THE IMPACT OF MARGINAL BUSINESS TAXES ON STATE MANUFACTURING

We estimate the impact of manufacturer business taxes on value added during the 1990s for 15 manufacturing sectors in 20 U.S. states. When the tax climate is properly measured as the potential liability arising from new investment in a state, we estimate that a 10 percent reduction in the effective tax liability is associated with a 3.5 to 5.3 percent increase in value added for the state's targeted manufacturing industry. When we isolate the value of industrial incentives from the basic tax system in our theoretically preferred marginal tax measure, we find that a 10 percent reduction in liability achieved by way of lowering taxes is associated with a 4.5 percent increase in value added while an equivalent reduction achieved by way of increasing incentives is associated with only 1.2 percent industrial growth, the latter elasticity not statistically different from zero.     

Conservatives,Liberals, and the Free Exercise Clause

Mark Lilla's summons to recover Hobbes's "art of intellectual separation" is stillborn. Lilla acknowledges the tendentiousness and theoretical inadequacy of Hobbes's approach, yet he falls back on that very strategy, refusing the real task of reconciling political and religious goods.     

Tocqueville on Pantheism,Materialism, and Catholicism

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that Leo Strauss was an extraordinary scholar and teacher who strove to open up forgotten vistas of philosophical inquiry. Gigantic controversy rages, however, about the sorts of political and social changes, if any, that he hoped to promote. The fire has been fueled by the alleged contributions of Straussians to the Iraq War—and by the publication of Strauss's 1933 letter that commended “fascist, authoritarian, and imperial” principles. This article reviews and then updates the assessments proffered in my 2009 book (Straussophobia) about the state of the “Strauss Wars.” Critics such as Shadia Drury continue to embarrass themselves in prestigious venues, but newer voices are using innovative strategies to argue that Strauss was attempting to undermine the principles of American democracy. Whereas William Altman relies on “esoteric interpretations” of Strauss's writings, Alan Gilbert illuminates Strauss's behind-the-scenes efforts regarding policy disputes. Although I maintain that Gilbert and especially Altman have made invaluable contributions, I argue that they both overreach.     

Legitimacy and the virtual battlefield: putting the first-person shooter on the witness stand

Although much has been written on the abilities of the first-person shooter to advance neo-orientalist themes and US imperial agendas through its aesthetics and narrative, the author argues that by exploiting the porous institutional boundaries between military planners and the video-game industry, the hyperrealist shooter becomes a formidable and formative middle ground not only in reshaping understanding of and access to the nebulous and furtive world of discreet war, but also in filling its legitimacy gap.     

The Role of Theatre in Society: A Comparative Analysis of the Socio-Cultural Theories of Brecht,Benjamin, and Adorno

Abstract

This article analyzes the socio-cultural theories of Adorno, Benjamin, and Brecht through the lens of the theatre, most especially as it pertains to the work of actors. It explores the forces of capitalism that determine how art is produced, distributed, and consumed. Following Adorno’s reading of Marx, actors are here posited as commodities whose labor is separated from the product they create for public consumption. This commodification raises various questions: How does a market economy shape the production and consumption of art? What is technology’s function in the commodification of art? What is art’s sociopolitical role and how does it apply to theatre? To address these questions I juxtapose the cultural theory of Adorno and Benjamin with Brecht’s epic theatre. This comparison exposes the ritualistic potential of the theatre to bring an audience together as a community through sharing a socially enriching event.     

Reviews

Richard J. Goy, The House of Gold: Building a Palace in Medieval Venice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. xxiv + 304pp., 13 col., 100 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–521–40513–0. £60.

Paul Mattick Jr. (ed.), Eighteenth‐Century Aesthetics and the Reconstruction of Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. viii + 256 pp. ISBN 0–521–43106–9. £30.

Barbara Maria Stafford, Artful Science: Enlightenment Entertainment and the Eclipse of Visual Education, Cambridge Mass. & London: MIT Press, 1994. xxx + 350 pp., 197 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–262–19342–6. £24.95.

Barry Cunliffe, Wessex to AD 1000, London & New York: Longman, 1993. 388 pp., 128 plates and figures. ISBN 0–582–49279. £16.99.

J. M. Fladmark (ed.), Cultural Tourism, London: Donhead, 1994. 413 pp. 86 b. & w. illns. ISBN 1–873394–15–2. £37.00.

John Dixon Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque, Cambridge, Mass., and London: The MIT Press, [1992], 1994. xviii + 388 pp., 127 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–262–08211‐X. £17.95. Venetia Murray, Castle Howard The Life and Times of a Stately Home, London: Viking, 1994. xx + 236 pp., 33 b. & w. illus. and 20 figs. ISBN 0–670–83379–7. £18.00.

Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. xv + 334 pp., 21 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0 521 40586 6. £14.95.

Alan R. H. Baker and Gideon Biger (eds.), Ideology and Landscape in Historical Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 356 pp., 93 figs. ISBN 0–521–41032–0. £40.00.

Timothy Ambrose and Crispin Paine, Museum Basics, London and New York: Routledge, 1993. 319 pp., 6 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–415–05770–1. £19.99.

Martin Warnke, The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. xx + 299 pp. ISBN 0–521–36375–6. £35.

David Dean, Museum Exhibition Theory and Practice, London and New York: Routledge, 1994. xii + 177 pp., 56 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–415–08016–9. £22.50.

Hanno‐Walter Kraft, A History of Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to the Present, London: Zwemmer and New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994. 706 pp., 207 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–302–00622–2. £25.00

James Strike, Architecture in Conservation: Managing Development at Historic Sites, London and New York: Routledge, 1994. x + 163 pp., 86 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–415–08130–0. £40.00.

Peter Walker & Melanie Simo, Invisible Gardens. The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape, Cambridge, Mass, and London: The MIT Press, 1994. xvi + 365 pp., 12 col. and 144 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–262–23177–8. £44.95.

John Onians, Bearers of Meaning: The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1988] 1990. xvi + 351 pp., 204 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–521–39848–7. £22.95.

G. J. Ashworth & P. J. Larkham, (eds.), Building a New Heritage: Tourism, Culture and Identity in the New Europe, London: Routledge, 1994. xiii + 278 pp., 39 figs. ISBN 0–415–07931–4, £40.00.

W. J. T. Mitchell (ed.), Landscape and Power, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994. vii + 248 pp., 72 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–226–53207–0. £ 11.25.     

Contributors

The historic region of Ohmi‐Hachiman, located in central Japan, is an example of a Continuing Landscape in an Asian setting. With a differing perspective on what may constitute authenticity, a planning exercise is now underway looking for a sustainable future for the city and surrounding countryside that is both a popular tourist attraction and a working agricultural area. Ohmi‐Hachiman combines two areas ICOMOS has declared as under‐represente d—an Asia heritage site and an agricultural landscape. This region is a Japanese case study that shares many planning and policy traditions with the West. It is the product of a long industrialised and developed nation, yet the site is quintessentially Asian with rice paddies and small villages sharing an ethos with the rest of this part of the world. It is an ethos that includes a philosophical and practical approach to this Japanese Continuing Landscape which dramatically diverges from conventional Western practices and challenges the accepted ideas of authenticity. It is an approach worthy of close scrutiny by those overseeing heritage landscapes in the rest of the world who may also be facing the uncomfortable clash of commerce and conservation.