April 1992

RIM ankles, demurely alluring. How they faacinate, captivate. And Twell she knows glove-fitting Holeproof Hosiery make$ them 80.

In this short'8kirted era. Holeproof is becoming as famous for its eheerness. shapeliness and lustrous beauty, as it is for wonderful wearing qualitie&.

Leading stores are now showing the newest ideas (or Spring in staple and fancy styles in Pure Silk, in Silk Paced and in Lisles (or men. women and children.

HOLEPROOP HOSIERY COMPANY, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN Holeproof 1I00imt ComJ)QJ' of eaDada. LIlllIttl!. l.otIdon. Om.

Conflict resolution is a term increasingly heard in international relations these days. It refers to themultiplicity of avenues that countries can take beyond formal negotiations to ease tensions and settle disputes. Harold H. Saunders, a former U.S. State Department official who visited India earlier this year, is one of the leading exponents of conflict resolution. In SPAN this month, he discusses its background and meaning, noting that "One characteristic of our changing world is the widening influence of private citizens in national policy-making and in the conduct of international relationships."

Those relationships increasingly are focusing on questions of environmental degradation. Who doubts that this will be a dominating issue in international relations for the remainder of this decade and well into the next? Certainly not the many thousands of citizens around the world who will demonstrate their concern for the environment on Earth Day this month, nor the organizers of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development scheduled for June in Rio de Janeiro.

Environmental problems-from the hole in the ozone layer to water pollution, from deforestation to toxic wastes-affect all of us. Sometimes we are affected on a very personal and emotional level. Take the example of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Edmund Morris, who looked out his window one morning to see someone about to chop down the tree in his neighbor's yard. Reacting in the best tradition of India's Chipko movement, he impulsively ran outside and wrapped his arms around the trunk of the stately pine. But to no avail. As he sadly reports on these pages, "Who owns the roots, owns the tree."

When emotionalism creeps into the wider debate of environmental issues,it often takes dead aim at development.

In the extreme, arguments are made for the cessation of development altogether. This iswrong. One thing I learned in researching and writing a just-completed book on the environment in Brazil's Amazon River region is that economic growth, environmental protection, and the reduction of poverty must go hand in hand. Man needs to go forward with development-responsible, sustainable development.

I found a good example of this in the centuries-old practice of Amazonian natives gathering or harvesting native forest products without destroying or damaging the ecosystem. This practice, referred to as "extractivism," has its limits, but it can put a decent income within the reach of the poorest segments of the Amazon's rural population.

William K. Reilly, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, writes in this issue about the goal of achieving sustainable growth consistent with the needs and constraints of nature. "Harmonizing economic expansion with environmental protection requires a recognition that there are environmental benefits to growth, just as there are economic benefits flowing from healthy natural systems," he says.

More than a million natives in Amazonia work with that recognition. We can all learn from them.

2

200 Years of Advertising

8 New Approaches

to Resolving International Conflicts

by Harold H. Saunders

12

A Walk in the Woods

13

On the Lighter Side

14

Focus On .•.

16 22

From Lab to Field

by Richard Scorza

by Nancy S. Grant

Economic Growth and Environmental Gain

by William K. Reilly

28

Kit Creativity

33

"Please Don't Kill That Tree"

34

A World of Words

38

General Rancidity

39 42

The Fletcher Experience

46

Moved to Paint

by Michael Leccese

by Edmund Morris

An Interview With Padgett Powell by Muriel Wasi A Short Story by Padgett Powell

The Work Ethic-Then

by Pramit Pal Chaudhuri

and Now

by Seymour Martin Lipset

by Anuradha Chopra

Front cover: A 1921advertisement for Holeproof Hosiery, illustrated by Coles Phillips, who drew hemlines higher than other artists, but always within the bounds of contemporary acceptability. See pages 2-7.

Publisher, Stephen F. Dachi; Editor, Guy E. Olson

Krishan Gabrani; Senior Editor, Amna Dasgupta; Copy Editors, A. Venkata Narayana, Snigdha Goswami; Editorial Assistants, Rocque Fernandes, Rashmi Goel; photo Editor, Avinash Pasricha; Art Director, Nand Katyal; Associate Art Director, Kanti Roy; Artist, Hemant Bhatnagar; Production Assistant, Sanjay Pokhriyal; Circulation Manager, D.P. Sharma; Photographic Services: USIS Photographic Services Unit; Research Services: USIS Documentation Services, American Center Library, New Delhi.

Managing

Editor,

Photographs: Front cover, 2-7-from the book Advertising in America: The First 200 Years, published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York. 8, 12-Avinash Pasricha. 18Keith Weller, U.S. Department of Agriculture/Agriculture Research Service (USDA/ARS).

19center top-Lowell Georgia, USDA/ARS; center bottom-William L. Mesner, University of Kentucky; right-Bob Bjork, USDA/ARS. 21-William L. Mesner, University of Kentucky. 22-Environmental Protection Agency. 24-25-Š 1990Smithsonian magazine. 28 top-Kenneth E. White; bottom-eourtesy Kuempel Chime. 3(}-courtesy Monterey Domes. 31 top-Jeff Hansen, courtesy Sequoia Aircraft Corp.; center-----wurtesyFolbot, Inc.; bottom left-eourtesy Cohasset Colonials; bottom right-elassic Sports Car. 35 top-R.K. Sharma. 39-41-eourtesy Pramit Pal Chaudhuri. 46 top left-Avinash Pasricha. 48-Lee Gordon. Pictures courtesy Jill Karlin.

Erratum: In "The Indian Experience" (SPAN, January 1992), author Leonard A. Gordon should have been identified as professor of history at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and senior research associate at Columbia University in New York.

Published by the United States Information Service, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 3316841),on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. Printed at Thomson Press (India) Limited, Faridabad, Haryana. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.

Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For permisskm write to the Editor. Price of magazine, one year's subscription (12 issues) Rs. 60; single copy, Rs. 6.

200 Years of Advertising Advertisements do more than sell products or services. They also te11the story of their times. A recently published book, Advertising in America: The First 200 Years (from which the following advertisements have been taken), offers interesting glimpses of the country's commercial history, its changing social mores and lifestyles, its fads and fancies, and trends in graphic design. America's first print ads were bland announcements about items for sale and missing slaves. America has changed considerably in two centuries, and its ads reflect that change in numerous and varied ways.

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The broadside, as wide as a newspaper page, was tacked up in public places around town.

Walker chose to advertise by broadside because a shortage of newsprint severely cramped the space available for advertising in local newspapers.

1857, Musk Cologne. In mid-19th-century America, cosmetics were limited to hair dressings and scents like musk cologne. The firm of Apollos W. Harrison claimed its musk cologne to be genuine because Harrison owned the only two musk deer "ever imported alive into this country."

1869, Clothes Washer and Wringer. There are few things advertising does as well as introducing new inventions to the public. This ad presented a new machine that promised to relieve women of the endless drudgery of scrubbing clothes by hand on washboards. Its appeal was so immediately apparent that the picture told all, and little copy was needed.

1896, Lowney Chocolate Bonbons. Celebrity endorsements have been used in ads since the 18th century. Regal 19th-century actress Sarah Bernhardt endorsed Lowney's chocolate bonbons.

1898, Ivory Soap. In 1878, when most of America was washing with a harsh, yellow soap, Procter & Gamble invented and marketed, with limited success, a mild white soap.

One day a vat of white s.oap was stirred more than it normally would have been, whipping tiny air bubbles into the ingredients, and the soap turned out to be lighter than water. The error was not noticed until the company got orders for "the soap that floats." The process was quickly adopted and this characteristic of white soap-now renamed Ivory Soap-has been emphasized ever since. Ivory Soap is also associated with one of the most famous slogans in advertising history. Harley Procter, a founder of Procter & Gamble, sent Ivory Soap to chemists in New York City to be compared to the ingredients of castile soap, the purest soap then known. If castile soap were considered a benchmark, the chemists reported, then Ivory Soap contained 0.56 percent impurities.

Procter subtracted the 0.56 percent from 100 percent and came up with a slogan describing Ivory Soap as "99 and 44/1OOthpercent pure," a line as recognizable in America today as it was 100 years ago.

Late 19th century, Carter's Little Liver Pills. A nonprescription medicine, these pills have been selling well for 100 years as a remedy for

various ills. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission ordered "Liver" dropped from the trade name in 1959 because the pill's effect on liver disorders could not be proved. Nonetheless, its euphonious original name remains fixed in the minds of most older Americans.

1901, Kodak Pocket Folding Camera. When George Eastman invented the first folding camera in 1895, he put photography within reach of thousands of amateurs, all of whom sought cameras, film, and prints. Eastman was among the first to use two colors in his ads.

1903, Coca-Cola. This is the first of three Coca-Cola ads on these pages showing the company's various approaches to advertising through the decades. From the beginning, Coca-Cola associated its product with fashionable, beautiful women. The woman in this ad is Lillian Nordica, then the reigning queen of New York's Metropolitan Opera.

1910, Quaker Wheat Berries. When the Quaker Oats Company introduced its first cold breakfast cereals, it named them "Puffed Rice" and "Wheat Berries." Shortly thereafter, it contracted with a famous advertising agency, Lord & Thomas of Chicago, Illinois, to redesign its ads. A copywriter changed the names to "Puffed Rice" and "Puffed Wheat" to emphasize the fact that rice and wheat kernels were being "puffed" by a new processing technique. The cereals first sold for ten cents each, but Lord & Thomas persuaded Quaker Oats to raise the price to 15 cents and invest the extra five cents in advertising.

1915, Phoenix Silk Hose. By 1915, silk hose had become affordable to ordinary people as well as the rich, and the advertiser could reveal a good 46 centimeters of stocking in this late Victorian period without being accused of bad taste. This is a subtle use of sex appeal to sell goods. Surprisingly, less nudity worked better than more. "A naked woman on a couch would be skipped right by," said one advertising expert, "but an inch-and-a-half of stocking top revealed by a model would bring both male and female readers to a literary stop." (It takes more than that today-see the ad for pantyhose on page 7.)

1916, Campbell's Soups. Campbell's Soups began national advertising in 1899 by putting posters of its now famous red-and-white soup cans on street cars. The Campbell Kids were introduced in 1904 to appeal to women shoppers. But they became favorites of children when the company added jingles and showed the Kids engaging in endless adventures, as in balancing a soup can with a stick. For over 50 years, American children would fill empty Saturday mornings by cutting the Kids out of

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1927, Sears and Roebuck. This picture graced the cover of the 1927 edition of the famous Sears mail-order catalog, a 450-page listing of clothes, household goods, tools, toys, hunting and fishing equipment-virtually anything that could be found in a department store. The catalogs were mailed annually to American families throughout the country who studied them carefully, as the picture suggests, and mailed in their orders. This arrangement was based on trust, starting with an accurate description of the goods offered. For a century, Sears advertising copy has been a masterpiece of simplicity, explaining what each item is (usually accompanied by a photograph), what it does, and how much it costs.

1928, Cellophane. This ad introduced the first clear packaging sheet of transparent cellulose.

It was made by Du Pont, a leading chemical

A Balanced Ration A food which is first of all delightfully appetizing. And also a food that combines in just the right proportions ihe various e1e.ments whi<:h your

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manufacturing company. Copywriters called the Ou Pont product "Cellophane," and explained its use in this ad. In small letters under "Cellophane" is a declaration reading: "Cellophane is the registered trade mark of Du Pont Cellophane Company, Inc., to designate its transparent cellulose sheets and films, developed from pure wood pulp (not a byproduct)." As a registered trademark, only Ou Pont was legally allowed to use Cellophane to describe this product. But the ad was so good that cellophane entered the American language as a generic term for any plastic wrapping paper, no matter which company made it.

1929, Prudential Life Insurance. This ad ran after the Great Depression struck and money was tight. Prudential Insurance Company of Newark, New Jersey (its symbol-the Rock of Gibraltar-is placed in the ad's lower left corner), was more concerned at that time about collecting monthly premiums on policies already in force than selling new ones. The ad conveys the pain and worry of a recent widow who is forced to sell the family home.

Had her dead husband paid the premiums, the proceeds from his life insurance policy would have paid off the home mortgage. The ad appeared a few years before Social Security provided a small measure of protection to widows, and a lapsed policy in 1929 could indeed have had tragic consequences.

1930, Arrow Shirts. The Arrow Shirt Company was founded in 1851 as a manufacturer of detachable collars. It was the custom then for men to change collars daily, but wear their shirts longer before laundering them. By the outbreak of World War I, Arrow Shirts was stocking 400 models of detached collars.

When American soldiers returned from France, they spoke highly of a foreign shirt with a soft, attached collar. By 1921, Arrow offered a similar shirt, and it soon accounted for most of the company's business. The Arrow Collar Man, here dancing at a ball, was created by J.e. Leyendecker, who painted him in various high-society scenes from 1907 to 1931. The Arrow Collar Man became such a convincing symbol that generations of college men copied every detail of his dress-including, of course, the Arrow Shirt.

1930, Cadillac. This was the age of the great luxury cars, among them a 16-cylinder Cadillac illustrated here. By 1927, Cadillac was sufficiently recognized for the quality of its product that only a few words in an ad were sufficient copy to achieve its purpose.

1931, Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola began a series of ads in 1931 featuring a plump, cheerful Santa Claus by artist Haddon Sundblom. His vision

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of Santa became the standard for most Americans. Some historians attribute the difference between the somewhat threatening European Father Winter symbol and the American Santa Claus to the years in which Sundblom showed us how Santa looked in Coca-Cola calendars, billboards, and ads.

1939, Coca-Cola. Throughout its advertising history, Coca-Cola has made "refreshment" a central theme. Its slogan, "The Pause That Refreshes," was the all-time greatest slogan, first appearing in 1929 and leading all other slogans for recall and acceptance. (The 1980s

slogan was as much of a hit: "Coke is it!")

Here, the Coca-Cola girl-the embodiment of middle America's girl-next-door-holds the uniquely shaped Coca-Cola bottle. Industrial designer Raymond Loewy declared that the two most perfectly designed containers ever made were the Coke bottle and the egg.

1948, General Electric's Disposall. This ad introduces a new technology for disposing of garbage. Garbage is simply flushed down the kitchen-sink drain and into the Disposall, which grinds it into a slush that can be carried out through the pipes. This technology is standard in American homes today, and it remains much the same as when it was introduced. General Electric's promotion of this product has been so effective that "Disposall," a registered trade name, is now used to describe any such device.

1951, Hathaway Shirts. Hathaway had been making shirts since 1837, but few people had ever heard of them until advertising genius David Ogilvy created this classic American ad campaign. There is nothing the matter with the model's eye. Ogilvy simply bought a patch in a drugstore on the way to work to give the model dramatic appeal. Although the Hathaway Shirt ads initially ran only in a New York magazine, in no time the Hathaway Man became an upscale folk hero, nationally recognized, and sales for Hathaway ballooned.

The eye patch worked for 40 years, and is considered among the greatest ad ideas of all time.

1962, Polaroid Camera. This is an ad for the Polaroid camera that develops a photograph within the camera, giving the picture-taker an instant print. Because the product was new and unique, the advertising logically followed the themes associated with new technology presentation: What it was, how it worked, and what it would do for you. But for the first five years, the camera did not sell up to expectations. Whereupon the Polaroid Company fired its advertising agency and hired another one, which analyzed the problem. Its conclusion: The earlier ads had been so explicit about how it worked that people assumed it was too difficult for them to master. The new agency cut out all the details and implied in its ads that all you did was push a button and presto! you had a finished picture. Even a ten-year-old boy, like the one in the ad, could do it. The strategy worked immediately; sales shot up.

1969, Lady Remington Instant Hair Curlers.

This ad compares a new, faster way of curling hair (right) with the old way (left). Research revealed that so many people had read and remembered the copy that in 1969 the ad was

1915

listed among those ads most recalled-one of the highest accolades an ad can earn.

1970, Levi's. A clever addition to Michelangelo's David suggests how good young men look in Levi's cutoff jeans. The ad designer believed no copy to be necessary except the name of the blue jeans. Blue jeans, the great American contribution to clothing, can be traced to 1859, when Levi-Strauss made work trousers for California goldminers from canvas he had planned to sell for tents and wagon covers.

1980, Maxell Cassette Tapes. Good technology advertising says dramatize what the product will do for the buyer. But how do you represent sound on a printed page? Many believe it has never been done better than this.

1986, Ladies' Home Journal (page 3). For decades, advertisers propagandized women into believing that they had no choice other

than to be a better housekeeper, a better mother, and a more loving, caring wife. Then came the feminist movement in the 1960s.

Feminists loudly criticized advertisers' condescension toward women-their stereotyping of the housewife as being emotional,. shallow, preoccupied with fashion, cosmetics, and getting the attention of men. This ad recognizes the dual responsibilities of many modern American women. They are both career women and homemakers.

1986, Xerox. Social historians have called Xerox, the first copy machine, the most spectacular single technological creation of the 20th century. For decades the chief impetus for sales and rental was simply seeing the near-miracle of a Xerox machine in action.

Only in the early 1980s, when competitors became a threat, did Xerox begin to advertise.

Their best ad campaign featured a devout

monk who reminded everyone what a miracle the original invention had been.

1987, Maidenform Hi-Leg Stockings. This ad is a descendant of 19th-century ads that teased readers because they showed an extra inch or two of leg that was normally not displayed in public. Maidenform is well known for its ads showing women, wearing only Maidenform undergarments, in various social scenes. Such ads infuriated feminists, but research found them to be some of the best-read, best-remembered ads in advertising history, and they sold Maidenform products at a brisk rate.

1988, Charlie Perfume by Revlon. The Charlie Perfume Woman was one of the earliest to show a confident working woman striding purposefully through a male world. Following her introduction in 1973, female models for other products were also posed as engaged in traditionally male-oriented activities, reflect- . ing the growing number of women joining the work force. Charlie Perfume Woman's gentle pat in this ad expresses camaraderie between two career equals, a gesture most frequently seen in team sports when players congratulate one another for good plays. The New York Times refused to run the ad, saying it was "sexist," and "in poor taste," but II women's magazines accepted it, viewing the tone as "lighthearted."

0 Acli'errising in America: Abrams.

The First 200 Years.

Joe .. New York. 1990, is available

published by Harry N. in the American

libraries in Calcutta. Madras. and New Delhi.

Center

New

Approaches to

Resolving ~ International Conllicts The author, who has had considerable experience in official and unofficial efforts to settle international problems, says, "Only when persons feel safe in expressing real concerns ...do they begin to share what really moves them." He points to the success of various informal dialogues, "where participants act as the human beings they are," over official negotiations, where "the persons involved often speak as though they are the titles they hold."

Harold H. Saunders is director of international relations for the Kettering Foundation, an American think tank. He served on the National Security Council at the White House from 1961 to 1974 and at the State Department from 1974 to 1981, where he held three consecutive positions-as director of intelligence and research, and as deputy assistant secretary and then assistant secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. Saunders lectures often on conflict management, peacemaking, international relations, and related topics. He visited India in January, talking with academics, defense experts, and journalists about conflict resolution in general, the examples of U.S.Soviet and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in particular, and his involvement in problem solving at the local government level in America.

This article has been adapted from the chapter, "Officials and Citizens in International Relationships," in The Psychodynamics of International Relationships, edited by Vamik D. Volkan, Joseph V. Montville, and Demetrios A. Julius (Lexington Books, 1990).

His most recent book is The Other Walls: The ArabIsraeli Peace Process in a Global Perspective (Princeton University Press, 1991).

by HAROLD H. SAUNDERS

I

n these waning yea" nf the 20th cen tury we find 0 ""elves in the midst of a historic shift in understanding how nations rela te.

As a result of this shift, new concepts are slowly coming into focus that are steadily changing how governments and citizens will play their roles in relationships among nations. The changes will not be complete, quick, or neat, but the process has already begun, and the sooner participants are clear about how they can play th~ir roles legitimately and creatively, the more resourceful and constructive those relationships can become.

One chqracteristic of our changing world is the widening influence of private citizens in national policy-making and in the conduct of international relationships.

To be sure, that may be more a phenomenon of the industrialized than of the developing nations today, but it is not limited to the northern hemisphere. Admittedly, nation states still have institutional lives of their own, but, more and more, human beings are demanding that their institutions reflect human needs and values. Of course, some systems still minimize the. role of people in the design and conduct of policy and see international relations as a strategic chess game among powerful state leaders. But the cost of ignoring the larger role of people came home vividly in 1989 to leaders from Tiananmen to Timisoara-not to mention U.S. leaders struggling to respond with the full human and intellectual resources of the United States.

The differences between official behavior and the behavior of private citizens may not be entirely explained by their governmental or nongovernmental status. These differences may be fully explained only by the fact that some citizens are already acting-at least instinctively-from a shifting perception of how nations relate, for they can sense that a new way of

thinking is needed to reflect accurately what the world is becoming. As officials also widen their views, the behavior of the two groups may come closer. Real differences will remain, but one hopes that more complementary behavior may replace the regrettable suspicion and antagonism of the past between the governors and the governed.

Having played both roles, my interest is in the most effective and creative performance by both together in the larger interests of nations and the relationships among them that are becoming critical to world peace. So great has the distrust between governments and citizens become that it is essential for them to reassessopenly what they expect of each other. Governments see "citizen diplomats" as dangerous meddlers-sometimes with reason. Citizens see governments as paralyzed in dealing with vital issues of war and peace-sometimes with reason.

Changing Concepts As numbers and kinds of participants in relationships among nations multiply in a changing world, all need to understand the context in which they play roles. All need to consider afresh what each can and cannot effectively or properly do--what strengthens a relationship and what does not. The following examples make, but do not exhaust, the point.

First, the lenses through which officials or citizens see a problem partly determine how effectively they communicate.

This may seem an unnecessary point, for one would assume that leaders will communicate effectively. That is not the case in normal human relationships, and it is no more the case among human beings who are leaders. Sitting in on conversations among leaders demonstrates dramatically how they are not immune to the normal human frailties of speaking imprecisely from self-centered positions and not showing interest or really hearing another's concerns. If they are simply stating positions, they can easily be misunderstood. If they act in relationship to explore problems together, misunderstanding is less likely.

Second, it makes a difference whether those engaging in dialogue simply assume the conflicting interests of an adversary or even the declared interests of a friend or whether they develop a relationship within which they can probe for the real fears, concerns, and feelings underlying stated interests.

Only when persons feel safe in expressing real concerns, even though doing so may increase vulnerability, do they begin to share what really moves them. Understanding those real concerns is a first step in shaping workable courses of action.

If one defines interests as Including psychological as well as physical needs, one must create a setting in which these can be gently probed. To date, that kind of understanding has been more possible in nonofficial dialogue where participants act as the human beings they are than in official exchanges where the persons involved often speak as though they are the titles they hold. That difference could be diminished, even though some limits would still restrict official dialogue.

Third, it makes a difference whether officials or citizens paper over divergent interests or explore them honestly. Acting

self-consciously to develop and sustain a relationship requires honesty about each party's limits of tolerance-those points at which the balance of interests becomes too one-sided to accept.

Unless that balance is redressed, it threatens to break down the relationship itself.

Fourth, it makes a difference whether two nations simply deal with problems as they arise or constantly nourish and tend a relationship that can cope with whatever comes up. A relationship nurtured over time acquires value and interests of its own. In making policy, two parties will then think not just of their own interests and political problems but also of shared interests and the other side's sensitivities and politics. An effective relationship enables identification and exploration of a wider range of alternative solutions and approaches since the tolerance and respect engendered reduce the fear of being exploited for throwing out unorthodox ideas.

If nations and leaders are working in the context of a relationship to deal with a commonly defined problem, they will be more likely to develop courses of action that take into account each other's political needs and constituencies. They will not come immediately to the battlefield or negotiating table with their separate positions based solely on analysis of their own immediate interests; they will have explored whether they could resolve their differences through political steps that take into account their common as well as unique interests.

Fifth, it makes a difference whether two nations interact through a linear sequence of action and reaction or engage in a dynamic political interaction on many levels at once. Conducting a relationship involves consciousness of the continuous process of interaction by which the interdependence of needs and interests is defined, developed, and nurtured over time to become the basis of action.

If we see relationships among nations as a political process of complex and continuous interaction, we are not using "relationship" as a static word or a word connoting structures. Human relationships can be described in part by statistics; but even more important, they reflect the dynamics or "chemistry" of the interaction. In international affairs, the structures of national policy-making differ markedly and shape policy, but the policies, actions, and politics of one side continuously affect the politics of policy-making on the other. Within that political process of interaction often lie the real obstacles or opportunities in building or strengthening a relationship or changing a situation.

What is important here is that, even during periods when recognition of common interests has been minimal, some individuals have found ways to talk-whether articulated as such or not-that have preserved the essence of a relationship.

Some Americans and some Soviets, for instance, in government and outside of it preserved a dialogue to understand the stakt\') in situations ranging from the Cuban missile crisis to developing a common ground for arms control. They attempted to understand fundamental differences so as to begin working through them to find a limited common political ground.

The idea of building problem-solving relationships as a

Supplemental diplomacy can provide opportunities for bringing into play insights not always used or even tested in governmental exchanges. foreign policy objective is not new, but the interdependencies in today's world may give new importance to that objective. The growth of the European and Atlantic communities reflected an early move in this direction. Political leaders have long recognized that what two nations can achieve together will depend heavily on understanding the political environments-both at home and abroad-in which they work. But our analysis of international relations-with its emphasis on power and national interest-has not always caught up with what we are doing. New experiences in the world require that we now give as much attention to the interaction among nations as we formerly gave to the practice of statecraft and balance of power politics.

International Relationships To understand where one fits in the conduct of relationships among nations, one needs to recognize the opportunities offered by different ways of thinking, talking, and acting. A first step is to identify the range of participants and activities involved in a relationship. It is wiser to see a spectrum than to try to develop rigid lines to differentiate participants and activities. For simplicity's sake, one can identify six points on that spectrum.

First, governments support leaders, but they have structures, methods, continuity, and instruments of their own that sometimes operate in ways not entirely consistent with leaders' aims.

Governments negotiate arrangements that facilitate a wide variety of transactions and exchanges between their nations, and governments deploy armies. Sometimes at the margins of formal processes, government officials see the need for informal exchanges; thus we have pictures of diplomats "walking in the woods" (see page 12)for private exchanges of ideas or the socalled back-channel discussions between officials and diplomats. A lot more of this takes place than government officials are normally given credit for.

Second, national leaders operate from a broader political base than the institutions of government. Their statements and actions project the intentions and character of their own bodies politic to people in other bodies politic. Political leaders think and often talk about their political bases and about the constraints and permissions that come from their political arenas in dealing with each other. They can try to broaden that political base, but they take risks if they try to operate far beyond it for long. Again in varying degrees, that political framework states the limits of their authority.

Third, moving outside of government, we find a number of private citizens engaged in what has been called supplemental diplomacy or Track II diplomacy. These are individuals who, one way or another, participate in dialogue outside official

channels on the same policy problems that governments struggle with. These groups may discuss elemerits of the overall political relationship, solutions to arms control problems, resolution of regional conflicts, issues of trade policy, or other areas of competition. What distinguishes these efforts from efforts by governments that deal with the same issues is that citizens speak without authority to commit their governments.

They may identify causes and underlying purposes and even design ways of dealing with problems, but they normally do not have the resources, let alone the political authority, to make solutions happen.

Fourth is a range of participants who do business of one sort or another. They do have certain resources and programming capacity within specific areas of competence, and within those areas they can reach and implement agreements that produce concrete results. Transnational or trading corporations are the most familiar example and one with historic roots. Others would include academic and professional organizations that have some specific purpose which they organize themselves to accomplish together. It may be common research; it may be organizing student exchange; or it may be arranging sister-city relationships.

Fifth are groups' or individuals whose purpose, one way or another, is the pursuit. exchange, and accumulation of knowledge. One range of activities in this group may be the institutionalized and highly visible work of journalists. Their purpose is to acquire and to disseminate knowledge. The aim of others in this area is to exchange important knowledge through academic inquiry or in the interest of advancing general research.

The governing purpose is the exchange and development of knowledge rather than problem solving.

Sixth is a range of participants whose purpose may best be described as people-to-people diplomacy or "getting to know the other side." The aim in people-to-people exchange may be simply to learn through sharing common pleasures such as an interest in athletics, music, art, cooking, or other activities that illuminate different ways of life. Student and citizen exchanges and visits of peace and friendship groups are common examples. The experience can advance personal knowledge, or it can build a sense 0f common humanity. These activities are distinguished from others by their focus on providing personal experience of another people rather than on using that knowledge to design solutions to particular problems or to turn out a concrete product. The insights gained may provide valuable clues as to underlying causes of fear and behavior and equip a person for participation in other areas later; the immediate aim is personal learning and experience rather than the resolution of problems in the near term.

I have learned much from psychiatrists, political psychologists, and scholars in other academic fields, but my experience is as a policymaker. I have tried to develop a conceptual framework for understanding international relationships that provides room for as many of the insights of political leaders as

possible. I see my job as creating common ground for the widest possible dialogue between a broad range of scholars and policymakers. Many officials-as many academics who taught them-see the world through disciplinary prisms. Supplemental diplomacy can provide opportunities for bringing into play insights not always used or even tested in governmental exchanges.

The Dartmouth Conference-one of the oldest bilateral, nonofficial dialogues between Soviet and U.S. citizens-has been one of the most intensive exchanges of this kind. After the breakdown of the Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit in 1959, President Eisenhower discussed with Norman Cousins, then editor of The Saturday Review, whether he could organize a citizen dialogue to maintain Soviet-U.S. communication when official relations soured. He took the idea to Moscow, and the first group met at Dartmouth College-hence the name-in October 1960.The third meeting happened to take place during the Cuban missile crisis, and participants left more persuaded than ever of the value of such dialogue.

Certain characteristics and principles became prominent in the Dartmouth Conference: • It was nonofficial but policy-related. Participants spoke only for themselves, and none had authority to represent governments or to negotiate. At the same time, the dialogue was policy-related. Participants discussed issues of concern in the relationship between their two nations.

• A conscious sense of continuing relationship and cumulative dialogue-"the next meeting begins where the last left off"-<ieveloped. In the 1980s, participants consciously experimentedwith approaches that would enhance understanding of the overall Soviet-U.S. relationship, regardless of the particular subject discussed. The effort to assure that these meetings were not one-time discussions but would build toward a cumulative achievement distinguished Dartmouth from many other meetings. At a minimum, the phrase "Dartmouth process" refers to this continuous communication and discussion that produces a sense of relationship with a life and value of its own.

• Major effort was made-with considerable success since the early 1980s-to talk analytically and without polemic (feeling was acceptable). Increasingly it was possible to approach problems as common problems and to develop shared analytical frameworks for understanding them and even political scenarios that could change the political environment and pave the way for moving toward solution.

• One characteristic was critical from the start-joint ownership. Since the late 1960s, Dartmouth was sponsored in the United States by the Kettering Foundation and in the Soviet Union by the Soviet Peace Committee and the Institute of USA/Canada Affairs. As David Mathews, president of the Kettering Foundation, said, "I can refuse to go to your meeting, but joint ownership means that I won't refuse to go to my own meeting."

Dartmouth changed with the times both in format and in essence. The changes, especially in the 1980s, reflected

markedly increased attention to the Soviet-U.S. relationship as itself a political process between significant elements of the two bodies politic-not just the actions and reactions of state institutions. Dartmouth itself was seen as a microcosm of that relationship.

Psychological Barriers Until recently in the Arab-Israeli arena, private meetings between Israelis and Palestinians were the only meetings possible, given the unwillingness of both parties to meet officially.

Yet these meetings over the years were extremely productive in identifying what is necessary on each side to break through some of the psychological obstacles to official negotiations.

It is worth remembering President Sadat's words to the Israeli Knesset when he visited Jerusalem in November 1977: "It is this psychological barrier which I described as constituting 70 percent of the whole problem." These words were directed not at technically defined problems between states but at the suspicions of Israeli citizens as well as officials that no major Arab leader would make peace with Israel. That understanding came not from diplomats but from Sadat's experience as a politician and from those around him who had experienced nonofficial discussions.

Citizens in nonofficial dialogue have more opportunity to ask questions, develop alternative definitions of problems, and explore policy options in their discussions than do official representatives operating within instructions reflecting established policy. It may be more true in the United States than elsewhere that, often when government seems to be floundering, it is an informed public that creates the environment and even the pressure for governmental decision. Our republic needs an informed public. Experienced individuals equipped to provide leadership and to initiate points of view in that public are often prepared in part through time spent in nonofficial dialogue.

As a practical matter, both officials and the increasing numbers of private citizens involved in international relationships may find it useful to give new attention to thoughts about how the world really works today. Government officials may find it useful to listen to citizens saying that the world has changed and that new insights need to inform policymaking. Citizens may become more effective if they stop to educate themselves in policy thinking. Both may find it useful to understand the complementary roles that governmental and nongovernmental individuals and organizations can play.

Both may find it useful to study the functions to be fulfilled in developing and tending relationships among nations and to focus then on the particular points in the process of developing and conducting relationships when intervention may be most constructive. The issue is not whether the proliferation of relationships is good or bad but how to understand what is involved and how to build relationships that put the specter of nuclear war behind us, to establish relationships of genuine peace.

0

the negotiating site in Geneva, Switzerland, they worked out a deal they thought their governments could accept. While they guessed wrong-both governments rejected the arrangement-the incident proved irresistible to the young playwright, Lee Blessing. Born in 1949, Blessing had two previous works, War of the Roses (1985) and Eleemosynary (1986), staged at the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Connecticut, but he never h!ld brought a play to Broadway. His imagination was caught by the human dimension in the relationship the two negotiators had built. He didn't know, of course, what the two negotiators really had said to each other, but he felt he knew what they should have said.

Thus, his wry portrayal of two superpower arms negotiators reveals the playwright's interest in how informal dialogue overcomes obstacles inherent in government-to-government negotiations.

At one point in the play, the Soviet tells Its subject is an unlikely one for the his American friend, " ...we can't negoBroadway stage: Nuclear arms negotia- tiate because we don't trust each other. tions. Its two characters equally unlikely That should be just what spurs us on: The subjects as central characters: Career dip- need to develop better systems of trust. ..." lomats. If one had to guess the likely As the play progresses each man learns effect of a play with these attributes, one this important lesson and each in his own probably would choose words like wl!-ygrows to form a trusting bond of "boring," "bland," and "a sure flop." friendship with the other.

But Lee Blessing's A Walk in the Woods.

"One of the many pleasures the play was a box office success and a hit with the affords is that of watching the molds critics when it appeared on Broadway in crack as the characters deepen and, above 1988. The U.S. Information Service re- all, connect," wrote Edith Oliver in The cently arranged an amateur production of New Yorker magazine. William A. Henry the play at Jawaharlal Nehru University III, writing in Time, said, "A Walk in the in New Delhi.

Woods is a work of passion and power The basis of the play is dramatic-and with the ring of political truth." factual~nough.

In 1982, American The theme of Blessing's play is the negotiator Paul H. Nitze did indeed take central idea of conflict resolution: Di"a walk in the woods" with his Soviet alogue between adversaries, if conducted counterpart, Yuli A. Kvitsinsky, at a with the objective of building trust at the particularly frustrating point in super- level of individuals, will remove barriers power arms reduction talks. The men had to governments "talking to each other." established a rapport beyond the usual As international events over the past few correct demeanor of seasoned nego- years will attest, Lee Blessing's hopes tiators. And so, during a stroll together have not been disappointed. through a small park on the grounds of --FUcbard Scorza

A Walk in the Woods A real attempt at informal diplomacy became the ingredient for a successful 1988 Broadway play.

An amateur production was recently staged in New Delhi, under Anne Beck's direction, with Lee Wohlgemuth (left) and Bon Thorburn playing the American and Soviet negotiators respectively.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

\~

I

Reprinted

by permission from The Saturday Evening Post Society. a division of BFL and MS. Inc. Š 199I.

"If I had been in charge, what would I have done differently? Fair question.

For starters, I would have had this line representing profits move up instead of down. " Š

1992 Tribune Media Services, All Rights Reserved.

Inc.

FOCUS

India hosted for the first time the sixth International Photovoitaics Science and Engineering Conference in February. The five-day conference in New Delhi, jointly sponsored by the Indian Department of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, the National Physical Laboratory, and the Solar Energy Society of India, was attended by 327 delegates from 21 countries.

The conference covered a broad range of developments in the field of photovoltaics (PV)-PV materials, cell design concepts and new structures, system design and applications, and economics and reliability of PV technology for terrestrial and space applications.

"Photovoltaics is a technique by which you can convert solar energy directly into electricity," says Satyen K. Deb (above right), director of the basic sciences division at the U.S. National Renew-

A CENTURY OF SCHOLARSHIP This year marks the centenary of the J.N. Tata Endowment for the Higher Education of Indians, set up in 1892 by pioneer Indian industrialist and philanthropist Jamsetji Tata who firmly believed, as he once said, .....what advances a nation or the community is...to educate and develop the faculties of the best of our young men."

Since its founding, with an initial funding of Rs. 2.5 million, the trust has enabled a large number of Indian students to pursue advanced studies at some of the world's best institutions of higher learning.

"The Tata awards are loan

scholarships," says Dinshah K. Malegamvala, director of the Tata Endowment. "It is mostly through repayments that fresh

able Energy Laboratory and a U.S. delegate to the conference. Deb adds, "Photovoltaics is more appropriate for a country like India with a large number of villages in remote areas where it doesn't make economic sense to take a power light."

Photovoltaics is a clean source of energy-no pollution, no toxic materials, and little or no noise. Moreover, the simplicity of PV systems results in low operation and maintenance costs. Deb says the cost of generating PV electricity is just about the same as the cost of producing power from a diesel generating set, if you include maintenance costs. This is especially true of India where the price of oil is quite high compared to the United States.

The potential for photovoltaic-generated electricity is enormous as technology advances and costs drop, says Morten B. Prince, another U.S. delegate to the conference. Since the early 1970s, the U.S. government and American industry have invested about $1,000 million and $2,000 million, respectively, in PV research and development. "We are now using less expensive semiconductor. materials, encapsulation materials, and also looking into reducing the cost of other components of the (photovoltaic) system so that the overall cost will come down further," says Prince, who is a research scientist with the photovoltaic energy technology division of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Soon after the conference, Deb and Prince traveled to Pune to attend the second Indo-U.S. workshop on amorphous silicon, an important semiconductor material with applications in photovoltaic energy conversion.

Photograph at left-above shows an array of PV panels of a 300kw system in Austin, Texas.

-Mukul Bansal

scholarships are funded, creating a snowballing effect." He adds, "Until about the war years, most of our scholars went to England. However, for the past 20 years we have been selecting over 100 scholars each year, most of them for higher studies in the United States."

Tata scholars are among the brightest and the best. This is reflected in the large number of teaching/research assistantships and fellowships they receive from American universities, says Malegamvala. "In the year 1990-91, a record $690,000 was awarded to 46 Tata scholars by universities in the United States," he says. "We regard this as a mark of recognition of our scholars."

Two groups of elderly Americans-50 and older-visited India in January and February as part of their world tour under the aegis of the Elder Hostel Group and the Experiment in International Living (Ell) of the United States.

Their three-week sojourn took them to Agra, Jaipur, lucknow, and New Delhi. They attended lectures on a variety of Indian subjects, including history, culture, and the arts, and stayed with Indian families. Reynold Atlas and his wife lived with a family in Jaipur. "The experience provided a unique opportunity to observe, at firsthand, how a family operates in India," he said. "It gave us a feel of the real society of the country."

During their final week, the participants had discussions on their experiences and observations on subjects as varied as the caste system, religious beliefs, status of women in society, and the Indian economy.

Groups of elderly American

citizens have been coming to India under the Elder Hostel Group program since 1985. The Group offers a variety of educational programs for elderly Americans. The Ell has been sending Americans abroad and bringing foreigners to America since 1932. Amarish Trivedi, who heads the Ell chapter in Delhi, says, "Our aim is to give the visitors a basic understanding of our culture in order to

India's biennial Jazz Yatra can be counted upon to attract some of the world's most famous jazz performers. Four major U.S. groups participated in this year's event, held in New Delhi and Bombay. They represented a variety of jazz schools-from early New Orleans to avant-garde to fusion. They were the New Orleans Classic Jazz Orchestra, Critical Theory, The US All Stars, and Henry Threadgill's Very Very Circus. Seen here, during their performances in New Delhi, are Dewey Redman (sax) and Vikku Vinayakram (ghatam).

stimulate their interest in our country."

Close familial contacts es" tablished during these visits often continue to be nurtured for the rest of the participants' lives.

After their visit some years ago, Bud and Flora Mercado, an elderly couple from Washington, D.C., wrote to the Ell Delhi office: "The home-stay program was a great success. It made us feel like a part of India-some-

Marilyn Monroe lives! In her new avatar, Kaycee. For more than three years, Kaycee has been impersonating the legendary Hollywood star before audiences in the United States and around the world. last month Kaycee brought her one-woman show to New Delhi's Maurya Sheraton Hotel.

Marilyn Monroe's legend lives on because, Kaycee says, "she stopped being a human being, and became a symbol, a goddess. She could go to downtown Manhattan and stop traffic there; she had that kind of an effect. I am trying to fit into her shoes and entertain the world as a legacy to her."

-C.P.

Rajendran

thing we'll cherish." That, in fact, is the Ell's motto: "It's by living together that we learn to live together."

Although as of now it has been a one-way traffic-Americans visiting India-Trivedi now plans to send the first batch of "Elder Indians" to America. "I hope our 50-year-olds will be as interested and enthusiastic as the Americans," he quips.

-lekha

J. Shankar

Farmers in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, gather for a lecture by a university agricultural expert.

From Lab to Field The U.S. Cooperative Extension Service takes the latest findings and products in agricultural research and development to farmers all over the country.

t

e meandering valleys, gently sloping meadows, and wide fields of Wayne County in Kentucky were traditionally home to four farm products-eattle, hogs, grain (usually corn), and tobacco. Only the proportion varied from one farm to another, and every farmer worked the land, slopped the pigs, and fed the cattle as their neighbors did down the road.

No longer. Farmers in Wayne County are doing things differently-and more profitably-these days, thanks to the Cooperative Extension Service, a uniquely American system for transferring the latest scientific research from college and university farm laboratories to farmers around the country. One distinctive ele-

ment in this system is that farmers themselves teach their neighbors what they learn from the Extension Service.

For example, Larry McKinley and his brother-in-law James Sexton started out with cattle, hogs, corn, and tobacco when they began farming together more than two decades ago, but over the years they have made a lot of profitable changes in how they use their land. Cattle and pigs are gone-in their place are hectares of neat rows of cabbages and tomatoes.

Recently, farmers from Wayne and surrounding counties converged on the McKinley-Sexton farm for a "field day."

They spent all morning and most of the afternoon walking through the fields taking a close-up look at the crops, soil, irrigation systems, farm machinery, and barns, asking questions about anything and everything. But McKinley and Sexton did not mind the exercise-they willingly share their knowledge and experience with other farmers who want to improve their yields and profits.

Some 130 kilometers northwest in

byNANCYSGRANT

Washington County, where cattle and swine are farming mainstays, John Medley, Jr., answers telephoned questions from a neighbor curious about how Medley keeps accurate records of all the activities in his multifaceted operation. In just ten years, he has increased the weaning weight of his calves from 180kilograms to 225 kilograms-and he is happy to pass along his hard-earned knowledge of book- and record-keeping particulars.

Why are these two widely separated Kentucky farm families so generous with their time and knowledge? Because they' each got plenty of advice and practical tips-free-from the Cooperative Extension Service, commonly referred to as the "Extension Service."

The term "cooperative" in the title refers to the free interchange of ideas. The program is a nationwide network of experts who are always available to share their knowledge with those who need it, whenever and wherever they need it. As each of these Kentucky farmers contemplated changes on his own farm, a

local extension agent gave them facts, figures, and suggestions-and directions to farms near and far where they could see how other farmers handle similar situations. Now they happily pass along what they have gained through on-the-farm experience to yet other farmers.

The Early Years America has a long tradition of experimenting with new agricultural practices: Thomas Jefferson, a farmer before, during, and after he served as the nation's third President (1801-09), kept a detailed journal noting the successes (and a few failures) in the gardens and fields of Monticello, his estate in Virginia. During the first half of the 19th century many individual farmers and gardeners exchanged seeds, cuttings, and root stock on a hit-or-miss basis, but it was not until the second half of the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution got into full swing in America, that anyone thought of any kind offormal program. That is when the U.S. Congress ordered land-grant agricultural colleges to be established in each state to help cope with changing demands of an expanding society. Under the Land-Grant Act of 1862, Congress granted every state 12,140 hectares of land for each senator and representative it had in Congress. The land was

to be sold, the proceeds invested, and the income used to create and maintain a college for agriculture and the mechanical arts. Classroom buildings and lecture halls soon took shape, and research and experiment facilities were promptly added to try new ideas in agriculture and animal husbandry. But there still was not a good way to spread those new ideas and practices widely and quickly enough to make much of a difference.

While each state could boast of a model farm operated at public expense, Seaman A. Knapp, a farmer and livestock breeder who once served as president of the Iowa Agricultural College in Cedar Falls, contended that farmers merely reading about or observing such isolated, pristine farms were not likely to be inspired to make changes on their own farms. Instead, he advocated demonstrations conducted by farmers on their own farms, under ordinary farm conditions. As he explained it, "What a man hears, he may doubt; what he sees, he may also doubt; but what he does, he cannot doubt." After a now famous demonstration on a Texas farm in 1903 (the farmer, using new seed varieties, fertilizers, and cultivation methods, earned $700 more profit on the experimental section than on an ordinary section), agricultural educators in other" states began to follow Knapp's lead.

In 1910, the University of Kentucky at Lexington could afford to hire only ten agents to spread the findings of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station to farmers and their families in the fields and pastures of the state's 120 counties. With terrain that varies from hardscrabble mountainsides that seem to grow rocks the best, to lush bottomlands prone to_ flooding, to valleys hidden kilometers away from towns, just getting from one section of the state to another was a logistical nightmare-those early extension agents often spent three days traveling for everyone day of farm demonstrations.

Yet in community after community, once;skeptical farmers eagerly awaited the agent's next visit, proudly showing him the results of their labors, suggesting refinements born out of their own experiences, plying him with

questions about what to do next.

In other states similar programs were taking shape. On May 8, 1914, recognizing that states were short of money for such programs, Congress authorized the expenditure of federal funds to help pay for extension agents. From then on, the Extension Service's activities have been paid for by a combination of funds from federal, state, and local treasuries. From that simple beginning, the Extension Service was poised to grow into the tremendously effective system it is today-for more than 75 years, it has been quietly changing the way Americans use their land, one farm at a time.

Starting From the Ground Up When the Extension Service began in 1914, average American crop yields ranged from 1.57 to 1.88 tons of corn per hectare-now it is common to produce yields of more than six tons per hectare.

In 1910, one American farmer could sustain seven or eight nonfarmers-nowadays, one American farmer sustains 50 nonfarmers.

Overall, agricultural productivity in the United States has increased more than 1,600 percent.

But the changes in farm practices that make such bountiful harvests possible were not the result of some far-off bureaucrat's demands or decrees: Everything is left to the individual farmer to decide. Randall Barnett, an Extension Service official in Kentucky, explains: "We've always maintained the philosophy that our work is where the people have problems. This is not a top-down operationwe start from the ground and work up, opposite from the way you'd normally think of an organizational chart. I say this because the Extension Service is what happens out in the counties, working directly with the people. That is where the action is, that is where things get done."

While the Extension Service's mission-transferring scientific knowledge from laboratory to farm-has remained constant over the years, its methods have gone through several stages. When the Extension Service began, people were already sharing information with each other in what Curtis Absher calls the

"community stage." The best farmer in the neighborhood w~s the one the others sought to emulate. "This was a key to Extension's early success," says Absher, who is in charge of Kentucky's Extension Service agents. "Our agents would get with those progressive farmers and encourage them to work together in experiments and to set up demonstrations to prove new ideas." When neighboring farmers saw the results of planting new crop varieties or using a new fertilizer, they would want to do the same on their land.

In those early y.ears Extension Service pioneers quickly found that to win the confidence of wary farmers in isolated communities they had to do .more than just arrive for a one-day demonstration.

Getting the whole family involved seemed like the best method, so the Extension Service developed two other branches in addition to strictly agricultural work.

Agents in home economics, presenting the latest .ideas in food preservation and

thrifty home management, were welcomed by farm wives eager to catch up'with their city counterparts.

Soon homemakers' clubs were springing up in dozens of rural communities, giving women a chance to socialize and learn at the same time.

Clubs for boys and girls began to spring up, too, as a way to spread information to young people and help them develop an appreciation of rural life. Those clubs were the foundation of "4-H" (head, heart, hands, health) programs for young people that combine fun with hands-on experiences (from beekeeping to grooming cattle for display at county fairs) to build characters and leadership ability.

Next, the Extension Service moved into what Absher calls the "recommendation stage." Extension agents introduced new crop varieties and fertilizers, and they also recommended new techniques and technologies to Kentucky farmers. "Now we have moved into the 'information stage,''' Absher explains. "We no longer say there is a single variety or technique that will suit everyone-we custom-design programs."

Almost every Kentucky county now has three Extension Service agents (one

Clockwise from far left: Government scientists test soybeans for resistance to airborne pollutants; researchers conduct an animal viral study; farmers test a new machine that harvests thornless blackberries by shaking vines just enough to remove the fruit; and an Extension Service agent (right) offers a young farmer advice on keeping farm records.

each for agriculture, home economics, and 4-H), who combine their own college learning with an intimate understanding of local conditions to serve the members of the communities they live in. Working independently, yet often cooperating with each other on special projects, they are also supported by a network of 100 researchers at the University of Kentucky who send them a steady stream of new findings in pamphlets, videotapes, and computer programs.

There is also a steady interchange of experts coming out to the counties for demonstrations and question-and-answer sessions, as well as farmers traveling to the experimental farms to observe state-of-the-art work in progress.

Although the service sounds complex, it is really simple; perhaps the best way to understand how the Extension Service functions is to see it in action.

Larry McKinley and James Sexton weren't completely satisfied after their first decade of raising cattle and hogs and growing grain and tobacco, so they enrolled in the Extension Service's Farm Business Management Program. As they learned through classroom sessions and evening study at home how to analyze their farm operations they realized they needed to diversify. Local agent Duane Stevenson then helped them decide which alternative crops might be most profitable. "We already had a labor force for tobacco," McKinley explains, "and we discovered we could fit vegetable crops right in." But before they made the change, their agent showed them how to take soil samples, which were sent to laboratories at the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station for testing. After they received the report about their soil's qualities and a list of recommendations about ways to improve it, McKinley and Sexton started planting new crops.

Their initial small plot (0.8 hectare) of cabbage was successful, and the brothersin-law were soon inundating their local extension agent with more questions.

Armed with his advice on pruning, tying, staking, and the proper use of pesticides

and fungicides, McKinley and Sexton now raise 2.4 hectares of cabbage and 3.2 hectares of tomatoes, harvested at intervals throughout the growing season.

Early profits, and the improved cash flow in the non tobacco season, enabled them to implement another of their extension agent's suggestions-trickle irrigation.

Records from growers throughout the county show that for each year that a farmer uses such irrigation, production increases two to four times that of crops relying on natural rainfall. In extremely dry years, yields for irrigated fields can produce seven times the dollar income, so it is no wonder that farmers from near and far have come to get down on hands and knees for a close look at McKinley's and Sexton's fields.

John Medley took a slightly different approach to improve profits on his farm.

Medley thought his herds would attain market weight more quickly if they had better forage, so he asked his extension agent for advice. Agent Rick Greenwell suggested ways to renovate pastures and mentioned that Medley might want to try planting alfalfa, a forage plant seldom grown in that part of Kentucky. After a particularly dry year, Medley thought he would have to buy supplemental feed as he had done in the past, but before he incurred the large expense he again sought Greenwell's advice. Together they found a commercial laboratory that would test the nutritional qualities of Medley's improved forages. Analysis of the new alfalfa proved it was more than adequate to sustain his herds so Medley could turn his attention, and mone):', toward improving other facets of his farm operation, Medley also learned how to keep better records about all phases of his operation.

By keeping accurate records' of each animal-from birth date to vaccinations to weaning weight to feed consumed and market weight-Medley was able to cut back his beef herd from 75 head to 50, yet have as many or more kilograms of beef to sell as he had had with a larger herd. Now that Medley keeps track of each animal's progress, he can more easily cull less productive genetic lines from his herd. As Medley has time, he also travels to the

model farm established by the University of Kentucky to observe research projects and get fresh ideas for improvements in herd health maintenance.

Medley's neighbors were skeptical at first, but they have kept a keen eye on his results and now the wisecracks are accompanied by sincere questions about farm practices. Medley and extension agent Greenwell describe with some pride the increasing acreage in Washington County now devoted to alfalfa. Greenwell calls it "the ripple effect" and points out that that is the way the Extension Service is supposed to work-farmers willingly trying new alternatives.

Building for the Future The extension agents helped each farmer identify his problems and opportunities, then provided practical, researchbased information to help that individual solve problems and take advantage of opportunities on his own. Despite stunning achievements in increased production, the Extension Service's job is far from complete. Kentucky is typical of many other food-producing states: Although most of the land area is still rural in character, most of the population tends to live in towns, cities, or suburban areas.

As the number of non farmers has grown, extension agents now must be prepared to offer guidance on an ever-expanding range of topics. In counties where suburbs are encroaching on land once exclusively agricultural in character, an agent is just as likely to receive calls about what sort of ornamental shrubs to plant as calls about which variety of corn will thrive.

And in rural communities farther from major cities, agents are often confronted' with questions about how to preserve the character of the countryside yet still provide services and employment for the nonfarming population.

That is why agents now receive training in how to assess the needs and concerns of the members of their communities, to understand the group dynamics that influence any decision-making process, and how to develop the latent leadership skills of individuals within that community.

As farmers come under increasing pressure

Left: The symbol of 4-H clubs, through which the Extension Service trains future farmers. Right: An extension agent discusses planting methods with Kentucky farmers.

to consider how their on-farm decisions and practices affect not just their own land or their neighbor's but the entire planet, extension agents must be prepared to offer more sophisticated advice.

Paul Warner, who is in charge of development and training for extension agents in Kentucky, explains, "Nowadays you just can't make all decisions within the home or farmstead. More and more decisions are being made at the community level, with multiples of families." When an extension agent reviews pesticide choices with a farmer, they must consider the advantages and disadvantages for the crop in question and where the runoff will go. Will it pollute a neighbor's water source? If there is pesticide residue on the crop at market time, will consumers tolerate it?

Yet even as the extension agent's fieldwork has become more complex, helping folks consider a multitude of options and exploring the short- and long-term effects of each, the technical research programs going on back at the agricultural college's experimental farms tend to focus on narrower and narrower topics. "This presents a real dilemma for our agents," says Curtis Absher. "The county agent now must be an effective generalist-and it helps to be a good observer to recognize changes-who can take specific information from our land-grant university specialists and make it appropriate at the local level on specific farms and fields, sometimes even just a part of one field."

With this kind of personal attention, it is understandable that many Kentucky farmers have come to rely on their local extension agent as a sort of extra farmhand or partner. Larry McKinley speaks for many when he says, "Extension is our guiding light."

0 Abou.t the Author: Nancy S. Grant Ken tuck y-based free-lance writer.

is a

conomic Growth and nvironmental Gain I share this enthusiasm for the promise of technology, especially after observing firsthand the truly encouraging results of bioremediation

in

cleaning up Alaska's Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1989, the largest oil spill ever in American waters.

William K. Reilly heads the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which conducts research, sets standards, and enforces pollutioncontrol laws. A well-known conservation activist, he was president of the Conservation Foundationfrom 1973 unti//985, when he became president of the World Wildlife Fund- U.S. (unti//988) on the merger of the two groups.

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the business world when the new chairman of chemical giant Du Pont, Edgar S. Woolard, declared himself to be the company's "chief environmental officer." "Our continued existence as a leading manufacturer," he said, "requires that we excel in environmental performance."

He has plenty of company these days.

The sight of chief executive officers wrapped in green, embracing concepts such as "pollution prevention" and "waste minimization," is becoming almost commonplace. American businessmen increasingly are acknowledging the value, to their profit margins and to the economy as a whole, of environmentally sound business practices-reducing emissions, preventing waste, conserving energy and resources. Government is trying to help by creating market incentives to curb pollution, by encouraging energy efficiency and waste reduction, and by developing flexible, cost-effective regulatory programs. The recognition by business leaders and government that a healthy environment and a healthy econ- . omy go together-that, in fact, they reinforce each other-reflects a growing awareness throughout U.S. society of this profound reality of modern life.

Less has been said or written, however, about the other side of the coin-the environmental benefits of a prosperous, growing economy. Many environmentalists remain ambivalent-and some Reprinted

with permission

the flagship setts Avenue.

publication

from the Fall 1990 issue of Policy Review,

of The Heritage

N.E., Washington,

Foundation,

D.C. 20002.

214 Massachu-

openly suspicious-about many forms of economic growth and development. Entire industries are viewed as unnecessary or downright illegitimate by a shifting subset of activist, although not mainstream, environmentalist opinion: Offshore oil development, animal husbandry, plastics, nuclear energy, surface mining, agribusiness. These skeptics equate growth with pollution, the cavalier depletion of natural resources, the destruction of natural systems, and-more abstractly-the estrangement of humanity from its roots in nature. Journalist Studs Terkel's trenchant comment about corporate polluters who infect our environment and then make a dollar on the sale of disinfectants remains a common attitude among certain activists. At the grass-roots level, conflicts over industrial pollution, waste disposal, and new development tend to erupt with particular intensity and passion. One activist recently put it to me directly: In relation to waste incinerators, he said, "People think we're NIMBYs (Not-In-My-Back-Yard).

But we're not. We're NaPEs (Not-OnPlanet -Earth)."

The skepticism of some environmentalists toward growth is grounded in painful experience. Historically, economic expansion has led to the exploitation of natural resources with little or no concern for their renewal. Growing populations, demands for higher living standards, and widespread access to the necessities of modern life in economically advanced societies-and even in developing countries that provide raw materials to richer consumers-have created steadily increasing pressures on the environment.

These include air and water pollution, urban congestion, the careless disposal of hazardous wastes, the destruction of wildlife, and the degradation of valuable ecosystems. In America, up to half of the wetlands in the lower 48 states that were there when the first European settlers arrived are gone; and the United States continues to lose 120,000 to 200,000 hectares of this. ecologically-and economically-productive resource to development every year. Furthermore, the by-products of rapid industriali-

zation have become so pervasive that their active participation. they are altering the chemical comThe correlation between rising income position of the planet's atmosphere, and environmental concern holds as true depleting stratospheric ozone, and add- among nations as it does among social ing to atmospheric carbon dioxide. groups. The industrialized countries with Economic development based on un- strong economies and high average stansustainable resource use cannot continue dards of living tend to spend more time indefinitely without endangering the and resources on environmental issues, carrying capacity of the planet. Old and thus to be better off environmentally. growth patterns must change-and Between 1973 and 1984, when Japan quickly-if we are to ensure the long-term emerged as a global economic power, it integrity of the natural systems that sus- also took significant steps to clean up its tain life on Earth. historic legacy of pollution. In contrast, To achieve sustainable growththe developing nations, mired in poverty growth consistent with the needs and and struggling to stay one step ahead of constraints of nature-we need to secure .mass starvation, have had little time and the link between environmental and eco- even less money to devote to environnomic policies at all levels of govern- mental protection. Some of the world's ment and in all sectors of the economy. worst and most intractable pollution Harmonizing economic expansion with problems are found in the developing environmental protection requires a world or in Eastern Europe--<:ontamirecognition that there are environmental nated rivers, polluted cities, shrinking benefits to growth, just as there are eco- rain forests, and encroaching deserts. nomic benefits flowing from healthy Economic growth can mitigate these natural systems. Most environmentalists resource and environmental pressures in realize this, and a growing number are the developing nations in two closely reworking creatively toward new policies lated ways: By reducing poverty and by that serve the long-term interests of both helping to stabilize population growth. the environment and the economy.

Many global environmental problems reHow does economic growth benefit the sult less from the activities of those supe environment? Growth raises expectations posed villians, the profit-hungry multiand creates demands for environmental" national corporations, than from the improvement. As income levels and stan- incremental, cumulative destruction of dards ofliving rise and people satisfy their nature from the actions of many individbasic needs for food, shelter, and cloth- uals-often the poor trying desperately to ing, they can afford to pay attention to eke out a living. These actions range from the quality of their lives and the condition the rural poor clearing land for title, for of their habitat. Once the present seems cattle, or for subsistence farming; to gold relatively secure, people can focus on the miners, electroplaters, and small factories future. releasing toxic substances into the air and Within the United States, demands for water; to farmers ruining fields and better environmental protection (for groundwater with excessive applications example, tighter controls on land of pesticides. development and the creation of new In the developing nations especially, parks) tend to come from property own- the population explosion of the past few ers, often affluent ones. Homeowners decades (developing countries have more want to guarantee the quality of their than doubled in population just since surroundings. On the other hand, envi- 1960) has greatly intensified the accuronmental issues have never ranked high mulating pressures on the environment. on the agenda of the economically dis- Even though the rate of increase is startadvantaged. Even though the urban poor ing to fall in most of the Third World, typically experience environmental population growth in some countries has degradation most directly, the debate contributed and will continue to contribproceeds for the most part without ute to global degradation, to loss ofnatu(Continued

on page 26)

E

onomiCGrowth and nvironmental Gain

ral resources, to poverty, and to hunger.

Continued rapid population growth will cancel out environmental gains and offset environmental investments.

One widely acceptable strategy that can make an important contribution to lowering fertility rates is education. The World Bank has drawn attention to the close correlation between education of children-specifically, bringing basic literacy to young girls-and reduction in the birth rate. Economic growth also offers hope for some relief. As countries grow economically, their fertility rates tend to decline; in most developed nations the birthrate has dropped below replacement levels, although it is creeping back up in some countries. Stable populations coupled with economic growth mean rising per capita standards of living. Education and economic development are the surest paths to stabilizing population growth.

The benefits of economic growth just described-higher expectations for environmental quality in the industrialized countries, and reduced resource use and environmental pressures in the developing nations-show up on the demand side of the prosperity/progress equation. But economic expansion contributes on the supply side as well by generating the financial resources that make environmental improvements possible.

In the United States, for example, economic prosperity has contributed to substantial progress in environmental quality. The gains the country has made in reducing air and water pollution since 1970 are indisputable. Air emissions of particulates went down by 63 percent between 1970 and 1988; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that without controls particulate emissions would be 70 percent higher than current levels. Sulfur dioxide emissions are down 27 percent; without controls, they would be 42 percent higher than they are now. And without controls on lead, particularly the phase-in of unleaded gasoline, lead emissions to the air would be fully 97 percent higher than they are today. Instead, atmospheric lead is

down 96 percent from 1970 levels.

Similar, although more localized, gains can be cited with respect to water pollution. Twenty years ago pollution in Lake Erie decimated commercial fishing; now, thanks to municipal sewage treatment programs, Lake Erie is the largest commercial fishery in the Great I:.akes. The Potomac River in Washington was so polluted that people who came into contact with it were advised to get an inoculation for tetanus. Now on a warm day the Potomac belongs to the windsurfers.

It cost the American taxpayers, consumers, and businessmen a great deal of money to realize these gains. The direct cost of compliance with federal environmental regulations is now estimated at more than $90,000 million a year-about 1.7 percent of gross national product (GNP), the highest level among Western industrial nations for which data are available. The United States achieved this progress during a period when GNP increased by more than 70 percent.

We can learn two important lessons from the U.S. experience of the past two decades. First, environmental commitments were compatible with economic advancement; the United States is now growing in a qualitatively better, health¡ ier way because those commitments were made. And second, it was not just good luck that substantial environmental progress occurred during a period of economic prosperity. The healthy economy paid for environmental gains; economic expansion created the capital to finance superior environmental performance.

The contrast between the U.S. experience and that of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe over the past two decades is both stark and illuminating.

While the United States prospered and made a start on cleaning up, Poland, Hungary, Romania, former East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union were undergoing an environmental catastrophe that will take many years and thousands of millions of dollars to correct. In Eastern Europe, whole cities are blackened by thick dust. Chemicals make up a substantial percentage of river

flows. Nearly two-thirds of the length of the Vistula, Poland's longest river, is unfit even for industrial use. The Oder River, which forms most of Poland's border with eastern Germany, is useless over 80 percent of its length. Parts of Poland, eastern Germany, and Romania are literally uninhabitable; zones of ecological disaster cover more than a quarter of Poland's land area. Millions of [people in the former Soviet Union] live in cities with dangerously polluted air.

The former Soviet Union and much of the rest of Eastern Europe are plagued by premature deaths, high infant mortality rates, chronic lung disorders, and other disabling illnesses. The economic drain from these environmental burdens, in terms of disability benefits, health care, and lost productivity, is enormous15 percent or more of GNP, according to one Eastern European government minister.

The lifting of the Iron Curtain has revealed to the world that authoritarian, centrally planned societies pose much greater threats to the environment than capitalist democracies.

Many environmental principles were undefendable in the absence of private property: Both the factory and the nearby farmland contaminated by its pollution were the property of the state. And the state, without elections, was not subject to popular restraints or reform. Equally important, decisions to forgo environmental controls altogether, in order to foster all-out, no-holds-barred economic development, now can be seen to have done nothing for the economy. The same policies that ravaged the environment also wrecked the . economy. There is a good reason that no economic benefits have been identified from all the pollution control costs these nations avoided: Healthy natural systems are a sine qua non for all human activity, including economic activity.

What has happened in the United States and Eastern Europe is convincing evidence that in the modern industrial world prosperity is essential for environmental progress. Sustainable economic growth can and must be the engine of

Sustainable economic growth environmental improvement; it must pay for the technologies of protection and cleanup.

The development of cleaner, more environmentally benign technologies clearly makes up a central element in the transition to sustainable patterns of growth. Technology, like growth, can be a mixed blessing. Technological progress has given many of Earth's people longer, healthier lives, greater mobility, and higher living standards than most would have thought possible just a century ago.

Technology has alerted us to environmental concerns such as stratospheric ozone depletion and the buildup of "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere.

But the adverse consequences to the environment from new technology, while neither intended nor anticipated, have also been significant. Twentieth-century industrial and transportation technologies, heavily dependent on fossil fuels for their energy and on nonrenewable mineral and other resources for raw materials, have contributed substantially to today's environmental disruptions. So, too, has the widespread use of certain substances--ehlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) linked to ozone depletion, asbestos, several synthetic organic chemicals-which have proved to be hazardous to human health or the environment, or both.

But if technological development has caused many of the environmental ills of the past and present, it also has a vital role to play in their cure. This "paradox of technology," as Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Paul Gray calls it, is increasingly accepted by environmentalists and technocrats alike. In fact, some environmentalists and legislators are more inclined to invest faith in technology even than are the captains of industry. Gus Speth, a cofounder of the Natural Resources Defense Council and now president of World Resources Institute, has called for a "new Industrial Revolution" in which "green" technologies are adopted that "facilitate economic growth while sharply reducing the pressures on the natural environment."

I share this enthusiasm for the promise

can and must be the engine of environmental improvement; it must pay for the technologies of protection and cleanup.

of technology, especially after observing firsthand the truly encouraging results of bioremediation in cleaning up Alaska's Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1989, the largest oil spill ever in American waters. It was immediately clear that conventional technology was overwhelmed but, not long after the spill, EPA brought together 30 or so scientists to develop a program of bioremediation.

This program does not involve any genetically engineered organisms-just applications of nutrients to feed and accelerate the creation of naturally occurring, oil-eating microbes.

Having been to Alaska several times to check on the progress of the cleanup, I've seen what bioremediation can do, especially below the surface of the shoreline. Those areas of shoreline that were treated only by washing or scrubbing still have unacceptably high levels of subsurface oil contamination-much higher than the areas treated with nutrients. The success ofbioremediation is, in fact, virtu-. ally the only good news to result from that tragic oil spill.

Biotechnology also has great potential for many other environmental applications. I've urged biotechnology companies to give a high priority to locating and developing microorganisms tha t can safely and inexpensively neutralize harmful chemicals at hazardous waste sites, as well as other pollutants in the air and water.

Other technologies, such as space satellites and sensors that offer increasingly sophisticated environmental monitoring and modeling capabilities, will give us the information base we need to respond appropriately to global atmospheric changes. The international agreement to phase out ozone-depleting CFCs before the end of this century was greatly facilitated by scientific studies of the Antarctic ozone hole and the rapid development of

safe substitutes for CFCs. And continued advances in medical technology and in our understanding of the role of environmental factors in human health will enhance human life expectancy and freedom from disease.

President Bush has called attention to the environmental and social benefits of a technological advance known as "telecommuting"-working from home or a neighborhood center close to home, sending messages and papers back and forth via fax machine or computer. By giving Americans an attractive alternative to driving, telecommuting helps reduce harmful auto emissions. It also saves energy, relieves traffic congestion, and, according to some studies, can even increase productivity by 20 percent or more.

Many other environmentally beneficial technologies are changing for the better the way human beings interact with the environment. Miniaturization, fiber optics, and new materials are easing the demand for natural resources. As older plants and equipment wear out, they are replaced by more efficient, less polluting ones. The evolution of energy will continue with clean coal technologies and with the commercialization of economically competitive, nonpolluting, renewable energy technologies such as photovoltaic solar cells. New self-enclosed industrial processes will prevent toxic substances such as lead and cadmium, which are almost impossible to dispose of safely, from entering the environment.

The wise manufacturer is already asking new questions about products-not just how will the product be used, but how will it be disposed of, and with what effects?

American corporations such as Dow, 3M, Du Pont, Hewlett-Packard, Pratt & Whitney, Monsanto, and others have curtailed emissions and saved resources through a wide variety of successful pollution-prevention techniques.

Dow's Louisiana division, for example, recently designed and installed a vent recovery system to recapture hydrocarbon vapors that were being released when liquid hydrocarbons were loaded into barges. The new system recovers 98 per(Continued

on page 32)

Above. A highly popular kit comes complete packets

of goose down,

thread.

The kit, available

sizes, also includes instructions

down-filled

with precut zipper,

vest

fabric, snaps,

and

in different

sewing

and assembly

Right: The finished

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This grandfather

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assembled

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quality

with the precision at half the price of

of heirloom

of

a

a

furniture

fine timepiece

factory-made

clock.

Kit Creativity Innovative entrepreneurs are adding exciting new dimensions to America's traditional "do-it-yourself" passion by marketing kits for an ever-growing range of productshomes, boats, cars, furniture, and even airplanes.

To a casual observer, Keith Klingebiel's home in Silver Spring, Maryland, seems typically American. Like many other middle-class American homes, it is equipped with numerous electronic gadgets-a burglar alarm, an automatic garage-door opener, a digital weather station, to mention a few. But what sets his home apart is that Klingebiel, a manager of a local telephone company, did not buy these items. He built them himselffrom mail-order, do-it-yourself kits-at considerably less cost.

For Klingebiel switching on a kit-built appliance approaches a mystical experience. He recalls the moment in 1968when he finished putting together a TV set.

"After spending 100 hours building that set, I was ready. The sound came on first, then an image appeared. I hugged my wife and gave her a big kiss. We had witnessed the birth of a color TV. It was no longer a box of parts, but a living thing."

Klingebiel is typical of a large number of Americans who like to have a hand in making the things they buy. But kit building is more than a transient consumer trend. When 19th-century Americans expanded westward, they built houses and

factories from kits shipped by rail. Homebuilding is still one of the most common do-it-yourself activities. It is estimated that each year Americans piece together some 100,000 kit houses, ranging from frontier-style log cabins to contemporary geodesic domes.

For young couples and others with limited finances, kit home building is a boon. By doing it themselves, they can build a beautiful home and also save money. That is what Vicki and Dennis Pluta did. On two hectares of land they had bought years ago in Pocatello, Idaho, they built a kit home-a 200-square-meter geodesic dome of90 plywood triangles affixed to a honeycomb-shaped wood frame. Vicki, who studies social work at Idaho State University in Pocatello, says, "I hate dark, and this is flooded with light. It took us eight months to build. We' did 75 percent of the work ourselves, using no special tools."

The Plutas bought their home from one of the largest manufacturers of kit housing, Monterey Domes of Riverside, California. Monterey sells kits ranging from $10,000 for a dome six meters wide and 3.6 meters high to $40,000 for a dome about six times that size. (The average conventionally built house in America sells for $80,000.) The kit includes Douglas fir framing and plywood, steel hubs, nuts and bolts, an assembly manual, and blueprints, all delivered by truck.

Furnishing a home with kit-built furniture can also save money as well as lend class.Gerald Donaldson, a lawyer in Chevy Chase, Maryland, has decorated his house with more than a dozen copies of antique furniture. Making these pieces, Donaldson says, "gives you tremendous satisfaction.

You look at a chair, and it's no longer just

an object. You appreciate it as an exhibition of human talent and knowledge."

Sales of other kit-built goods are also booming----computers, copies of classic automobiles, boats, grandfather clocks, and all manner of toys, from tiny plastic models to one-third scale radio-controlled airplanes that fly at speeds of 350 kilometers an hour.

Then there are real planes: About 60 kit manufacturers offer 100 kinds of aircraft.

According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), 1l,000 airplanes built by amateurs are in use in America. The simplest kit sells for $5,000.

This open-cockpit sport aircraft weighs 110 kilograms and has a top speed of 55 knots. In contrast, a kit for the Swearingen SX300, a sleek, two-seat turboprop capable of speeds up to 239 knots, sells for $43,00o-minus engine, propeller, instrumentation, upholstery, and paint. Its performance, says J. Jefferson Miller. in AOPA Pilot magazine, represents "the ultimate personal airplane from any source, whether a factory production line or a kit maker's packing crate."

Seekers of surface-level thrills can build copies of American two-seater sports cars. Kits for copies of the 1953 Chevrolet Corvette or the 1955 Ford Thunderbird, for example, are available from Classic Sports Cars of¡ Holly Hill, Florida, for $12,495 and $15,695, respectively. A kit is essentially a fiberglass body that attaches to the chassis and drive-train of a 1970s automobile. The mechanically inclined can build a kit car in 200 hours with the help of a detailed assembly manual. If a problem arises, kit makers provide tollfree telephone numbers for advice. One company, Classic Motor Carriages ofMiami, Florida, offers videotape that provides step-by-step instructions to build a 1934 Ford.

The idea of buying disassembled products found widespread consumer acceptance in America with the advent, early in this century, of the kit house designed, manufactured, and rail-shipped by Sears, Roebuck and Company. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears sold more than 100,000 of these houses through its annual Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans. The

Facing

page.

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(far left,

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center)

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company estimated that the average kit house could be built in 352 hours, versus 583 hours for a conventional house, a 40 percent savings on labor costs alone . â&#x20AC;˘ In 1946, Heathkit, a small company in St. Joseph, Michigan, used the postwar surplus of military parts to create a boom in kit-built electronics. The company sold its first Heathkit oscilloscope for $39.95.

After its instant success, Heathkit began selling radios, speakers, and other products through a catalog. The company backed its products with detailed technical assistance. Its motto: "We will not let you fail."

Today Heathkit, which now offers kits for a much bigger range of electronic goods, including computers, still provides its customers the same service. Its technical hotline answers about 10,000phone calls a month from kit builders seeking advice. It also publishes the Kit Builders Journal.

What is more, the company, whose kit sales have grown to $20 million a year through catalogs and a chain of 61 stores, offers products that are simply not available in the market. Says Miles Hoffman of Heathkit, "You can't buy our weather computer anywhere else. Or our voice board. Type something onto a screen and it will read it-it actually talks to you."

Kit building is often a solitary undertaking and needs a lot of perseverance.

But, says Walter Caddell, executive director of the Hobby Industries of America in Elmwood Park, New Jersey, "Sitting down and doing something with your hands is a relief from the tensions of everyday living."

D

with kit

About the Author: Michael Leccese is a Wash-. ington-based free-lance

writer

E

onomicGrowth and nvironmental Gain

continued from page 27

cent of the vaporized hydrocarbons, abating hydrocarbon emissions to the atmosphere by about 45,000 kilograms a year.

As environmentalists have been pointing out for years, a pollutant is simply a resource out of place. By taking advantage of opportunities for pollution prevention, companies not only can protect the environment, they can save resources and thus enhance productivity and U.S. competitiveness in an increasingly demanding international market. The U.S. Administration is pursuing an innovative regulatory approach with economic incentives to harness the dynamics of the marketplace on behalf of the environment. By engaging the market in environmental protection, we can send the kind of signals to the economy that will encourage cleaner industrial processes and the wise stewardship of natural resources.

These governmental efforts are badly needed because the development of environmentally and economically beneficial new technology has been slowed by the high cost of capital in the United States-a direct consequence of the immense federal budget deficit. The deficit drives up interest rates, slows the pace of economic expansion, and discourages modernization and other environmentally friendly investments.

Deficit spending is, unfortunately, not the only government policy inhibiting environmental improvement. A wide range of regulatory requirements and subsidies, in America and in many other countries, leads to market distortions that encourage inefficiencies while promoting the unsustainable use of timber, water, cropland, and other resources.

One important step toward achieving greater harmony between economic and environmental policies would be for the government to consider some long-overdue changes in the way the nation's economic health and prosperity are evaluated. As some environmentalists and economists have been pointing out for years, traditional economic accounting systems such as GNP and NNP (net national product) are poor measures of

overall national well-being. They ignore or undervalue many nonmarket factors that add immeasurably to our quality of life-clean air and water, unspoiled natural landscapes, wilderness, wildlife in its natural setting. The Clean Air Act, which was passed by the U.S. Congress in the fall of 1990, sharply curtails sulfur dioxide emissions-precursors of acid rain-and will thus significantly improve visibility in the northeastern United States. People literally will be able to see farther-but we have not yet found a way to put a price tag on a scenic vista.

At the same time, GNP and NNP fail to discount from national income accounts the environmental costs of production and disposal, or the depletion of valuable natural capital such as lost cropland and degraded wetlands. The Valdez oil spill, a terrible environmental disaster, shows up as a gain in GNP because of all the goods and services expended in the

Good growth enhances productivity and international competitiveness

and makes

possible a rising standard of living for everyone.

cleanup. Without a realistic measure of national welfare, it is difficult to pursue policies that promote healthy, sustainable growth-growth that draws on the interest on stocks of renewable natural capital-in place of policies that contribute to the depletion of the capital itself.

The effort to develop a more comprehensive measure of national welfare should be just one part of an overall national strategy to achieve environmentally sound, sustainable economic growth. Such a strategy should be based on two fundamental premises. First, economic growth confers many benefits, environmental and otherwise. Growth provides jobs, economic stability, and the opportunity for environmental and social progress. Only through economic growth

can the people of the world, and especially the poor and hungry, realize their legitimate aspirations for security and economic betterment. And second, not all growth is "good" growth. What the world needs is healthy, sustainable, "green" growth: Growth informed by the insights of ecology and wise natural resource management, growth guided by what President Bush refers to as an ethic of "global stewardship."

At a I 990 White House conference on global climate change, the President said, "Strong economies allow nations to fulfill the obligations of stewardship. And environmental stewardship is crucial to sustaining strong economies .... True global stewardshW"'o ..Wi!! .be. achieved ... through more informed, more efficient, and cleaner growth."

Good growth means greater emphasis on conservation, greater efficiency in resource use, and greater use of renewables and recycling. Good growth unifies environmental, social, and economic concerns, and stresses the responsibility of all individuals to sustain a healthy relationship with nature.

Good growth enhances productivity and international competitiveness and makes possible a rising standard of living for everyone, without damaging the environment. It encourages broader, more integrated, longer-term policy-making. It anticipates environmental problems rather than reacting to the crisis of the moment.

Good growth recognizes that increased production and consumption are not ends in themselves, but means to an endthe end being healthier, more secure, more humane, and more fulfilling lives¡ for all humanity. Good growth is about more than simply refraining from inflicting harm on natural systems. It has an ethical, even spiritual dimension. Having more, using more, does not in the final scheme of things equate to being more.

Good growth can illuminate the path to a sustainable society-a society in which we fulfill our ethical obligations to be good stewards of the planet and responsible trustees of our legacy to future generations.

0

IIPlease Don't Kill That Tree" A bay window overlooking the Supreme Court park is a pleasant place to sit at breakfast, especially early on a holiday morning, when Constitution Avenue [in Washington, D.C.,] is devoid of traffic. At times like this, Capitol Hill is so quiet you can hear your heart beating, and if you are lucky enough to have a great glossy pine growing close to your house, you will sometimes catch another sound, the purest in nature: Wind hissing through needles.

1was sitting like this on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, halfway through a muffin and the latest installment of Rex Morgan, MD, when something like the screech of an angry hyrax came from outside. There, swaying above the sidewalk in a power-operated cradle, was a man with a buzz saw. As my wife and I boggled, the buzz saw screeched again. We saw a green branch fall, and I said uncertainly, "They're pruning."

My wife, who is quicker than I am to believe the unbelievable, shouted, "They're not!" I blundered down the stairs and out into the street, just in time to miss being hit by another branch. It smashed against the curb, cones jiggling crazily. "Stop!" I roared at the sky, "will you please stop!"

The hyrax fell silent, and I found myself facing a politely puzzled ground crew. "What are you doing to our tree?"

"Sir, it's not your tree," said the foreman, a young man with a bleached mustache. "It's theirs."

He pointed to the adjoining town house, owned by a research foundation. "It's growing out of their yard"-which was true enough, although most of the growth was in front of my house. "It's got to From The New York Times Magazine.

Copyright

Š 1989 by The New York Times Company.

Reprinted by permission.

come down," the foreman said.

For a moment I stood dumb with shock. I peered up at the tree's crest, gilded with sunshine above the line of our roof. Each spray was tipped with a diamond of gum.

There must be some mistake, I told myself. Here soars 18 meters of strength and shade, gracing the facades of two historic houses.

Doves nest in this tree. Squirrels use it for springboard practice.

When I sit at my desk after a snowfall, I can look out on puffs of white and green. If we need kindling for our fire, we just step out on the balcony and pick a few cones. How they sputter! And how sweetly they smell!

"Come down?

For God's sake-who says?" He showed me his work order from the founda-

tion. "Sir," I said, trying to keep my voice steady, "I will give you a check right now if you will just go away and let me resolve this with our neighbor."

He hesitated, clearly sympathetic. ''I'm sorry, sir, we got a contract. Don't want to be sued."

But he agreed to wait while I pressed the foundation's doorbell. The director who signed the work order came down to see me.

She was young, good-looking, and had a wide smile. "Hi," she said, introducing herself. The smile encouraged me, but as we talked it became more and more fixed, and I realized (with a surge of panic) that she was determined to kill the tree.

"Basically it's a maintenance problem," she said. "The needles clog our gutters and mess up our

yard, and we're concerned about branches falling on people in the street. " "I'll pay to have it pruned," I babbled. "I'll take care of your maintenance. I'll pay those guys.

Please don't kill that tree."

The director went off to consult someone on her board, and 1 paced the reception room in a frenzy. I have always been a mild person, and 1 was amazed at the passion boiling inside me. After a few minutes she came back, smiling more widely than ever. ''I'm sorry," she said, "but it's going to come down."

Was it my imagination, or did 1 see relish in that smile? Could she be looking forward to the destruction of a great white pine, planted probably before she was born? "I like trees," she ex-

plained, as if reading my thoughts. "I just don't happen to like that tree."

I dragged her out of the door and made her look at it. "It's beautiful," I said, choking at the inadequacy of speech. "It's living. Birds nest in it...." She shook her head. "It's coming down," she said.

"Then I'll defend it with my body!" I roared, and lunged across the yard to thc tree. I tore offmy shoes and tried to scrabble up the trunk, wildly supposing that if! could only climb halfway, I could fend off the buzz saw with my bare hands. But I am 48 years old, and have the body of a sedentary scholar. I crashed back to ground level, and found that I could not let go of the tree. I hugged it so fiercelyit cut into my chest.

The morning air was cold, and I began to tremble convulsively.

"Oh God," I whispered into the ridges of the bark, "please save this tree."

My wife, white-faced in her robe, ran out of our house to tell me that she was telephoning everybody she could think oflawyers, senators, friends, the press. After a while the foreman came over to me. "Sir, they just called the police. You can get a coat if you like. We won't cut this tree until somebody comes."

I thanked him, but held on to the trunk. There was something comforting about its rough bulk, too large for me to grasp entirely.

I have never felt so alone. ¡Then I heard the crackle of shoes on needles, and braced myself for the sight of a nightstick. But it was only a well-dressed stranger. His face was thoughtful, concerned.

"Excuse me," he said, "but I'm trying to get home on the Metro.

I've lost my wallet-" "Oh go away," I groaned, feeling an insane urge to laugh as well as cry. "I've got troubles of my

roots, owns the tree. But reporters and photographers were on their way. It was a race between the police and them.

The police won. They arrived in cars and on motorcycles, lights flashing. "Sir," an officer barked, "please step down onto the sidewalk. We want to talk to you."

"You can talk to me here." I was struck by the contempt on his face. It did not occur to me how ridiculous I must look: A bearded, shaking tree-hugger in splintery socks. "Step this way right now, sir." He unleashed his stick. "I will," I said, "if you guarantee-" "We're not guaranteeing anything. Down on the sidewalk, right now."

I don't remember much about the final moments of the tree's life.

Isolated flashes recur: A uniformed arm sweeping me into the street, the director returning to her office, my voice hoarsely crying, "Vanda!!," the hyrax screeching and biting again, more branches thumping down, my wife calling me home. I went inside, pulled down the blinds, and lay in the darkest room I could find. The screeching ended in half an hour. That's all it takes to obliterate the growth of 40 years.

The press came, and I posed dully by the stump, letting the fresh sawdust stream through my fingers. A young reporter needed a quote, so I gave it to him at dictating speed. "It was Christians zero, barbarians one."

Much later, all passion spent, I sat in my study gazing through the bay window (its right pane bare and bleak now, exposed to passing traffic), and I murmured over and over some¡ lines from D.H. Lawrence, which had come to me when I stood holding the trunk: I feel the pain of falling leaves And stems that break in

own."

My wife came out again and said that we appeared to have no legal rights at all. Who owns the

About the Author: Edmund M orris won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

Novelist and short story writer Padgett Powell, who was in India recently, burst onto the American literary scene in 1984, at the age of 32, with his first novel Edisto, which Time magazine named as one of that year's five best books. Set in a small, unspoiled coastal town in the American South, Edisto tells of the coming of age of the 12year-old narrator.

"A born writer makes his debut...," wrote Publisher's Weekly, hailing the book as "a treasury of stunning images that create an almost palpable atmosphere."

The New York Times described it as "a sparkling read, so full of an energetic intelligence, inventiveness, love of language, and love of people ...." Edisto garnered a nomination for the American Book Award for First Fiction and the Whiting Foundation Writers' Award in 1986.

Powell's second novel, A Woman Named Drown, published in 1987, also received critical applause. Time called it "extravagantly comic, an exercise in word-spinning for the sheer uncertainty and pleasure of what might pop out next." Writing in The New York Times Book Review, novelist T. Coraghessan Boyle said the novel recreates "the distinctive, understated humor that is Mr. Powell's signature."

Powell's third book, Typical, a collection of short stories and essays, was published last year.

Much of Powell's writing is rooted in the American South, the region where he grew up. Powell was born in Gainesville, Florida. Critics have compared him to regional writers such as Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, J.D. Salinger, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner.

Powell himself rates Faulkner at the top of the writers who have influenced him.

of Words He once said, "I've read a third of Faulkner. The third I read was more important than the totality of any other writer."

Powell has also won praise from senior American novelists such as Saul Bellow, who said, "When asked for a list of the best American writers of the younger generation, I invariably put the name of Padgett Powell at the top."

Meanwhile, when not writing, Powell is honing the talents of the next generation.

He teaches creative writing (fiction) at the University of Florida.

During his three-week visit to India, under the aegis of the U.S. Information Service, Powell gave readings from his work and answered questions about American literature and Southern life from audiences of students, cntlcs, and writers in Bhubaneswar, Bombay, Calcutta, Cuttack, Madras, New Delhi, and Pondicherry. Literary critic Muriel Wasi interviewed Powell for SPAN in New Delhi.

At the Y One of the liveliest of American organizations that sponsor cultural performances is New York City's 92nd Street Y. Its presentations have ranged from dances by Martha Graham's company to readings by Dylan Thomas and Saul Bellow.

To Each Her Own SPAN presents the American woman of today in a series of articles that include reflections on the feminist movement, personal success stories of those who have made it in male-dominated professions, the voices of women poets, and more.

MURIEL WASI: I am somewhat intrigued by the academic and working experience that preceded your writing career. At college you majored in chemistry.

It is evidentfrom your stories that you have a knowledge of science. But science is not usually a stimulus to creative writing other than science fiction. Of what use directly or indirectly has your knowledge of science been to you in writing?

PADGETT POWELL: Science makes you aware of the known and unknown forces of the world. It teaches you about the activation of energy, how it's necessary to get a process in action. There's nothing new in this. [English poet] John Donne talked about "like gold to airy thinness beat," and "twin compasses," remember? Science enables you to use that hard, elegant, short language and turn it to literary purposes. Those scientific conceits become literary.

Disease Detectives A National Geographic writer sets out "to explore the nature of today's epidemics as well as the scientists who chase them" at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, headquarters of the world's most famous medical sleuths.

~

From Madras to Hollywood Radha Bharadwaj has made a splash with her daring debut as a Hollywood director. Closet Land is not a safe entertainer but a radical, philosophical film with just two characters, played by Madeline Stowe and Alan Rickman.

Did science help you see the world right side up?

POWELL: Through it, you do see elegant methods of investigation. You begin to understand what hypothesis is, you learn about hypothesis-testing, the duplicability of data. You begin to see and investigate and express yourself in a definitive way. For me, it was a way that I had not found in literature: Science confers method, method instead of madness.

You moved out of science-learning into being a day laborer and roofer. Was that because you wanted to offset theory-inlearning by practice-in-doing?

POWELL: I would like to think romantic things, like Mark Twain's going "on the river," like Joseph Conrad's "going to sea," but the answer is much simpler. I needed money. I needed to work to make money. This is a typically American thing, to do something physical after being at college, something radically unlike studying books. I wanted to make money; I couldn't do it with my science degree for various reasons, but I could do it by helping to build a house, by construction.

I worked for eight years.

What did it do for you?

POWELL: It gave me a sense of achievement. You feel good doing that work. I made friends. And I made money.

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When did you first know/feel that you wanted to be a writer? At thisfirst stage did anyone-a relative, teacher, friend-especially influence you and, if so, in what way?

POWELL: My grandmother was a novelist. She dedicated one of her books to me when I was very young. I didn't know if the book concerned me, ifI was in the book. It was dedicated to "John Padgett Powell Jr." She used the American Indian word for an American Indian chief, the equivalent of Flamingo Prince. I learnt that words can draw attention to you, that one way to get attention was by speaking and writing, and this I did to a degree unusual in a child.

Much of your writing seems addressed more to the ear, than the eye. Have you done much writing for radio?

POWELL: No. But there is a kind of writer who pays a lot of attention to the oral word, has a musical ear, a sense of sonic effect. I had no built-in passion for music because I'm ignorant of classical music and have sometimes felt with Mark Twain that music "is better than it sounds." But some people can hear the sound of words in the head before they're ever spoken and this happens to me.

You've written two novels and several memorable short stories. Not all your stories set out just to tell a story. In your view, what is the most important element in writing-( a) story; ( b) people, that is, delineation of character, personality, conflict of personality; or (c) your vision of life as it is, as it could be?

POWELL: I'd go with (b) people, and the latter half of (c) that is, vision of life as it could be. Story matters less than either of these. Let me explain. Narrative is artificial; it has very little to do with life.

As we sit here, for instance, we're not telling a story. I never did set out to write or edit stories in my novels. In one sense, in my writing nothing happens-that's true. In another sense everything happens. Psychologically. Nothing seemingly forces it to happen. So, I don't write about houses being on fire or people getting into big fights.

When you're delineating character, what is it that you're really seeking to do? What kinds of people interest you?

POWELL: In general, unsuccessful people. Not the radically downtrodden, but people who've not strapped themselves into the jet pilot's seat. I've no objection to failure, energetic failure, failure with a flair. Failure is the dominant condition of people, so why not have some of it?

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What of conflict of personality? For instance, in your stories "Mr. Irony" and "Mr. Irony Renounces Irony," I don't think you like Mr. Irony, do you?

POWELL: Oh, I like him. I'm not criticizing what others may see as his intellectual arrogance. The story is a sort of parable of my teacher Donald Barthelme [see SPAN, December 1990].

There's almost nothing in the story that is exactly like him, but there is a flavor of him. I just kicked it about to give it a hysterical dimension.

But one does get an impression of Mr. Irony as talking down, not to or at people.

POWELL: Yes. But Barthelme never, for instance, said: "Shut up." There is aloofness, distance, condescension. What I was looking for in "Mr. Irony Renounces Irony" was what would the man be like without his dominant feature?

Like, what would a president be without the presidency?

Are you sympathetic to the so-called egghead?

POWELL: It depends. If someone intellectually arrogant suddenly got involved with women and chose to be with two of them, he would be not primarily an egghead, but a sexual beast who suffered from intellectualism.

Then I'd be interested in him.

What about women? In general, your stories are not about women. There is of course the legendary Mrs. Schuping, in "The Winnowing of Mrs. Schuping." But in general, do you know men better than you do women?

POWELL: I'd say I know women not less well than men, but I don't know men very well. However, it is more interesting to speculate about women than men.

Incidentally, why have you called your collection of short stories, Typical?

POWELL: There is a story in that.

How typical is anything? The word is used in so many ways by everyone. Sometimes ironically. r got this title out of a letter to the editor of a dog magazine. The writer said: "I guess we're just killer-dog loving

people." She didn't mean killer-dogs were typical; she meant loving killer-dogs was typical. She wrote: "Dear Editor, it's typical, Ijust love killer-dogs." And this stuck in my mind.

Words, their precise use and abuse, clearly mean much to you. For example, your short story "General Rancidity" is a tour deforce in word style. How important do you think that style is to today's creative writer? Can a creative writer arrive and endure if he/she is without style?

POWELL: I equate style with mind, the general contour of your mind, the particular expression of your thoughts. If there are ten comedians lined up there, and I choose one and say: "That chap's got it right," he has style. But in a sense everyone has style.

When Oscar Wilde said that books were neither good nor bad; they were well written or badly written, he was talking about style, wasn't he?

POWELL: Yes. There are people who write so uninterestingly that I remember this about their style-that it is uninteresting.

You mean that style can be bad as well as good? .

POWELL: Yes. Your writing, as reflected in your short stories, is predominantly comedy, ironic comedy. Do you think you will continue in this vein? Have you written a story that you would describe as tragic?

POWELL: No, but I don't rule that out. When I read my stories, I hear a voice whispering about a real story, about real people, about God's green Earth. When r look at "Mr. Irony" I know it's a failure.

Why? Because it's misshapen, too long. It was longer still, but it should have been half the length. Do I outgrow my work soon? Yes, I do. You have to read and read it so often, in galleys, in proof before it's published, you get sick of it. When I compare myself with ~riters of my own age and nationality, I know that there are one or two people who give me pause.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it's only

one or two. With them I feel: "I've got to wrestle with that guy." One of them was born in Germany, had the opportunity to travel early. I was not able to cross the English Channel till I was 35.

Hemingway is a good example of a "Let's go" writer. Paris, Spain, Africa, Cuba.

But he lived in hotels, he didn't know French, I'm told.

Words mattered to Hemingway. Did your becoming a writer spring out of your feeling for words? Did you choose to use words as your instrument of expression?

POWELL: No. It was not a matter of choice. I could not sing-that was out.

Painting never seemed right for me. I learnt a little Latin. It became clear to me quite early that if I had to use words, they must be deployed with care. All literature is writing, but not all writing is literature.

This reminds me of a story I heard from Saul Bellow. He said he once met a woman after a hard morning's work and she said: "You look like an archaeologist just back from a morning's dig." And he retorted: "And you look like something I dug up." Later, horrified at himself, he asked: "Why do I have to be so gratuitously insulting to people?" And he answered himself: "It's this business of art."

It implies verbal one-upmanship.

In your story "Dr. Ordinary," the hero thinks and judges himself better after his death than before it. Is this just a way of saying that you can see a life better in the round, when it is over, or are you hinting, even whimsically, at survival after death?

Did science get in the way of religious feeling for you?

POWELL: Literally, no. Science didn't get in the way of my acceptance of religion. But I would not rule out survivalit is entirely credible. About the s.upernatural, ghosts, I'm skeptical. As to what happens after death, I think it is a prudent course to expect "snuffing out," to get ready to go into a sleep in which you do not wake up, and do not dream. That's my guess.

0 About the Interviewer: Muriel Wasi is a Delhibased writer and educationist.

General Rancidity A Short Story by Padgett Powell

General Rancidity ran the obstacle course and the whorehouse. He ran away from nothing. He ran to weight on furlough. He ran headlong into marriage. He ran aground once in a ten-foot dinghy in a foot of water, disposing himself toward a career in the infantry.

He ran religious seekers out of his unit, and out of the Army if he could. "Bullets and Jesus do not mix" ran his slogan on this policy. The devout consequently ran scared before him, scattering like small fish before the large pagan shadow that General Rancidity was.

He ran underground raffles for military contraband, profits running into the thousands. He ran the flag up on his base personally. He ran into a woman with a jeep. He carried her fireman-style to the infirmary. Of the expression "Still waters run deep," General Rancidity said, "Blanks. Still water just sits there." He was much more fond of the expression "Fell off a turnip truck." He wanted no one accusing him of having fallen off a turnip truck. Consequently, he ran a tight ship.

He ran into difficulties, over time, with his friends-they ran off and left him. He was resigned to it: With familiarity, his turdy behavior around and his ungracious treatment of his friends increased until the general index of rancidity in his character exceeded the practical limits that people, even soldiers, were designed, or desired, to put t.:p with. Only the truly rancid themselves could run with General Rancidity

for long, and the truly rancid were rare.

One day General Rancidity, running late, ran low on gas and in fact ran out. No one would stop and pick him up. Thousands of lower-ranking men passed him on the roadside, running afoul of military as well as human protocol.

General Rancidity's blood ran more than hot.

He ran for a period toward the officers' club, where he ran up a giant tab, to have a drink before initiating procedures to court-martial the entire base. Luck was running low, or high, depending upon your affection for General Rancidity: He was run over by the woman he had run into and carried firemanstyle to the infirmary. She hit and ran.

General Rancidity's obituary ran to less than twenty-five¡ words, the result of a twenty-five-words-or-less contest run by his best surviving friends: General Rancidity and the turnip truck he rode in on ran off the edge of the earth last Thursday, rancid turnips, rancid general, and all.

Spirits on base were running high, most high, and weather fair, and all schedules on time, and all probabilities true.

Soldiers, and small schools of fish in the golf-course water hazards, ran over shoal and dale, rejoicing, relieved, relying on the base without General Rancidity to most happily, most trottingly, run itself.

0

The Fletcher Experience

by PRAMIT PAL CHAUDHURI

A seminar on the enigma of American political culture at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy leads to lively exchanges, provocative debates, and some friendly encounters.

very foreigner who travels to the United States to study its "innards" walks, whether he likes it or not, in the outsize footprints of Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th-century French aristocrat whose dissection of the American polity remains nonpareil.

Even before the classroom doors opened last June at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts, 17 of us foreign journalists attending a four-week seminar on the United States were handed a two-volume set of de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. It was a work that would dominate our reading, worm its way into conversation in the television lounge of Blakely dormitory, and pepper debate during seminar sessions.

With the Cold War dissolving into a puddle of lukewarm summitry, I was more than happy when the U.S. Information Service (USIS) in Calcutta proposed my name for the Fletcher seminar on "The United States and the World: The Enigma of American Political Culture." I was warned that competition was stiff so I was thrilled when four months later (in April 1991) I was handed a -ticket to Boston and a complimentary bottle of champagne. Here was a chance to not only see the United States after a gap of six years but to also go to a leading center for the study of international affairs and seek bearings in a world turned on its head.

Run jointly by Tufts and Harvard universities, the Fletcher School is hidden amongst the ivy-colored walls of Tufts' Medford campus. Its students and faculty take pride in having as little to do with Tufts as possible. The feeling is recip-

E

rocated; when I arrived it was impossible to find a Tufts student who knew where the school was.

Our first week was presided over by Mel Elfin, an editor at U.S. News and World Report and for many years a leading scribe at Newsweek. An added bonus while he led us through the tangled web of the U.S. media was his wife, Marge, a professor of U.S. government, who shared the podium with him.

A grizzled veteran of Washington's labyrinthine ways, Mel Elfin considered both the philosophical basis of America's sweeping press freedom, enshrined in the First Amendment, and the somewhat less enlightened reality of the modern pressits domination by a few family-owned chains, its losing battle with television and video games such as Nintendo, its love-hate relationship with the political establishment. He also touched on some moments of glory: Watergate and the civil rights movement.

When the discussion turned to censorship and government regulation of the media, he struck a responsive chord. With the exception of some of the Europeans there was not one journalist present at the seminar who had not experienced the official gag.

Four of the participants, however, worked as government spokespersons or pr~ss officials. Speaking from the other side of the fence, they related a different perspective. Ana-Marie, who had the thankless task of overseeing foreign reporters in El Salvador, related an endless stream of irresponsible if not outright deceitful acts by journalists. Daniela, Czech President Vaclav Havel's deputy spokesperson, uniquely spoke from both sides; she had been a dissident of the communist ancien regime. However, Seminar participants-journalists from 17 countries-and the Fletcher staff get together for afarewell photograph.

when Mohammed, of Oman's Ministry of Information, declared in his rich basso voice that press freedom was "alright" but "some control is necessary," he had the room on its feet and howling. Press freedom, we quoted de Tocqueville, "is the only guarantee of their liberty and security that the citizens possess."

No one doubts that international political economy is important but few would consider it the most scintillating of topics.

After a few minutes on net capital transfers among nations most eyes begin to glaze over. We were therefore twice lucky in that our next speaker, David Spiro of Columbia University, was not only conversant with his subject but able to explain the application of game theory to tariff wars in a manner both simple and fascinating-no mean feat.

Spiro was a master of playing the devil's advocate, rousing his audience into a lather trying to prove him wrong.

He would line up zealous free marketers, fireat them evidence that a free market is an unnatural state of affairs, that a nation practicing free trade in a protectionist world is doomed to perpetual recession, and that any number of political indexes showed free trade to be a will-a' -the-wisp.

Having left them thrashing on the ground he would switch sides and knock down those who had been cheering him on from the wings. It was bruising, lively-and did wonders for the gray matter.

We were all interested in the United States' future role in the world economy.

After trawling various schools of thought, Spiro's net landed the less than optimistic conclusion that the world was in for hard times. The global economy, he argued, needs a strong nation to serve as an anchor. The United States plays the role today because, one, it is rich and, two, other nations accept its leading role.

With each trade squabble, however, the second condition erodes and the bedrock of protectionism is exposed.

Spiro covered much more and all of it in a stimulating manner. He easily won top marks for his lecturing. He provided us with his personal computer access code and invited us to send him dirty jokes.

All this should not give the impression

that it was all work and no play. Boston, a city with academic institutions on every corner, is replete with places geared to lighten student wallets and time. For ten males and seven females of a median age of 28, all dressed up with nowhere else to go, its facilities were tailor-made. Thanks to the diligent efforts of four Fletcher postgraduate students appointed to keep us entertained, and to the seminar's generous allowance, we had no idle evenings.

Parties of seminarians walked the freedom trail, visited the Salem-Peabody Maritime Museum, the beaches of Crane Above: Eva Marie (right) of Denmark, and Hill Reservation, and, twice, Walden Gerard (center) of Benin, with Mark, one of Pond. I spent many a day exploring the the Fletcher students assigned to guide the dusty shelves of Harvard Square's score foreign journalists. Above right: Six of the seminarians, including the author (right), of used bookshops. spent afree day climbing the White Mountains Under the guidance of Jim Robbins, a of New Hampshire.

Fletcherite, six of us spent a day climbing the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

By evening, footsore and weary, but is hammered out. James Baker may get all triumphant at having conquered mounts the limelight but the truth is that almost Lafayette, Lincoln, and Liberty, we cele- every cabinet ministry, from defense to brated with a dinner at the first Italian energy, has a finger in the policy pie. In restaurant we came upon. One hot and addition, the National Security Council lazy Saturday we were taken to a "Strawand the Central Intelligence Agency get in berry Festival" in the Nashoba valley the act. And that is only the executive west of Boston. This comprised picking branch, simplicity itself compared to the strawberries and eating them with" a mazeuf committees and lobbies that govpicnic lunch complete with fruit wines ern congressional foreign policy making. made by a local vineyard, all to the Given the U.S. government's inability to accompaniment of a jazz ensemble in keep a secret, most of all from the press, Pfaltzgraff concluded that the surprise the background.

A more adrenaline-charged night was was not in that U.S. policy was faulty but spent on the Jazzboat-a night cruise that it existed at all. An unabashed adon a three-tier launch around Boston mirer of de Tocqueville, he pointed out harbor with a vibrant blues band on that even then the philosopher had deboard and dancing everywhere except dared that foreign policy is not the forte of a democracy. inside the foghorn.

U.S. foreign policy is a contentious Whenever possible most of us tried to avoid filing copy back home. Akmar put issue at the best of times. Many of us' us all to shame by diligently sending a fax already had strong views on its nature and every weekday to his newspaper in Ja- Pfaltzgraff's equally steadfast opinions karta. I took the opportunity to persuade led to the most acrimonious debates of John K. Galbraith to hold an interview the seminar. Juan and Armando,' from and met radical gadfly N oam Chomsky Chile and Costa Rica respectively, took with two others of our group. exception to the claim that the United Our third week was on foreign policy. States was a nonimperialist nation for the Robert Pfaltzgraff of the Institute of For- first century of its existence. Some of us eign Policy Analysis, Inc., a right-wing also challenged his carefully argued brief think tank, was our guide. Pfaltzgraffwas against supporting Gorbachev. best when describing the cumbersome He concluded his week with a war process by which American foreign policy game. I found myself in the role of the

Pentagon chief, a Dick Cheney of 1999, reacting to the invasion of a small Middle Eastern country by a larger neighbor armed with nuclear missiles. I cannot say we did a good job for it all ended in a localized nuclear exchange. Our Secretary of State, Eva Marie, a stoutly pacifist Dane, resigned to protest "male warmongering." We nevertheless learnt the difficulty of making decisions at the top when the hourglass is down to its last few grains.

It is easy to mouth cliches about it being a small, small world but working with people from 17 different countries is a considerable educational experience. In addition most were journalists, a group more up on things at home and abroad than the average. Yasemin, a Turk of Macedonian origin, sparked my interest in the Turkic people of Soviet Central Asia and the ethnic caldron of Yugoslavia, which, as any glance at recent world headlines will explain, proved invaluable.

Many students, international and American, shared our dormitory and

joined our fraternity. One of my favorite characters was Ahmed, an Afghan Mujahidin who looked the part. When he said he had ambushed Soviet convoys on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway for years no one doubted his word. He was studying Soviet negotiating methods. "We had to fight them; now we have to talk with them," he explained.

But if I was learning, I was also teaching. Rajiv Gandhi's assassination had preceded my arrival by only a few days and as India's election process unfolded I had plenty of questions to field. I took great pains to put the death in perspective; traumatic, yes, but nowhere close to fatal to India's polity. David, at least, was convinced and promised to put a flea in the ear of doomsday-predicting leader writers back in Wellington.

David and I had a special affinity: We were the only Commonwealth citizens in attendance. Besides recognizing the name Richard Hadlee I was the only one who had no problems with his accent, so Down Under you could slice kiwifruit with it. I acted as an interpreter so often for his roommate, Kusay from Syria (translating from English to English), that the latter promised me payment on his return to Damascus.

A complete unity of interests was not always there. Fairly early a "NorthSouth" divide appeared. The Europeans, for example, were interested in American social policy. Those from the Third World, mostly from nations for whom a welfare system was an unimaginable luxury, preferred to look at U.S. foreign aid policy. For a Norwegian like Birgitte, whose country had not taken U.S. economic help since the days of the Marshall Plan, we Afro-Asian types were hopelessly one track.

These were minor points. The seminar's organizers told us we were easily one of the most close-knit groups that they had encountered.

Many international seminars tend to fracture into regional cliques. We preferred to make an advantage of our diversity. On more than one night Blakely resounded to Arab rock music and our raucous attempts to follow Afkar's belly-dancing lead or the rhyth-

mic stomping of largely non-Rwandan feet to a Rwandan beat. We made amends on our penultimate day by hosting a large barbeque, dance, and wine-soaked night for the Fletcher students, staff, and various US IS officials.

The final week came all too soon. Good company sadly accelerates time. Professor John Roche, a Fletcher faculty member and the brain behind the seminar, took the reins during the last lap to explain the behavior of the species Homo americanus politicus and tie up as many loose ends as possible.

A warm, exceedingly helpful man with a rough exterior, prone to letting his Irish background get the better of his accent, Roche emphasized the antiauthoritarian streak in U.S. mentality, a nation based on improvization and self-help. Roche's insistence on handling the last week himself was a commitment we appreciated; he was fighting a spreading cancer.

Any discussion of U.S. political culture will and did return to the big question of democracy in general, its American subspecies, and the relevance of either one outside North America and Europe. I put up a spirited defense of the parliamentary system; in my view splitting the legislature and the executive was a recipe for paralysis.

Democracy we all agreed was not an easy system. Gerard of Benin, a nation whose democracy was still wet behind the ears, confessed that things were a lot simpler if less free under a dictatorship.

Many, in particular the West Asians, were less persuaded that the U.S. experience was not unique and unexportable.

India often came up as a refutation of the argument that nations without democratic traditions, without developed economies, without large middle classes, and so on could not be ruled by ballot boxes.

But in the end there was a feeling, if not a consensus, that democracy was, in the words of de Tocqueville, "in the world's affairs, universal and irresistiqle."

0 About the Author: Pram it Pal Chaudhuri,

who was on the editorial board of The Statesman when he went to the Fletcher School, is now an assistant editor with The Telegraph in Calcutta.

THE WORK ETHIC The author, a leading sociologist, rejects the "good old days" theory that says Americans worked harder and better in the past. On the contrary, he argues that people today work more-and enjoy working more-than they ever did before. eliefs about the work ethic vary over time and place.

There is, however, a general inclination for older people to believe that things were better-or at least more moral, more decent-when they were young. As Adriano Tilgher, a historian of work, wrote in 1931, "Every country resounds to the lament that the work fever does not burn in the younger generation, the postwar generation."

The affluent generally complain that their subordinates, the less privileged, do not work hard and have lost the work ethic.

A survey of members of the American Management Association found that 79 percent agreed that "the nation's productivity is suffering because the traditional American work ethic has eroded." But this is an old story. Harold Wilensky notes that in 1495 the English Parliament passed a statute on working hours and justified it in the following preamble: "Diverse artificers and labourers ...waste much part of the day ...in late coming unto their work, early departing therefrom, long sitting at breakfast, at their dinner and noon meal, and long time of sleep in afternoon."

The idea that people should work hard-because doing so is virtuous, because it advances the common good, or even because it lets them amass wealth-is a relatively recent one. Since work is difficult, the question is not why people goof off, but rather why-in the absence of compulsion-they work hard.

B

The ancient history of the human race speaks eloquently to the inherent disdain for work. The Greeks regarded work as a curse. As Tilgher observed, Homer wrote that the gods "hate mankind and out of spite condemned men to toil." Manual work was for slaves, and both the Greeks and the Romans scorned free people who did it. The Bible, in the words of British scholar Michael Rose, portrays work as "a curse devised by God explicitly to punish the disobedience and ingratitude of Adam and Eve," a "painful drudgery" necessitated by the original sin. The Talmud too, Tilgher noted, teaches that "if Reprinted

with permission

Copyright

Š

1990 National

of the author Affairs,

Inc.

from

The Public Interest, No. 98 (Winter

1990), pp. 61-69.

man does not find his food like animals and birds but must earn it, that is due to sin." The Jews drastically changed their understanding of God's will, but did so only later.

Early Christianity shared the ancient Hebrew view of work.

The one justification for amassing wealth was to dispense charity. Given medieval Christianity's disdain for work, as well as for interest, usury, and profit, how was it possible to get people to work hard, to accumulate capital, to accept the logic of capitalism?

Protestantism brought about a major shift in attitudes.

Martin Luther, like earlier heretics, emphasized that people could serve God through work; he argued that the professions were useful, that people should try to work well. But he had contempt for trade, commerce, and finance, because he did not believe that they involved real work. Hence Luther did not directly pave the way for a rational profit-oriented economic system. Furthermore, he continued to approve of the static class structure of feudalism, opposing people's efforts to improve their stations in life.

Max Weber contended that Calvinism produced a new attitude toward labor. In the Calvinist view, it is the will of God that all must work; work is accordingly methodical, disciplined, and rational; it is morally justified even though oriented toward profit and mobility. Calvinists also concluded that earnings must be reinvested ad infinitum. Weber linked this revolutionary view to the doctrine of predestination: The only way to find out if you were predestined to Heaven was to succeed on Earth, thereby demonstrating that you were one of the Elect.

Hence being charitable and helping others to rise violated God's will.

These beliefs were secularized, as Robert Merton notes, into a system of "socially patterned interests, motivations, and behavior" that were functionally related to emphases on rationality, hard work, and the accumulation of wealth. These values in turn led to increased productivity and capital growth: The main exponents of the new attitude were the Protestant sects, not the state churches that incorporated the norms of medieval hierarchy. And the one major country that has been dominated by the Protestant sects is America. In his classic work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber's principal example of the spirit of capitalism was found in the writings of Benjamin Franklin. Weber, and others, of course, pointed to the role of Calvinists such as the English Puritans, the French Huguenots, and the Swiss and the Dutch Reformed in fostering economic growth elsewhere; of these groups, however, only the Dutch Reformed made up a majority in their country.

But does the United States still have the work ethic that it had

Then &Now

bySEYMOURMARnNLI~ET

now pumps 46.8 hours per week into school, work, and commuting-way above the 40.6 hours logged in 1973." It is true that people worked 53 hours per week in 1900, whereas they now average around 39, but this number has remained fairly constant since 1945.

"/ see in your resume that from /96/ to /982 you were at work.

Can you be a little more specific?"

Reprinted

by permission from The Saturday Evening Post Society, a division

of BFL and MS. Inc.

Š

1984.

when Weber visited in 1893? A decade-and-a-halfago, a widely cited volume called Work in America, produced by a task force of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, popularized the argument that the work ethic has declined. The study contended that "significant numbers of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of their working lives. Dull, repetitive, seemingly meaningless tasks are causing discontent among workers at all occupational levels."

This conclusion. is simply not sustained by the available evidence. While I have few doubts that the work ethic is less prominent now than it was in the 19th century, the available facts do not justify bad-mouthing it. As the March 1989 issue of Psychology Today notes, in the 1950s a number of sociologists predicted that Americans would increasingly choose to emphasize leisure and to abandon work-and were proven entirely wrong. To quote George Harris and Robert Trotter: "Work has become our intoxicant and Americans are working harder than ever before. In the past 15 years, the typical adult's leisure time has shrunk by 40 percent-down from 26.6 to 16.6 hours a week, and the workweek, after decades of getting shorter, is suddenly 15 percent longer." They note that "the average adult

One reason that more Americans have not substituted leisure for work may be that most of us like our jobs. In a 1973 Roper survey, 85 percent of the respondents said that they were satisfied with their field of work, whereas only 14 percent were dissatisfied. The corresponding figures for 1980 and 1985 show virtually no change. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) reports almost identical results in response to the question: "How satisfied are you with the work you do?" The same average percentage-85-answered that they were satisfied for the years 1972-1982. Indeed, the percentage was up a bit in 1988, when 87 percent gave this answer. NORC has also posed a tougher question: "If you were to get enough money to live as comfortably as you like for the rest of your life, would you continue to work or would you stop working?" On average, 70 percent of the respondents questioned during the 1972-1982 period claimed tha.t they would continue to work; the figure for 1983-1987 rose to 74 percent, and in 1988 it jumped to 85 percent. Daniel Yankelovich reports similar results.

Almost all surveys indicate that the vast majority of Americans-over 80 percent-are satisfied with their jobs. There has been no significant change in these figures over time. Many people, of course, do object to specific aspects of their jobs, complaining about boredom, pay, opportunity for advancement, the way that work is organized, and so forth.

Yankelovich reports that almost 90 percent of all American workers say that it is important to work hard; 78 percent indicate an inner need to do their very best. His research also suggests that the motives driving people to work have changed; the proportion saying that they work primarily or solely for money has declined, while the younger and better educatedemphasize the expressive side of work. To summarize Yankelovich, such workers increasingly believe that work, rather than leisure, can give them what they are looking for-an outlet for self-expression as well as material rewards. Roper indicates that when asked whether work or leisure is more important, many more Americans choose work than choose leisure: 46 percent to 33 percent in 1985. This figure has hardly changed since the 1970s; it was 48 percent to 36 percent in 1975 and in 1980.

The results, curiously, do not vary by occupational level or education, but they do confirm other traditional assumptions: Protestants value work more than Catholics (53 percent to 43 percent), conservatives more than liberals (55 percent to 39 percent), and older people more than younger.

And even the young do not seem to scorn work. The report of a 1983 international study of youth sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concludes that "[fJears that the 'work ethic' is being rejected by young people do not seem well-founded." An earlier cross-national poll conducted in 1978 under the auspices of Japan's Youth Bureau in II countries found that youths aged 18 to 24 were highly satisfied with their jobs.

Responses to pollsters may not be the best indicators of underlying feelings, since people may bow to prevailing norms rather than invite embarrassing questions. In the United States, with its great emphasis on individual choice, they might fear being asked: If you do not like your work, if you are not happy on the job, then what are you doing there? But data about productivity, retirement, and absenteeism rates should indicate sentiments toward work fairly accurately.

Such statistics confirm the opinion-survey results. In the words of one study, they indicate "a sustained period of strong productivity growth" between 1948 and 1973, with an annual 2.5-percent increase in labor productivity in manufacturing. It is true that this rate fell off drastically between 1973 and 1979, dipping down to 1.5 percent, and that for the U.S. economy generally it was only 0.6 percent during this period. Yet concern about this drop-off, which resulted in many books and articles, was misplaced. The drop-off apparently resulted from an increase in the proportion of young and inexperienced workers.

But changes in the capital-labor ratio and in the composition of the labor force (with the hiring of more-experienced and bettereducated workers) soon reversed the trend.

From 1979 to the present, the productivity growth rate in the United States has largely recovered-particularly in manufacturing, where it is reported to have "surpassed the pre-1973 rates." The average mean gain from 1984 to 1987 was 3.4 percent, about tl)e same as in Japan; only Britain has had a higher average among developed countries.

Nor does America's drop-off in the 1970s appear to have been caused by internal factors. Productivity growth in almost all industrial countries slowed down after 1973. Indeed, as one research team observes, "only the United States and the United Kingdom have had productivity growth rates since 1979 that match or exceed their pre-1973 trend rates."

Analyses of absenteeism show the same pattern as those of productivity. Data collected over 20 years in the 1960s and 1970s indicate very little change in sick-leave rates in America.

They certainly do not support a thesis of weakening job commitment. The rates vary, of course, by age and occupation: The young have more short leaves (and the old have more long ones) than the middle-aged; professionals and executives have fewer sick leaves than white-collar employees, who in turn are absent less frequently than manual workers. Cross-national figures from the late 1970s indicated that absenteeism rates are lower in the United States than in all other industrialized countries but Japan. What is more, the differences between Japan and America are comparatively small; the rate for Japan is two percent, while America's is 3.5 percent. By contrast, [former] West Germany's rate is eight percent, as is France's; Italy's is II percent, the Netherlands' is 12 percent, and Sweden's is 14 percent. American research, too, does not reveal any secular increase in absenteeism.

Retirement rates are another relevant statistic. Studies conducted from the 1960s to the 1980s in five countries-Britain, France, [former] West Germany, Japan, and the United States-reveal that each country has seen steady increases in the proportion retiring or not employed. The United States is second to Japan, albeit by a considerable margin, in the percentage of people aged 65 or more who remain on the job-18 percent are still working in the United States, compared with 41 percent across the Pacific. But a higher proportion of older people in America remain employed than in Britain (nine percent), [former] West Germany (6.5 percent), or France (six percent). These rates are, of course, affected by pension systems. It should be noted that Japan has by far the worst provisions for its elderly, who face more severe economic constraints than Americans.

Naturally, there have been changes over the years. While the Protestant ethic may have motivated much of the population to work hard prior to this century, economic need and the scarcity of resources also played major roles. The affluence of postWorld War II America and northern Europe has reduced the impact of the lash of necessity. And the increase in the number of jobs that require educational achievements may have greatly reduced the work morale of the lowly and the unskilled-many of whom are immigrants and minorities.

Still, in his comprehensive book, Reworking the Work Ethic, Rose concl udes â&#x20AC;˘tha t there has been no general decline in adherence to the work ethic. He contends that the growth in the belief in the decline stems from the attitudes (dating from the 1960s) of students and intellectuals who themselves disdain manual work. Like Yankelovich, Rose does note a differential reconstruction of work values, with increased emphases on

more interesting work, more participation, and less managerial control.

As Harold Wilensky stresses: "The leisure-oriented society is a myth.

Despite talk of the decline of the 'work ethic' and in the face of affluence for the majority, modern populations remain busywith some groups becoming busier while others are condemned to forced leisure." Herbert Gans, who was until recently president of the American Seymour Martin Lipset, a professor of Sociological Association, political science at Stanford University also notes that the rein California, is the author of several search evidence indicates books including The First New Nation that "more people are and North American Culture. doing work in which they have pride of craft today than ever before."

Given the nature and size of the trade deficit, and the success of the Japanese and the newly industrialized East Asian countries in penetrating American markets, my optimism may seem questionable. But I am talking about the work ethic, not about American trade, investment, or savings practices. It is true that the Japanese have maintained or increased their market shares, even though the relative production costs of their goods in dollars have skyrocketed. But this is because the Japanese aim to maximize market shares; they are willing to forgo profits now if doing so will help them in the long run. Their ratio of national savings to gross domestic product is twice as much as America's; they pay lower dividends, their executives receive lower salaries relative to workers' incomes, and-not leasttheir government and business practices operate to keep imports low. (The United States and Canada, on the other hand, are the two major economies most open to imports, and closest to following free-trade policies.)

But America is not failing. If it were, there would not be extensive investments in this country from Japan, Britain, Canada, and others, and the domestic investment rate for the 1980s would not have risen above the average of the previous 40 years. The United States still has the highest real per capita income of any country in the world, other than some Arab oilproducing states. In any case, as Charles Morris noted in The New York Times Magazine, "Americans earned about $20,000 million a year more on their foreign assets than foreigners did

on their American assets." Much of Americans' sense of malaise is created by accounting practices that lead them to underestimate their national assets.

This does not mean that we Americans face no real problems.

We have a sizable underclass; an increasing proportion of our children are living in poverty; our educational system has major difficulties; funds to replace our rotting infrastructure are difficult to find; and addiction to hard drugs is growing. But these are consequences of our social, economic, and political systems, not of low labor productivity or poor work morale.

There have, of course, been changes in the work ethic. As compared with the 19th century, or even the I920s, America (like other affluent countries) has become more leisure-oriented. The proportion of the work force in manual employment and in manufacturing has declined considerably, while the scientific, technological, communications, and educational sectors have grown enormously. But some of these trends-including the immigration of millions of people with an extraordinary commitment to work-should lead to an increase in productivity.

While the old-time Protestant ethic is weaker, it is still much stronger in America than elsewhere. Of Christian industrialized countries, America remains the most religious and observant one, with the most believers in fundamentalist and evangelical doctrines.

If social mobility is good for hard work, the objective data indicate that opportunity to rise is greater than ever, as a result of occupational shifts and economic prosperity during almost all of the postwar era. The opinion surveys report that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that either they or their children (or both) can rise, that hard work and study are rewarded. These beliefs are stronger than ever.

Finally, as Samuel Huntington has pointed out, the American economy as a whole has not been doing that badly, even when compared to the Japanese. In fact, "the most notable [recent] decline in gross domestic product growth was that of Japan: Its average annual growth rate between 1980 and 1986 was 57.8 percent of what it had been between 1965 and 1980. In contrast, the U.S. average annual growth rate in 1980-86 was 110.7 percent of what it had been in 1965-80." Between 1970 and 1987 the American share of the gross world product has held steady (between 22 and 25 percent), as has its portion of world exports generally (around ten percent) and of technology-intensive products (about one quarter).

Thus I cannot confirm the fears (or hopes) of the pessimists.

As I read it, the evidence reinforces the conclusions of the English scholar, R.E. Pahl: "The work ethic is alive and well: People enjoy working and there is plenty to do."

0

Moved to Paint When American artist Jill Andrea Karlin came to India in 1988to study yoga she brought along the paints and brushes of her profession, but never expected to be painting from dawn to dusk as India inspired her to do. Many of her paintings on

India (and Nepal) were recently exhibited at The Oberoi hotel in New Delhi.

These India-inspired paintings surprised even the artist. She painted in a style totally unlike the one she is recognized for in the United States. "My career is based on commissioned works, house portraits, orchid and floral paintings, and hand-painted tiles and wall murals," she explains. "But in India something deep insid~ of me was moved.

Since I didn't have the restrictions of working for someone, Ijust painted what I saw and what I saw was so incredible to me. Spontaneous and free, I painted in a different way." A way that has many people comparing her India/Nepal collection to the works of Amrita Shergill.

Karlin has degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design and the aoston University School for Fine Arts. She has also worked with renowned artists and

1. Jill Karlin at work in her makeshift studio in New Delhi.

4. Benares Bathing Ghat 40.6 x 50.8 cm.; watercolor.

2. Tradewinds 55.8 x 76.2 cm.; mixed media painting (combination of watercolor, pen and ink, and gouache).

5. Lake Pichiola, Udaipur, Rajasthan 55.8 x 76.2 cm.; mixed media.

3. Pushkar Fair 91.4 x 122 cm.; oil on canvas.

7. Monkey Temple Swayambonath, Kathmandu, Nepal 45.7 x 61 cm.; mixed media.

6. Rice Harvest, Nepal 122 x 122 cm.; oil on canvas.

8. Ladies, Amber Fort, Rajasthan 91.4 x 182.8 cm.; oil on canvas.

sculptors in Paris and Rome.

The origin of her recent exhibition goes back to her first visit to India and her introduction to P.R.S. Oberoi, vice chairman and managing director of Oberoi Hotels International.

Impressed by the rich colors and vivid images of these paintings, he suggested that she hold an ex. hibition. But it was already time for Karlin to return home and she did not want to rush into an unplanned show. The exhibition finally materialized last monthand things seemed to have snowballed after that. The U.S. Information Service is planning to take an exhibition of her paintings to several Indian cities next year.

Meanwhile, Karlin, currently on her third visit to India, is working on a line of fabrics and ceramics based on her flower imagery.

She is also working on a book (to be titled "Veiled Splendor") featuring her India collection and her encounters in India.

Karlin has been exposed to the subcontinent since childhood. She recalls visits to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which has a fine collection of Indian art.

When she was about six, Ravi Shankar played in Boston and her father was his attending physician; she still has a recollection of his performance. At 12, she became a pen pal of a girl from Bangalore-the daughter of a physician Jill Karlin's interest in yoga brought her to India. A dedicated student of the discipline, Karlin also teaches yoga in the United States.

colleague of her father. As a teenager she was quite friendly with Carey and Edith Welch; Carey is the curator ofIslamic and Indian art at the Fogg Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It was in the Welch home that Karlin was regularly exposed to Moghul miniature painting.

But it was yoga that first brought Karlin to India in 1988 to attend a one-month yoga course at the institute of B.K.S. Iyengar in Pune. Her interest in yoga began at the age of 12, when she saw her sister take it up after injuring her back in a ski accident. By the time Karlin was 16 she was teaching yoga at her high school. When she had a near-death accident in 1983, she turned to yoga even more seriously, training under teachers taught by Iyengar in the United States, England, and Italy.

Before the Pune course, Karlin visited Nepal and later toured India, finding a rich world to paint in both countries.

While Karlin has mainly worked in gouaches, watercolors, mixed media, and pen and inks in India, in America she does oils on canvas. Sometimes, she also paints with paper pulp. In this unusual technique, she dyes the pulp the colors of her palette, then places it on a screen that lies underwater inside a trough-like table. She forms the image as she sculpts the pulp. The drying process takes several weeks. the final product is a unique work of art, part sculpture (having depth and texture) and part painting (being created on a flat base).

Karlin is equally known for her award-

winning orchid watercolors.

She has painted them on canvas, on tiles (that are used to cover entire walls, transforming a room seemingly into an orchid-filled garden), and even on furniture.

Karlin's whimsical house portraits, inspired by American folk art and Rajasthani painting, represent a "biography" of the home and owner. She produces a border of vignettes around the painting of the house. Items special to the inhabitants of the house-a book, a pair of spectacles, a dog, even a line of conversation-are painted in miniature on the border, providing an heirloom documentation for the home owner, or, as the case may be, the civic organization, business house, hotel, or boat owner.

In America, Karlin divides her time between yoga and art. Once a week she holds private yoga classes-"I call it my missionary work"-at a church in Florida. When she needs some peace, she turns to an age-old Indian meditation techniqlle, Vipasana. "It involves retreating into ten days of complete and total silence," she says, "in which, among other things, you observe yourself and the silence. It is a special experience."

0 About the Author: Anuradha Chopra, a New Delhi-based media columnist and free-lance writer, has also worked on a newspaper, edited a travel magazine, taught English, worked in a hotel, been involved in theater, and scripted comedy serials.

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