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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent on Judaism, sometimes weak on economics., February 8, 2000
Meir Tamari, also the author of _The Challenge of Wealth_ and _Al Chet: Sins in the Marketplace_, here provides an excellent overview of Jewish ethics and economic life. Dr. Tamari presents a solid case that Judaism regards economic activity as legitimate and honorable, and at the same time dispels common antisemitic myths about Jews and money.Beginning with a broad discussion of the limitations Judaism places on economic activity, Dr. Tamari then provides a short survey of Jewish economic history and a selection of responsa on economic disputes. He then devotes several chapters to such topics as tzedakah and taxation, clearly and cogently summarizing what Halakha says about each. The resulting volume will be of great value to anyone who wants to know what Judaism says about economic practice. It will, however, be less helpful to those who want to learn something about economics -- though it should be added at once that (a) teaching economic principles was not Dr. Tamari's purpose in this volume and (b) at any rate his "sins" in this regard are at least no worse than those of standard mainstream economics textbooks. Still, a sounder economic approach would surely have made the exposition clearer on other topics. Dr. Tamari is probably just bending over backwards to keep his discussion of Judaism free from commitment to any particular view of economics, while acknowledging that Judaism tends to favor the free market. Unfortunately he therefore sometimes writes that a "society" is free to allocate "its" resources by whatever "market mechanism" it wishes, from the free market to central planning -- ignoring both the economic fact that central planning is not a "market mechanism" at all, and the ethical fact that a State-run economy cannot help but violate the very principles of justice and righteousness that Dr. Tamari otherwise presents so well. In fact, these principles themselves would rule out communism and socialism completely; the institution of private property, together with its corollary prohibitions on theft and fraud, should have committed Judaism to free-market economics, properly understood. The underlying difficulty here seems lie with Dr. Tamari's conception of what a free market _is_. I say this because he is constantly remarking that Judaism allows certain "distortions" of the free market, when in fact most of the "distortions" he cites are not distortions at all -- or at least need not be, depending how they are encouraged or enforced. (If I am not mistaken, Dr. Tamari studied at the London School of Economics, not exactly a hotbed of free-market thought. The fact that he recognizes an important role for the free market _at all_ is therefore highly commendable.) All of which means only that Dr. Tamari is one of many people who could profit from a closer reading of Ludwig von Mises and other economists of the Austrian school -- at least to get clear what does and does not constitute a "distortion" of the free market (and in particular to get clear that Jewish religious/ethical observances do not constitute such "distortions"). This fact does not in any way tell against his fine presentation of Judaism's "take" on economics, but it does occasionally distort his presentation of important economic principles.
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by Nosson Scherman
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