with little public accountability,nusing political coercion and financialnblackmail to favor somengroups to the disadvantage ofnothers.nMansbridge’s alternative tonthis degenerate regime is morenof the same. She would yieldnmore power to bureaucrats andnsocial engineers who, she trusts,nwould eliminate commercialncompetition and set the agendanfor public decision-making. Despitenher unctuous homage tonAthenian democracy and NewnEngland town meetings, hernconception of self-governmentnowes more to Lenin’s democraticncentralism than to either Periclesnor John Adams. In one section,nshe contrasts the American, Japanesenand Soviet understandingsnof the role of government withnher own plan for unitary, or consensual,ndemocracy. In this comparisonnthe Soviets come outnlooking more democratic thannthe Americans by virtue of theirngreater willingness to removeneconomic competition. Mansbridge’snpreferred regime is onlyna sentimentalized variation ofnthe way totalitarians extort popularnbacking for their policies.nDuring the McCarthy period,nWilli Schlamm, a German-Jewishnrefugee from Hitler and anBurkean conservative, observednthat the McCarthyites were fightingnfor a principle which manynof them perceived only dimly.nMorally ordered liberty was thisnprinciple: the Western world hadna duty to call to account thosenwho preferred totalitarianism tonfreedom. Unfortunately SenatornMcCarthy did not pursue thisnprinciple in a prudent fashion,nand the defeat of anticommunismnas a cause carried ominousnconsequences for the Americannpeople. Once they began to losensight of the crucial distinctionnbetween free and servile societies,nAmericans abandonednmuch of their will to fight Sovietnimperialism.nBecause one can believe in thenvalidity of Schlamm’s argument,none must also regret that Mansbridgenis gaining professionalnrecognition by, among othernthings, deprecating the idea ofna free society. Above all else, onendespises her quintessentially liberalndeviousness in trying to pushnus into the Gulag while ostensiblynrecommending New Englandnparticipatory democracy. As onenstaggers disgustedly through hernbook, it becomes apparent hownquickly her pleas for voluntarynequality turn into a defense ofndictatorship. Soft tyranny, asnTocqueville reminds us, doesnhave a way of turning hard andnbrutal. (PG) DnTrashnThe dissolution of the communist infrastructurenof power in Poland can be attributednto countless factors, yet it seems that thendemise of the sacrosanct tnoral premi.se ofnMarxism as an ideology was predetermined.nIt must be stressed that what Marx, Engelsnand Lenin preached achieved global and historicalnsuccess not thanks to its economic andnpolitical prescriptions (which early on provednto be erroneous and flimsy) but thanks to itsnmoral premise. From the middle of the lastncentury until very recently Marxism was regardednby its followers as the ultimate questnfor justice in the modern world. CertainlynStalin shattered that myth in many minds,nbut not until communism had degeneratednin Poland to a Mafialike .system of extortingna sort of daily ransom from an entire nationncould Marxism as a moral faith be entirelyndismis.sed. Before the Soviets” expansion duringnWorld War II, peasant nations like Hungary,nRomania or Lithuania had overwhelminglynrejected communism. In Poland, communismnwas deeply hated, and rabid anticom-nShere Hite: The Hite Reportnon Male Sexuality; Alfred A.nKnopf; New York.nWe usually do not dwell onnthe debris which litters the socalledn”free market of ideas” innthe world’s most advanced democracy.nOccasionally, however,nthe magnitude of the culturalnswindle attracts our attentionnand seems to deserve notice. Ms.nHite is one of the most successfulnoperators on the currentnscene of sexology—a “science”nso absurd that it would be annendless source of black humornexcept for its dire social and existentialnconsequences to the victimsnof that new snake-oil ped­nWhell’s Utippeiiiiiir in Polcitul?nnndling. Ms. Hite’s methodologynand her manipulation of bothnknowledge and ideas would benobjects of amusing scorn in other,nsaner, times. But in our eranthey are made Book of the MonthnClub selections and receive immensenprintings by allegedly respectablenpublishers. Thus insteadnof actually reviewing Ms.nHite’s “work,” it seems morenproper to quote New York magazine,nwhose editorial attitudenmight lead one to expect thisnpublication to be Ms. Hite’s admiringnally:nDespite a mammoth documentarynbonanza and thenbest of intentions, The HitenReport on Male Sexuality isna travesty of sex research.nThe 41 pages that SherenHite actually wrote shouldnbe read with an eye to theirnbasic errors and ideologicalncrudities. IZlnmunism was instinctive for the masses, whonhad never forgotten the 1920 Bolshevik invasion;nit was also an object of scorn amongnthe other strata of the Polish society. Thirtyfivenyears of postwar communism —in whichnthe quest for justice transmogrified into abjectnoppression, and the “most modern” economicnsystem turned into a parody of an economy-resultednin its becoming a cruel caricature,nless feared than despi.sed. The CommunistnParty rode to power in Eastern Europenon Russian bayonets, but developed differentnpolitical traditions. The Polish party quicklynidentified itself in the popular perception asnan organized crime syndicate rather than asna doctrinaire despot. And the Catholic Churchncontinued to demonstrate that a moral messagencan be a serious proposition. In such annenvironment the Marxian moral argumentnwas perpetually on the verge of grotesquery.nBy the end of the 1970’s, it was obvious thatnthere was no need to take seriously either thenargument or those who kill in its name. DnJttly/Attgttst 1981n