Customer Reviews

Selling the Free Market: The Rhetoric of Economic Correctness

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I must confess that I checked out this book from a library only to skim it for a few quotes to cite in a paper I was writing. I wound up spending an entire day reading the book cover to cover. For this reason alone, I recommend it, although I disagree completely with its central thesis.
Aune is a very rare commodity among leftist anti-capitalists: he is well versed in the writings of free-market proponents. Additionally, he is a very good writer, and Selling the Free Market is well written. His summaries of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as well as some of the writings of Nozick, Rothbard, Murray, etc. are as clear as any I've read.
Aune is simply wrong on a few points that are not important to the overall discussion, however. For example, he claims that free market reforms have been "remarkably unsuccessful," pointing to slow economic growth and increasing income inequality (p. 1). Of course many sources reveal that this analysis is just plain incorrect. Read Norberg's In Defense of Global Capitalism (2003) or Sowell's Basic Economics (2000), for example.
Also, Aune attacks Charles Murray's claim that the Civil Rights Acts were unnecessary because (as Murray states) socio/economic progress for racial minorities would have occured in the free market anyway. Aune claims that Murray "provides no proof for this assertion" (p. 114). In fact Murray's book cites trendlines that show Blacks' economic fortunes were rising even before the Civil Rights Movement (Murray 1997, p. 51).
I could go on about Aune's errors but I believe that the overall strength of Aune's book is its overview of the free market movement--such as it is a movement. Certainly, Aune's factual errors are believed and repeated by countless other so-called liberal intellectuals. I rate this book 4 stars for readability. I really do recommend it be read.

Aune's book is an important and timely addition to the debates concerning American public philosophy, specifically regarding the appropriate role of government and markets in the coming global world. The work helps explain (and certainly question) the recent glorifications of markets as social cure-alls, as well as the conservative turn to the scapegoating of government after the boogey-man of communism fell away. Turning conservatism upon itself, Aune ably exposes the contradictions between and within the libertarian and cultural wings of conservatism through a focus on the writings of philosophers such as Rand, Nozick, and Murray as well as politicians such as Reagan, Buchanan, and Gingrich. I feel that through his exposition of the subtle rhetorical strategies of "economic correctness," Aune succeeded in his goal of providing his readers with the necessary equipment to counter the arguments of the free marketers. The book should clearly be read by scholars and advocates interested in rhetoric, economics, and contemporary political philosophy. In addition, due to Aune's readable style and his use of humor, the book is also accessible and worthwhile to broader audiences interested in such issues. Here is at least one reader who hopes that Aune's term "economic correctness" receives broad use in American political discourse.

I see libertarians are really trashing this book. The author is no ivory tower Marxist. He has good things to say about traditional conservatives like Russell Kirk who actually believe in tradition, stable communities, and values beyond the dollar sign. It's a good read, too.

Aune, a professor of speech communication at Texas A&M University, has produced a highly readable though controversial volume about the nature of free-market rhetoric. Libertarians and economic conservatives will likely be offended by Aune's conclusions, though that is precisely his point.

Aune proceeds to systematically deconstruct libertarian economic thought and political discourse, exposing the faulty argumentative strategies of libertarians like Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick, as well as the discourse of more mainstream conservatives.

I will begin this review with the obligatory act of full disclosure. I'm a former student of professor Aune's, and have learned a great deal from him, including (as I hope to show) how to constructively review and critique a text.

"Selling the Free Market" opens with three epigraphs: two from economists (Friedrich Hayek and Alfred Marshall) and the last from Cicero's "De republica," in which Cicero insists that "A commonwealth is the property of a people. But a people is not any collection of human beings brought together in any sort of way, but an assemblage of people in large numbers associated in an agreement with respect to justice and a partnership for the common good." That about says it all. Aune's book is a short but powerful defense of Ciceronian republicanism against the rational choice theorists and intellectual libertarians who want us to view this country not as a democratic republic, but (at best) as a giant shopping mall.

Part one of the book engages the rational choice theorists directly. Rational choice theory posits that human behavior can best be understood by viewing human beings as rational actors who weigh the costs and benefits of various courses of action and then choose the course that maximizes their individual utility. Aune persuasively argues that rational choice theory has become the "rhetoric" of contemporary economic policy discussions in the public realm. It is a kind of "rhetoric of economic correctness." If you don't speak in terms of costs and benefits and utility maximization you are viewed as a fuzzy-headed liberal--or worse. Aune also persuasively argues that rational choice theory simply does not do justice to the human condition. I imagine that Richard Posner, a rational choice theorist of the first rank, whom Aune discusses at length, would respond to Aune by saying: "Rational choice theory is like algebra. If you plug in the correct variables, and do the calculations correctly, it will give you the correct answer. But the variables are what they are. Rational choice theory has nothing to say about that." Aune's response is that some important human goals, aspirations, and values simply cannot be quantified, and thus cannot be "reduced" to mere "variables" in a rational choice theorist's equation. To use one of Aune's own examples, it is certainly possible to describe "labor" as a "commodity," and then to squabble over the ways in which labor unions may affect the "price" of this commodity, thus affecting a host of complex macro-economic factors. But Aune argues that if you understand labor and labor unions in this narrowly economic sense, you will not be able to understand the values of solidarity, empowerment, workplace happiness, and even fundamental fairness--all of which could also reasonably be associated with labor unions. In a final riposte, Posner might argue that the "goods" of solidarity, empowerment, and workplace happiness could--at least in some rough sense--be quantified, thus rational choice theory could still be an appropriate way to discuss policy options regarding labor unions. In his final and most important rebuttal, Aune would I think insist that even if the goods we are speaking of could in some rough sense be quantified, the *preferences* for these goods are not a "given." Rather, these preferences emerge out of debates and discussions among real individuals in real, historically situated, societies. In other words, just as advertising changes consumer desires (to some degree), and laws change attitudes (to some degree), democratic discussions change our preferences for various more or less quantifiable "goods" like happiness, a sense of empowerment, a sense of justice, and so forth--*to some degree.* Importantly, the process by which this change takes place simply cannot be modeled by rational choice theory. At this point I imagine that rational choice theorists like Posner might be likely to throw up their hands, mumble something about the unfortunate aversion to mathematics displayed by humanities professors, and then blithely continue to generate ever more complicated econometric theories on their ever more sophisticated computers.

Part two of the book extends the analysis in part one by way of a very close reading of several prominent libertarian intellectuals, including Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Murray. As some of the more intemperate reviews on this site make clear, this part of the book touched a nerve, especially among the disciples of Rothbard. Although I haven't read much of Rothbard's work, I'm quite familiar with the other theorists Aune discusses. It strikes me that while Aune's criticisms are often sharp and not always amiable, he is never fundamentally unfair to his subject. Ayn Rand is a case in point. To my mind there is no more devastating critique of Rand's work than the seventeen pages you will find in Aune's book. This critique is also necessary, I think, for if my admittedly unscientific surveys of the students in my freshman college classes are any indication, it would seem that at least some of Rand's books are required reading in some American high schools. Aune argues that while Rand's hyper-sexualized, hyper-individualized worldview is consonant with a teenage male's utopian fantasy, it is utterly inappropriate in a world where one has serious and often ethically complex obligations to one's spouse, children, parents, neighbors, co-workers, and indeed one's fellow human beings. I'm somewhat surprised that the disciples of Rand have not yet posted any vicious reviews of Aune's book on this site. Perhaps their parents have restricted their internet usage, out of a justifiable worry that they are spending too much time alone in their bedrooms, engaged in role-playing games.

Part three of the book examines the political rhetoric of two notable conservatives, Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich, each of whom represent, according to Aune, two alternative paths that the conservative movement can take in its attempts to extend the legacy of the most successful conservative of the last half century: Ronald Reagan. The alternative represented by Buchanan would steer the conservative movement in the direction of the anti-immigration, anti-free trade, values based rhetoric that Reagan so skillfully used in the 1980s to capture the hearts and minds of the blue collar Democrats and rust-belt workers. The alternative represented by Gingrich would steer the conservative movement in the direction of a rhetoric that is brightly optimistic, in thrall to the positive potential of technology, and firmly committed to the idea that the material progress bought about by the "third wave" information economy will make life better for everyone--just the kind of rhetoric that appealed to the young urban professionals of the 1980s and 1990s. These two alternative rhetorics for the conservative movement are not directly opposed to one another, but as Aune skillfully points out throughout his book, these rhetorics are--let us say--in tension with each other. For what it's worth, I think the alternative offered by Gingrich is more viable than the alternative offered by Buchanan. Indeed, while not even a "futurist" can predict the future, it's safe to say that Newt Gingrich--a History Ph.D., a former college professor, a former Time Magazine "Man of the Year," a former Speaker of the House, and an individual whose personal life is at least as complicated as Bill Clinton's--is running for President in 2008. Aune's clever and often highly entertaining analysis of Gingrich's rhetoric gives us a head start in understanding much of what we may be hearing in the next couple of years from the Republican Party. For that reason alone, Aune's book is worth the price of an Amazon sale.

Finally, I should add that Aune's book includes a lengthy appendix, written in a prose style more academic than that of the rest of the book, which critiques the work of Deirdre McCloskey. As an economist of the so-called "Chicago School," which is known for its rigorous mathematical orientation, McCloskey gained a great deal of notoriety beginning in the 1980s by arguing that the actual writings of academic economists is often much more dependent upon persuasion and rhetoric, and much less dependent on incontrovertible numbers and mathematical theorems, than these economists would like to admit. Aune applauds this insight, but argues that McCloskey largely neglects the way that rhetoric actually brings economies into being by shaping our very selves.

All of which brings us back to the beginning of this review and to a general assessment of Aune's book. After all is said and done I would argue that Aune's principal "enemy" in this lively and often irreverent work is none other than the rational choices theorists who have virtually colonized public discussion of economic matters. Rational choice theorists view man as "Homo economicus." But as Aune writes: "No human being can for long live solely as Homo economicus, so all free-marketeers end up with elements of irrationality in their systems: disciples of [Ludwig von] Mises [Murray Rothbard's mentor] become radical neo-Confederates; Randians become love junkies; Republicans become Cold Warriors or find Jesus; and libertarians become racists or gun fanatics" (168). The prose here is surely a bit purple. But after reading this passage, I first thought of Rick Warren's now three-year long New York Times bestseller, "The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?" Then I thought of the 2006 Pew Research Center report on what makes Americans happy. That report, based upon telephone interviews with a representative sample of over three thousand Americans, found that the happiest Americans are healthy, are married, go to Church regularly, have higher than average incomes (regardless of what that average is), and identify themselves as Republicans. Perhaps money--or at least *relative* wealth--can buy a bit of happiness after all. But since marriage and religion seem to obligate one in all sorts of ways, it would appear that the unrestrained individual freedom advocated by libertarians doesn't correlate all that well with happiness.

So far, fine. But as Lenin said: What is to be done? Pressing his case for practical political reform, Aune concludes with this--what I consider to be the most important passage in his book: "A new political program for a global, democratic left must emphasize the importance of the welfare state, strong unions, and regulation of the financial markets *for the preservation of traditional communities.* The classical theorists of rhetoric and their twentieth-century successors knew that human beings are a composite of appetite, spiritedness (thymos), and reason. Free-market economists are at a loss to explain the development of social norms. Only epideictic discourse, or the kind of craft knowledge--practical wisdom--that transcends the calculation of costs and benefits, can explain their development. The triumph of one-dimensional Homo economicus occurs at the expense of family, work, neighborhood, freedom, and faith--the *topoi* of conservatism at its best" (170).

Aune's political program may be laudatory; his turn to classical theorists of rhetoric as a way of recovering a fuller vision of who we are as humans is refreshing and sorely needed; and his indictment of the one-dimensionality of Homo economicus is dead on. But his dual contentions that "free-market economists are at a loss to explain the development of social norms," and that "*only* epideictic discourse...can explain their development," are both at best misleading. Free-market economic theory is not that conceptually impoverished; and epideictic discourse--or any type of discourse, for that matter--is not that powerful. I will happily admit that some type of discourse is often a *necessary* condition for the development of many (perhaps most) social norms in any society. And I'm even willing to concede that in a few rare cases discourse alone may be sufficient to establish certain social norms. But these norms usually turn out not to be particularly important, for, as I said, discourse just isn't that powerful. If it were, more than seventy years of gaseous rhetoric from any number of Soviet leaders would finally have produced the "New Soviet Man" we were promised. It did not, of course. My point is not that rhetoric is powerless to change our world. Quite the opposite. I'm one of those who believe that Ronald Reagan's powerful and unflinching epideictic discourse concerning the moral bankruptcy of the Soviet system helped to bring about the demise of that very system. But rhetoric surely does not construct, or deconstruct, physical reality. Aune taught us as much in his first book, "Rhetoric and Marxism," when he emphasized how important it was "to criticize rhetorical theory and practice from a Marxist standpoint." One key element of that criticism was directed at reminding rhetoricians that there is a material world out there that often imposes material constraints on action--constraints that cannot simply be eliminated by renaming or re-describing our world. Although I doubt Aune would want to follow me this far, I would extend his insight into the social realm as well. I agree with Aune that the "free market" is not real, in the sense that my local supermarket is real. And the "invisible hand" has neither flesh nor bone nor sinew. These economic ideas are obviously theoretical abstractions. But if, as Aune insists, these unaided abstractions cannot explain the development of social norms, neither, I would insist, can unaided epideictic discourse.

If I'm right, the question that begs the asking is: Where *do* our social norms come from? My answer is that they emerge from our evolved human nature. I believe that the boundaries of human nature are certainly capacious enough to allow for the development of a very wide range of social norms that ground a very wide range of societies, including the often heartless and economically unjust societies Aune decries in "Selling the Free Market," and the more humane, welfare-state societies Aune encourages in his book. But there are real limits that our evolved human nature puts on the development of social norms, and thus, ultimately, on the creation of viable human societies. Much as we might not like it, these limits cannot be overcome even by the most skillful epideictic orator.

Aune would doubtless respond to the above paragraph by arguing the very concept of "human nature" is as much an abstraction as the "free market" or the "invisible hand." He would also surely point out that the scientific intellectuals (generally, evolutionary psychologists and cognitive scientists) who claim to possess some special scientific understanding of human nature threaten to colonize our public policy discussions in exactly the way that rational choice theorists have colonized such discussions.

Perhaps. But in the end one must decide whether human nature is, or is not, a proper subject for theory. I think that it is. I also think that every rhetoric is grounded in a theory of human nature. I began by quoting Aune's epigraph from Cicero, and suggesting that "Selling the Free Market" is a defense of civic republicanism. Cicero was a great statesman and orator. But, truth be told, he wasn't much of a theorist. I hope that in his next book Aune provides us with a theory of human nature to ground the civic republicanism he and Cicero champion.

James Arnt Aune's Selling the Free Market provides a key to the rhetoric of economic correctness and will greatly appeal to college-level students of economics, examining the 'economically correct' language of conservatives and examining how the free market rhetoric has become part of social and political debates across the country. Key principles of free-market economics are provided.

I found this book an excellent resource on the rhetoric of the 'free market'. Probably a very useful supplement to McCloskey's "Rhetoric of Economics" or Perelman's "Railroading Economics", Aune argues that the rise of free-market rhetoric accompanied the collapse of both state communism and social democracy, as well as the rise of the internet and the escalation of neoliberal globalization. He presents and critiques a number of commonly used arguments and rhetorical styles--in particular, I found his analysis of 'rhetorical realism' especially useful, as it's frequently used to imply that opponents or critics of free-market economics simply don't 'understand' economics (a fallacy the author explores in some depth, in, for example, the controversies regarding minimum wage policies, labor unions, and farm subsidies, to name a few). Aune's analysis of the 'futility' and 'perversity' theses will also shed light on the rhetorical strategies adopted by conservatives and other proponents of a market society. Free marketeers essentially frame their opponents as flat-earthers who have been unable to adapt to the new, unified, and highly mobile world of 21st century capitalism.

As evidenced by their pretentious and condescending reviews, libertarians should probably avoid this book. Most of the criticisms made in their reviews are either their own subjective, ideological judgments (e.g. regarding Aune's politics) or involve, to a large extent, listing minor factual errors in succession to suggest that Aune is to some degree a poor researcher.

This book, in summation, comes highly recommended, especially as the hegemony and legitimacy of free-market capitalism increasingly take a richly deserved beating under the weight of a severe economic crisis which it played no small part in causing.

The reviews that accuse Aune of being a Marxist omit the fact that he "has learned as much from. . . traditionalist conservative critics of market rhetoric as I have from those on the left."

Mostly this is a book of rhetorical criticism and analysis pointed enough so that there are those who wouldn't want you to read it.

Who would have thought that the noble libertarian, whatever their school or stance, would have such thin skins and tin ears? Any way, this book is a critical analysis of the so-called `free market,' its salespeople, and the reality behind the rhetoric. It is highly recommended.

I have to agree whole heartedly with the previous reviewer on this. It is obvious that Aune has not read very much of Rothbard's work and has focused entirely on the criticism of his work written by anarcho-socialists (who haven't even read Rothbard either). Aune's glaring errors about Rothbard's writing and Aune's tiresome descriptions of "market failure" and "oppression of the proletariat" are predictable and boring. Aune also engaged in a form of intellectual dishonesty common to marxists for the last 150 years. She did not even mention government failure or the impossibility for any collective organization to rationally organize the means of production due to the lack of a free pricing system provided by the free market. His dishonesty was that he consistently talked about the glory of marxism by discussing the evils (failure) of capitalism. There was no discussion about how a socialist society would be organized or its own "glory." Where was the discussion about the paradise of Cambodia? Or the worker's utopia of Albania? But I should not be surprised by Aune, he's just following in the footsteps of every other marxist that came before him.