BOOK REVIEWS 219 rationality, as elsewhere, attempts to depoliticize issues, making them the subject of rational analysis rather than impassioned struggle. Adam and Moodley point out that in the absence of political participation everything is politicized, as education and union policies become symbols of government repression. The overall analysis, while incisive, has some major problems. Most disturbing is Adam and Moodley's abiding faith in the power of economic growth to eliminate racial divisions. It is true that the development of a diverse, capitalintensive economy has diminished the importance of control over labor— control that historically has been the key to entrenched racial privilege. But only a fraction of the black population is needed to overcome the current shortage of skilled labor that will lead to the marginalization of an increasing number of "surplus laborers." Though there are economic costs to apartheid, whites still benefit from low relative wages and low costs of social reproduction. Apartheid and growth, therefore, are far from incompatible. Further, as Adam and Moodley point out, "embourgeoisement" has not provided more people with a stake in the existing system but with an increased political consciousness, an awareness of their deprivation. Thus a bigger South African pie does not lead inevitably to the elimination of apartheid, nor does it ensure the system's peaceful demise, contrary to the common wisdom of the South African business community. A second problem is the authors' dismissal of ethnic differences among blacks. While modern ethnicity has been primarily defined by the South African state, abolition of that definition cannot eradicate various historical — and therefore cultural — experiences. Adam and Moodley cite religious and territorial commonalities, but they overlook serious differences in language, custom, and, above all, differential access to the state. The Zulu experience in Natal certainly differs from the Tswana experience in Transvaal, to say nothing of variations among the Indian and colored communities. The battle for state control promises to draw heavily on those differences. Finally, the authors' solutions are somewhat disappointing after more than 200 pages of keen political analysis. They propose a system of indirect elections that protect minority rights, accompanied by a massive, "Great Society" war on economic wrongs. The electoral recommendations are as helpful as any, but the authors' attempt to redress centuries of repression with welfare programs seems politically, economically, and symbolically infeasible. Doling out a few benefits to those accustomed to the bottom of the social ladder is not the best way to rebuild a torn nation. The Defense Game. By Richard A. Stubbing with Richard A. Mendel. New York: Harper and Row, 1986. 455 pp. $21.50/cloth. Reviewed by Michael Friend, SAIS M.A. 1986. In this age of $600 toilet seats, $435 hammers, and nuts and bolts worth their weight in gold, it is clear that the United States is not getting sufficient bang 220 SAIS REVIEW for its billions of defense dollars. Why this occurs is less obvious. All too often we tend to assume that the government, in particular the military, is inherently wasteful and let it go at that. Calls for reform come and go, yet the system endures. Richard Stubbing, defense analyst at the Office of Management and Budget for twenty years, has written The Defense Game, a highly readable overview of this system. While he has much to say about the pernicious role played by the military and defense contractors, Congress and the executive branch receive their share of criticism as well. It often has been noted that there seem to be only two stages in the weapons acquisition process: "too soon to tell" and "too late to stop." Once major weapons systems programs pass the research stage, too much is at stake for Pentagon managers to rock the boat, either for the armed services that want weapons or for members of Congress representing their districts' arms contractors. The result is testing that is neither realistic nor rigorous, plus significant cost overruns . Secretary Weinberger's reluctant cancellation of the Army's Division Air Defense (DIVAD) self-propelled computerized antiaircraft gun was the exception that proved the rule. In most cases weapons programs do not fail as dramatically as DIVAD, but huge cost overruns and performance problems...
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Mar 1, 1990
James H Atkinson 
Open Access