Ideas@TheCentre
The Morality of Capitalism: James Q. Wilson (1931 - 2012)
I only met James Q. Wilson twice, and one of them was when he was on an extended trip to Australia in 1997 and delivered the Centre’s John Bonython Lecture, The Morality of Capitalism. Jim delivered a masterful talk worthy of one of the more important intellectual figures of the last 100 years. The topic certainly rings true today.
It’s hard to believe that this thoughtful and courteous man is no longer here. He died in Boston on March 2.
His contributions to the social sciences were extensive, but perhaps two stand out for me. In 1967, in the now defunct The Public Interest, he published an article that questioned some of the thinking behind a nation-wide crime fighting plan being undertaken. He felt its presumptions bore insufficient analysis, nor empirical support. His warnings were ignored and America went on to garner a reputation for a society riddled with crime with many cities seeming to be like battle zones.
In 1982 after years of analysing policing methods and criminal behaviour, came his famous essay, written along with George Kelling, Broken Windows. Following its publication, there was a shift in policing strategies leading to extraordinary changes in the crime environment of New York City, the largest metropolis to implement the strategy and an exemplar of what the changes could achieve. New York of today is a foreign land to the one I visited in 1976.
The ‘broken windows’ strategy was the subject of a workshop for academics, police and other authorities held at CIS when he was in Sydney for his John Bonython Lecture.
For someone like me who puzzles about what I consider are negative changes in society (usually to do with the state crowding out civil society), but also someone with an optimistic view of the ability of free human beings to act well in the interest of a peaceful and cohesive social order, his book The Moral Sense, was enormously important. It still is. CIS was indeed fortunate to be able to publish an essay based on his book and it’s always worth reprising to boost your faith in mankind and the good society.
Much more can be said, but I am glad to have known Jim Wilson, even just a little, and the world is certainly a better (and safer) place because of his wonderful work.
Greg Lindsay is the Executive Director of The Centre for Independent Studies.
