An Enemy of the State

By R.Z. Sheppard

MODERN TIMES: THE WORLD FROM THE TWENTIES TO THE EIGHTIES by Paul Johnson; 817pages; Harper & Row; $27.95

"It is one of the dismal lessons of the 20th century," writes Paul Johnson, "that, once a state is allowed to expand, it is almost impossible to contract." John son, a lapsed liberal and a former editor of Britain's New Statesman, blames this condition on an unbridled will to power that was inadvertently released when Newton's orderly universe fell to Einstein's theory of relativity.

Einstein was no Darth Vader. How ever, Johnson argues, the belief that physical reality depended on where one stood was smuggled by social radicals into the realm of moral truth. The author's link age to the gentle mathematician is shaky, but his point is strong: moral relativism, the notion that good and evil are matters merely of point of view, is itself an evil.

Modern Times is a rip-roaring survey of the pathology of moral relativism, which, the author contends, is responsible for most of the totalitarianism and terrorism of the past 60 years. Immoral acts were certainly not invented in the 20th century. But the worst modern tyrants committed their obscenities in the name of secular abstractions. Writes Johnson:"Hitler was totally irreligious and had no interest in honor or ethics. He believed in biological determinism, just as Lenin believed in historical determinism." Joseph Conrad foresaw the consequences of the unprincipled approach in Under Western Eyes when he wrote: "A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and of tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterwards comes the turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the time."

Johnson supplements this observation with brief, vivid histories that illustrate the natural advantage of the ruthless and unrestrained. All the evidence suggests that the century's major revolutionary tyrants have killed considerably more of their native populations than the governments they replaced. Lenin and Stalin perverted socialist ideals and millions of Russians died. In Central and Eastern Europe, nationalists succeeded in gaining self-determination only to repress ethnic minorities within their own borders.

The scope and fury of purges by ideologues may even be increasing. In the mid-'70s the Communist Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot undertook a savage "ruralization" plan that drove millions of urban Cambodians from their homes and even hospital beds into the countryside. The deaths have never been tallied. The planners of this barbarism were not peasants; they were teachers, economists and bureaucrats who had studied in France. Observes Johnson: "Like Lenin, they were pure intellectuals. They epitomized the great destructive force of the 20th century: the religious fanatic reincarnated as professional politician."

Modern Times' golden age is America of the '20s. Prosperity and educational opportunity grew vigorously; art, music and literature made major breakthroughs. Much of this occurred under the unwatchful eyes of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, the last Presidents who were able to practice the preachment that government rules best by governing least.

One of Johnson's intellectual antecedents is Political Philosopher Karl Popper, who described the dangers of unnecessary tinkering in "the law of unintended consequence." Johnson himself has a strong prejudice against social engineering. His judgment on L.B.J.'s Great Society program: "The danger of the kind of welfare state Johnson was creating was that it pushed people out of the productive economy permanently and made them dependents of the state." The author prefers men like Jean Monnet, the architect of the European Common Market. "To him," writes Johnson, "planning machinery was a mere framework. Regulations should be designed to produce perfect competition, not Utopias."

Modern Times covers a great deal of history in a hurry, and Johnson's hasty outrage sometimes leads him into the same traps that he laid for moral relativists. For example, he justly accuses Marxists of judging people as classes rather than individuals but repeatedly uses the term intellectual and liberal as collective epithets. He defends Richard Nixon as no more guilty of dirty tricks than Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy. And he blames Nixon's downfall on a "media putsch," as if the 37th President did nothing during the Watergate investigation to warrant public scrutiny or criticism.

Johnson is far more persuasive in his broader argument that on the whole the modern state has proved itself "an insatiable spender, an unrivalled waster .. . the great killer of all time." What is the alternative? The kingdom of God? Johnson does not say. But those who doubt his charge have only to read his provocative book. --By R.Z. Sheppard This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.