Book Reviews : The Genteel Populists. By SIMON LAZARUS. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Win ston, Inc., 1974. Pp. x, 302. $8.95.)
| Author | Murray Clark Havens |
| Published date | 01 December 1974 |
| Date | 01 December 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297402700415 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
737
chosen
to
draw
from
the
preceding
chapters
certain
&dquo;key
issues
or
problems&dquo;
for
concluding
comments.
These
&dquo;issues
and
problems&dquo;
are,
in
the
order
of
their
presentation:
&dquo;Administrative
Organisation
Reconsidered&dquo;;
&dquo;The
Meanings
of
Administrative
Ef~’-iciency&dquo; ;
&dquo;Administrative
Responsibility&dquo;;
and
&dquo;Administrative
Professionalism.&dquo;
My
own
overall
conclusion
regarding
this
book
is
that
it
is
a
good
and
useful
book.
Not
a
&dquo;great&dquo;
book,
destined
to
become
a
classic,
but
one
which
can
be
read
with
profit
by
anyone
seriously
interested
in
public
administration,
whether
teacher,
student,
or
administrator.
Because
of
its
moderately
comparative
charac-
ter,
it
may
have
some
special
appeal
for
those
attracted
by
comparisons.
It
shows
Professor
Self
to
be
(at
least
in
my
opinion)
a
competent
and
knowledgeable
stu-
dent
of
administrative
theory
and
behavior,
and
of
public
administrative
institu-
tions,
problems,
and
practices
in
Britain,
the
United
States,
and
France;
an
effec-
tive
analyst
and
critic;
and
a
man
able
to
communicate
his
learning
and
ideas.
Washington
State
University
PAUL
L.
BECKETT
The
Genteel
Populists.
By
SIMON
LAZARUS.
(New
York:
Holt,
Rinehart
and
Win-
ston,
Inc.,
1974.
Pp.
x,
302.
$8.95.)
Though
the
author
does
not
really
focus
on
it
until
the
last
fifty
pages
of
the
book,
the
principal
thrust
of
The
Genteel
Populists
is
the
superiority
of
the
judicial
process
over
the
efforts
of
administrative
agencies
as
a
technique
for
defending
the
public
interest
from
the
depradations
of
private
economic
interests,
particularly
in
the
form
of
modem
corporate
enterprise.
It
is
not
surprising
that
Lazarus
should
reach
this
judgment,
for
he
is
a
prominent
practitioner
of
public-interest
law
who
has,
moreover,
had
extended
and
profoundly
disillusioning
experiences
with
the
effort
to
make
regulatory
agencies
effective.
However,
those
political
scientists
who
will
not
take
issue
with
Lazarus’s
characterization
of
administrative
regulation
may
be
reluctant
to
place
uncritical
confidence
in
the
judiciary
as
our
ultimate
political
salvation.
Admittedly,
the
courts
do
sometimes
yield
satisfying
results,
and
the
modern
populist
must
be
something
of
a
pragmatist
and
take
his
victories
where
he
can
find
them.
But
after
vehemently
elucidating
all
the
reasons
why
administrators
cannot
be
expected
to
counter
or
even
to
resist
the
influence
of
well
organized,
affluent
interests
with
high
status
and
sophisticated
leadership,
Lazarus
appears
totally
unaware
a
few
pages
later
of
the
extent
to
which
those
same
arguments
apply
to
judges
as
well.
The
Populists
of
the
1890s
were
well
aware
of
the
tendency
of
judges
to
inter-
vene
to
protect
the
rights
of
minorities
entrenched
in
positions
of
economic
power;
several
features
of
their
program
were
aimed
at
combatting
precisely
this
evil.
The
declining
reliability
of
federal
judges
as
instruments
of
the
major
economic
interests
may
be
due
to
a
decline
in
efforts
by
those
interests
to
influence
the
judges,
and
that
may
in
turn
reflect
the
relative
unimportance
of
judges
as
deci-
sion
makers
in
such
matters
at
this
juncture.
Change
the
locus of
the
regulatory
struggle
from
the
administrative
agencies
back
to
the
courts,
however,
and
most
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