Monstrous hybrids: understanding the Clinton campaign scandals.

• Author: Postrel, Virginia I.

Understanding the Clinton campaign scandals

In our December 1992 book issue, REASON asked a number of writers to answer the question, "What should the president read?" by recommending three books for the incoming chief executive. At the time contributors had to make their choices, no one knew who the president would be. Suggestions ranged from In Pursuit to The Little Red Hen.

Had I known then what I know now, I would have suggested Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs, an author best known for her iconoclastic work on cities. Subtitled "A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics," her 1992 book provides much insight into the profound moral failings of the Clinton administration. If Bill Clinton had read it, and heeded it, he would have avoided a huge mess of trouble. But he would also be a very different person, with very different politics.

Using the trope of an extended discussion among characters from different professional backgrounds, Jacobs sets out to examine the moral codes that govern work. She finds two "syndromes" - two mutually exclusive collections of connected traits, self-organized systems that have evolved over the long span of human history. They derive, she argues, from the two and only two ways humans as a species have of making a living: taking and trading. (Most animals have only taking, better known as hunting and gathering.) She dubs them the "guardian syndrome" and the "commercial syndrome."

The commercial syndrome, recognizable as bourgeois morality and championed in the pages of this magazine, includes, writes Jacobs: "Shun force. Come to voluntary agreements. Be honest. Collaborate easily with strangers and aliens. Compete. Respect contracts. Use initiative and enterprise. Be open to inventiveness and novelty. Be efficient. Promote comfort and convenience. Dissent for the sake of the task. Invest for productive purposes. Be thrifty. Be optimistic."

These virtues encourage prudent benevolence, a search for ways to prosper by improving people's lives. As long as your trading partners also follow them, they represent a smooth, if twisting, road to success and security. But if predators highway robbers - lurk nearby, then the commercial syndrome requires guardians for protection.

The guardian syndrome contains aristocratic and martial virtues: "Shun trading. Exert prowess. Be obedient and disciplined. Adhere to tradition. Respect hierarchy. Be loyal. Take vengeance. Deceive for the sake of the task...