Book Reviews : African Revolutionary: The Life and Times of Nigeria's Aminu Kano. By ALAN FEINSTEIN. (New York: Quadrangle, 1973. Pp. xvi, 299. $9.95.)
| Author | Bernard C. Borning |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591297402700428 |
| Published date | 01 December 1974 |
| Date | 01 December 1974 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
758
first
essay
Winston
Bush
formalizes
an
economy
without
property
rules.
Patrick
Gunning
in
the
second
explains
the
emergence
of
government
as
a
broker
between
private
interests.
Next
James
Buchanan
delves
into
the
basis
of
contractarianism,
using
a
distinction
between
human
and
non-human
capital.
Craig
Stubblebine
depicts
the
creation
of
property
rules
in
the
Robinson
Crusoe
situation.
The
fifth,
by
Thomas
Hogarty,
considers
the
dissolution
and
reconstitution
of
property
sys-
tems
in
a
rodent
group,
the
Andersonville
prison
and
The
Lord
of
the
Flies.
In
a
second
contribution
Buchanan
draws
attention
to
the
distribution
of
the
cost
of
the
enforcement
of
property
rules.
Tullock
himself
offers
an
overview
of
the
issues
raised
by
property
in
anarchy.
The
essays
are
largely
confined
to
two-person
models
devoid
of
spatial
and
temporal
dimensions.
Tullock
admits
in
the
introduction
that
the
book’s
title
&dquo;is
a
bit
misleading,&dquo;
for
&dquo;the
main
subject
of
the
book
is
not
anarchy
itself
but
the
way
society
gets
out
of
anarchy
into
more
formally
organized
structures.&dquo;
Even
so,
the idea
of
anarchy
is
critical
to
each
author’s
understanding
of
the
conditions
to
be
gotten
out
of,
how
that
can
happen
and
what
will
result.
But
only
Bush
explicitly
discusses
anarchy.
While
mentioning
Proudhon,
he
chooses
to
draw
his
conception
of
anarchy
from
Hobbes.
Hence,
the
background
picture
of
anarchy
in
front
of
which
the
essayists
write
is
one
drawn
from
a
critic
and
opponent
of
it.
After
Proudhon
is
dismissed,
no
other
anarchist
thinker
is
mentioned.
Instead
we
have
vague
references
to
unnamed
&dquo;anarchist
philosophers.&dquo;
Nowhere
considered
are
the
intricate,
if
in-
genuous,
attempts
by
Godwin,
as
an
individualist,
and
Kropotkin,
as
a
communal-
ist,
to
base
society
on
mutualism,
voluntarism
and
nonviolence.
Instead
we
are
left
with
the
second-hand
strawman
of
anarchy
made
by
Hobbes.
Both
Buchanan’s
first
piece
and
Stubblebine’s
are
self-consciously
value
neutral
and
positivist.
Whatever
one’s
view
of
the
feasibility
and
desirability
of
such
goals
one
cannot
help
but
be
surprised
at
Buchanan’s
claim
that
value
arguments
are
&dquo;empty.&dquo;
Such
an
emotivist
interpretation
died
in
philosophy
years
ago;
if
our
values
are
empty,
it is
only
because
we
are
empty.
Moreover,
Buchanan
may
not
adhere
to
his
own
prescription
for
he
later
suggest
that
emphasis
on
redistribution,
rather
than
growth
of
natural
primary
goods,
has
negative
effects.
Each
paper
is
brief
and
was
written
for
a
small
circle
of
colleagues.
As
such,
to
an
outsider
none
seems
to
develop
an
argument
from
start
to
finish.
As
Buchan-
an
says
of
one
of
his
own
pieces,
one
could
say
of
the
book:
these
are
&dquo;provisional
notes.&dquo;
The
University
of
Sydney
M.
W.
JACKSON
African
Revolutionary:
The
Life
and
Times
of
Nigeria’s
Aminu
Kano.
By
ALAN
FEINSTEIN.
(New
York:
Quadrangle,
1973.
Pp. xvi, 299.
$9.95.)
Alan
Feinstein,
dentist
turned
Africanist,
gives
us
in
general
an
interesting
account
of
facets
of
Nigeria’s
history
interwoven
with
a
biography
of
one
of
her
more
progressive
current
leaders.
In
earlier
centuries,
conquering
Fulani
tribes-
men
had
not
only
spread
the
Muslim
religion
widely
throughout
the
North
but
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