the government

could directly reduce price levels. Although the various policy proposals by them-

selves would make only marginal reductions in inflation, in combination, they could

have

a

substantial effect. In addition to these five main articles, the book includes

comments and discussion at the end of each chapter and

a

symposium

as

the

conclusion.

As

the published proceedings of

a

conference,

Curing Chronic Inflation

suffers

from the usual “readability” problems

of

such efforts. The non-economist is faced

with

a

goodly amount of technical discussion, particularly in the comment and

symposium sections. But on the whole, the book

is

readily comprehendible and

occasionally very stimulating. Unlike many published proceedings, the cditors have

developed

a

theme by organizing the book around the question of tas-based incomes

policy. Even more importantly, the selections

deal

not only with macroeconomic

theory and TIP alternatives, but with the key questions of administrative and

political feasibility. For these reasons, the book should be of interest to scholars in

various disciplines and to national policy-makers as \vcll as economists.

Curing

Chronic Inflation

is recommended to anyone more interested in meaningful new

policy directions in the fight against inflation than the anti-inflation rhetoric of the

current political scene.

LANCE

T.

LELOUP

University

of

Missouri

-

St.

Louis

Black Separatism in the United States.

By

hYnroriD

L.

HALL.

(Hanover, New

Hampshire: University Press of New England,

1978.

93.

306.

$15.00.)

These are hardly the most fortuitous years in which to bring out

a

book on

black separatism.

The

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is long mori-

bund, the Congress of Racial Equality continues only

as

a

discredited, skeleton

or-

ganization, and the Nation of Islam has retrenched on its nationwide conglomerate

of business enterprises. At

a

time when black nationalism is

less

manifest than

latent, Raymond Hall’s book is essentially

a

history, and

a

cynic might add, seg-

ments of it have been collectcd out of the dustbins of history. Yet, as the author

illnstrates, black separatism

does

have some

deep

historical roots in the American

character

so

that one cannot be sure whether it has come to

its

final demise and

resting place. The subject certainly deserves

a

book-length treatment.

Black separatism, according to Hall’s classification, is

a

subcategory

of

black

nationalism. The core of the book examines

five

organizations which the author

labels separatist: the Nation

of

Islam,

SNCC,

CORE, the Black Panther party, and

the Republic of New Africa. Hall neglects

a

group such

as

the Congress of African

Peoples, presumably because it represents cultural nationalism more than separa-

tism. Among the book’s most valuable chapters

is

a

comparison

of

the five organi-

zations’ economic

programs.

As

Hall

sees

it, only CORE’S plan for partnerships