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school reform have fail ed in two ways: in achi eving significant impact
on the interna l reorgani za ti on o f the classroom, and in stimul a ting
broader social changes through programs o f compensa to ry
educa ti on-Proj ect H eadsta rt, etc. T he main obj ect of Bowl es and
Gintis's work is to expl ain why such reformist endeavors have met
with, a t best, onl y very limited success- and why there is no hope of
their succeeding without much more fund amental social and economi c
changes in Ameri can society as a who le. These failures o f liberal
educa ti ona l reform, they are concerned to emphasize, have produced a
conserva ti ve backl ash finding intell ectual express ion in the rev iva l of
geneti c interpretati ons o f differenti al academi c a tta inment : a signifi–
cant portion of their book is devo ted
to
a ttempting a thorough critique
o f th ese. This is " No t a hea lth y conserva ti sm founded on the affirma–
ti on o f traditional va lues, but a rheumy loss o f nerve, a p roduct o f the
dashed hopes o f the past decades."
Bowl es and Ginti s's approach to the critique o f genetic theori es of
inequ ality is bo ld and convincin g, seeking to undercut such theories at
their roots. The intergenera ti onal transmi ss ion of socia l and economi c
inequa liti es wo rks ma inl y th rough " noncognitive mechani sms": thi s
is la rgely indepelldent of the di stributi o n o f I.Q., regardl ess of whether
the la tter is prima ril y an express ion o f inh erited capac iti es o r whether
it is no t. T his basic fact, they say, has been unapprecia ted by bo th
conserva tive critics and libera l apo logists a like. Consequentl y the la tter
have managed to produce onl y rela tively superficia l and ineffecti ve
responses to the a rguments of the fo rmer. Since I.Q. i no t a bas ic
determin ant of the structure of privil ege, the geneti c-environmentalist
controversy is irrelevant to the d iscuss ion of the sources o f in equ ality.
The authors also po int to an impo rtant tension in libera l thinking on
ega lita riani sm (one actu all y sa tirized two decades ago in Mi chael
Young's
The R ise of th e M eritocracy).
T he libera l view o f the just
society is one in whi ch there is no sociall y deri ved inequa lity of
oppo rtunity. But thi s can o nl y o pera te g iven tha t there are geneti c
differences in intell ectua l ta lents and capaciti es: o therwise it lead s to a
much more radi cal view tha t th ere is no justifica ti on for socia l and
economi c inequa lity a t all . Insofa r, therefore, as the weight of libera l
o pinion is directed towa rds cla imin g tha t differences in ta lent and
capac ity are not determined by geneti c illheritance, liberali sm co ll apses
into radi ca li sm.
T he organi za ti on o f the school sys tem in the United Sta tes, Bowl es
and Gintis show, has been strong ly influenced by the evoluti on o f the
economy in the movement from entrepreneuri al to corpo rate capita l-
