Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States by David Hackett Fischer

Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States Reviews

• 
  H. P.

  Fairness and Freedom combines four of my favorite subjects: language, political theory, history, and the durability and importance of cultural mores. Fischer looks at the United States and New Zealand through the prism of what Fischer sees as foundational values of the respective societies—the vernacular ideas of liberty in the US and fairness in New Zealand. Fischer draws on his earlier works, Albion’s Seed (e.g., he repeatedly references Rawl’s mixed north-south Maryland heritage while discussing Rawlsian political theory) and especially Liberty and Freedom, but Fairness and Freedom is something unique, the first book to be published on the history of fairness.
  
  Fischer is careful with his language, as should be expected from a historian who already wrote a book entitled Liberty and Freedom. Liberty, freedom, fairness, equity, and justice all have distinct meanings. “Liberty is about the rights and responsibilities of independence and autonomy. Freedom is about the rights and responsibilities of belonging to a community of other free people.” On the other hand, “[f]airness…exists in the eye of the beholders—unlike justice, which refers to an external standard of law, or equity, which implies an external and even empirical test of being even, straight, or equal by some objective measure.” (For simplicity’s sake, I’ll stick to liberty and fairness throughout my review.)
  
  This dichotomy is in part a sort of linguistic-cultural founder effect—liberty was more common in British usage and played a greater role in the debates of the day during colonization of America, likewise for fairness during colonization of New Zealand. Readers of Fischer’s previous work, Albion’s Seed, will be well aware of American colonists’ views on liberty. These founding ideas were affected by and in turn amplified by contact with the respective indigenous populations. The massive American frontier also played a role in the divergence. America and New Zealand went on to have dramatically different experiences with immigration, the women’s movement, racism, and the Progressive movement. Fischer addresses each in depth. These sections are in general excellent short summaries of important chapters in American and Kiwi history.
  
  The freedom and fairness paradigm is particularly evident in foreign policy. America has from its founding pursued a largely unilateral course while New Zealand has always been a strong proponent of multilateralism. One could argue that these approaches were inevitable for the world’s largest economy and a very small and vulnerable one, but America was acting unilaterally in foreign policy long before it became the world’s largest economy and New Zealand was much more aggressive in pushing multilateralism than it needed to be. I found New Zealand’s actions during and in the run up to WWII to be particularly strong examples of its commitment to multilateralism. While Europeans appeased and Americans willfully ignored, Kiwis pushed for an aggressive response to Italian and Japanese belligerence. When war broke out, they made the shocking decision to leave most of their troops in the Middle East, judging Germany to be the greater threat and relying on Australia and the United States to wage war in the South Pacific. Obvious differences in approach between the two allies persisted during the Cold War. New Zealand’s “leaders spoke eloquently of international justice and the rule of law. The purposes of the United States were case more in terms of a struggle for liberty and freedom against a Communist aggressor.”
  
  Fischer rounds the bases with the Great Depression, the military, and reform and restructuring. The New Deal surely represented a turning point in the role of the federal government in America, but Fischer shows us that its expansion during the Great Depression did not remotely compare to that of New Zealand, which became one of the most socialistic countries in the world during that period. America and New Zealand have different military traditions and experienced different patterns of reform and restructuring (although government reform in both cases curiously came from the left).
  
  The format is not quite the drag on Freedom and Fairness it was on Albion’s Seed but ,devoted to a methodical approach, Fischer sometimes both veers from his thesis and resorts to regurgitating textbook history. The section on the Progressive movement in the US is particularly disappointing from this perspective. He does little to demonstrate just how antithetical to American ideas of liberty it was, how it co-opted (or did not co-opt) the language of liberty and freedom, and how opposition to the Progressive movement was rooted in concepts and used the language of liberty and freedom. The Progressive movement’s abhorrent record on race and gender gets a single throwaway line.
  
  Fairness and Freedom ends with a summary of the virtues and vices of liberty and freedom (in America) and fairness (in New Zealand). For example, Fischer criticizes the opposition to all new taxes in the name of liberty in America and the Tallest Poppy Syndrome in New Zealand. But Fischer sees liberty and fairness less as opposites than as “two ideas that are useful as ways of reinforcing each other.” He thinks Americans would do well to add another splash of fairness to their healthy dose of liberty and likewise with New Zealand and liberty and fairness.
  
  The notes, etc. take up over 40% of the Kindle version. They include: an appendix (discussing scholarly work on fairness in other fields), notes, list of maps, list of illustrations, acknowledgments, index (indexed to the print version). Fairness and Freedom is heavily illustrated—the list of illustrations is 20 pages long in Kindle version. Unfortunately, the maps are usually quite hard to read.
• 
  HBalikov

  Freedom, democracy, justice, fairness are terms often encountered in our lives. They are part of the core values of our country (USA). Have they always been so? Have these terms maintained their meaning or morphed over time? What useful can we discover by comparing the histories and societies of New Zealand and the United States?
  
  Sometimes it is better to quote rather than reinvent. I found the review by Thomas Isern said it very well while reflecting my thoughts. “This work is impressive at the outset, but becomes less so as you go along. The thesis: New Zealanders love fairness, Americans love liberty. Fischer takes a Hartzian approach to this, tracing core values back to foundational circumstances. He is methodical to a fault, however, and inclined to stretch the evidence to fit the skeleton of a thesis with which he began. The book might have been 30% shorter and been the better for it. Rather than the extended essay the beginning promises, it becomes more of a compendium. Still, it is missing something. The conclusion is abrupt and inadequate. Fischer argues, briefly, that the fair society needs more liberty, and the libertarian society needs more fairness; especially the latter. Here we surely might expect more from Fischer. What kind of liberty? What kind of fairness? How might this happen? All that said, Fairness and Freedom will be noticed and argued. As it should be.”
  
  One thing I found problematic:
  “When you are a hammer everything looks like a nail.” Looking at everything for its fairness and freedom content is just a short step from the way Procrustes ran his B&B. Any guest better fit the bed he provided. If you were too short, he stretched your body on a rack. If you were too long, he cut off limbs to fit.
  
  Some things that I liked:
  Fischer deconstructs the term ‘fairness” and puts it into historical context. There was a time (for Anglos) when fairness only applied to “freemen in good standing” not women or others. He takes it up to the late Twentieth Century’s media “fairness doctrine.”
  I particularly liked the chronicle of the wars against indigenous peoples in the USA and New Zealand. Through the lenses of fairness and freedom, Fischer teases out the elements that should be considered in any comparison of these two societies.
  To borrow a phrase from a different society, this book is a journey that turns into a “walkabout,” yet even though it loses its way at times, the sights are worth seeing.
  
  Fischer mines his subject matter and presents us with so many interesting points.
  Sir James Stephen was the continuity in England’s Colonial Office (a few steps away from 10 Downing Street). Though he felt that the American colonies did not deserve to be subjugated, he had conflicting thoughts about New Zealand half a century later. He initially opposed colonization because he felt that the Maoris were an “admirable people.” But when he saw that British subjects “of the worst possible character” were settling there, he felt that fairness meant stepping in to offer order and protection.
  
  He asserts that both the Maoris and Native Americans are/were upset about how Western Civilization scholars characterized their history and culture. They felt that neither their culture nor their origins received proper respect.
  
  Fischer delves into all sorts of subject matter. For instance in geography he points out that when the settlers on America’s East Coast migrated to the Midwest, they found an agricultural paradise where the same amount of skill and labor produced far better returns. In New Zealand, it was the opposite and poor soils provided successively diminishing returns.
  
  Yet, there are other surprising assertions, such as the mid Twentieth Century Civil Rights Movement in the USA that Fischer says was all about freedom. He contrasts that with New Zealand anti-racist movements that he says were more about fairness and justice.
  
  I do not regret spending time with this thick book. It provides plenty to consider, even if you don’t end up agreeing with everything.
  
• 
  Thomas Isern

  This work is impressive at the outset, but becomes less so as you go along. The thesis: New Zealanders love fairness, Americans love liberty. Fischer takes a Hartzian approach to this, tracing core values back to foundational circumstances. He is methodical to a fault, however, and inclined to stretch the evidence to fit the skeleton of a thesis with which he began. The book might have been 30% shorter and been the better for it. Rather than the extended essay the beginning promises, it becomes more of a compendium. Still, it is missing something. The conclusion is abrupt and inadequate. Fischer argues, briefly, that the fair society needs more liberty, and the libertarian society needs more fairness; especially the latter. Here we surely might expect more from Fischer. What kind of liberty? What kind of fairness? How might this happen? All that said, Fairness and Freedom will be noticed and argued. As it should be.
• 
  Marks54

  This book compares the history, politics, economies, and cultures of the US and New Zealand. I read it as preparation for a family trip to New Zealand. It was useful preparation, but this is far more than a travel book. It is a rich analysis that actually signals a relatively new direction in historiography of which I had been unaware.
  
  The basic idea is the the US has emphasized freedom and liberty as a society while New Zealand has emphasized equality and fairness. This is an oversimplification, of course, but these two sets of ideas provide useful poles within which the nations can be placed over the histories. These categories have a long history in social and political writing that goes back to Tocqueville. Applying them in a study like this provides a way to get more than you could get for a history of either of the two nations taken separately. A simple example is where Fischer notes that New Zealand was settled after the US revolutionary war had taken place. This means that comparing the two can help explain how England changed its approach towards governing the settler colonies as a result of the American experience.
  
  The book is very rich and the comparative perspective was informative, even on areas where I had considered myself well read regarding the US. For example, the author notes how different areas of both countries were originally settled by different groups of settlers, with different religions, customs, governing habits, etc. He then draws out how the subsequent development of the colonies can be better understood by considering differences in the first settlers.
  
  The author probably overstates his case and in the process downplays some of the darker parts of the histories of both nations. For example, the treatment of the Maoris is cast in a somewhat more favorable light than the treatment of blacks and Indians in the US. While this is no doubt true, it sometimes comes across as an effort to de-emphasize the ways in which the Maoris were mistreated and ended up losing most of their traditional lands. I grant that this is a matter of emphasis in parts, but the tendencies in shading accounts is noticable.
  
  In addition, not all the chapters are equally informative or supportive of the case. Reality is messy and a comparison that is too thoroughly follow-ed through could easily seem artificial. That is not a serious problem for me, since I was more interested in the differences than in the grey lines that surround any comparison. I also suspect that the book was a chapter or two too long.
  
  
• 
  Bronwen

  Fantastic book. Should be compulsory reading at least for all expat kiwis living in the US. Admittedly it's target audience is probably quite narrow, but it's great.
  
  Its fair and well written, and I found it enormously helpful in terms of both understanding NZ history from an American perspective, and considering US culture and history in light of NZ history. I will re read much of it. Absolutely a five star book.
• 
  Alanna

  A fascinating account of how historical differences have led to differences in values and culture. Highly recommend to anyone interested in NZ and the US.
• 
  Octavia Cade

  Really interesting and exhaustively researched compare-and-contrast piece, focusing on New Zealand and the United States. I've been meaning to read it for years, and am glad I've finally gotten round to it. Fischer's thesis is simple: both of these nations have a founding ideal. For NZ that ideal is fairness, for the US it is freedom. In both cases, these ideals permeate the culture of their respective countries, and if one looks closely at the history and politics of those countries, they can see how those closely-held ideals have shaped them into very different communities.
  
  Look, I'm convinced. I say that being somewhat biased. I'm a New Zealander, and a lot of what Fischer has to say about fairness here strikes a chord. My experiences of America are by comparison minimal - a couple of visits, but mostly it's been observation from the other side of the world. I can only assume that Fischer, who is American himself, has got it as accurate for his own country as he has for mine. The evidence he's chosen to present seems to indicate that he has. That evidence is apparently enormous. (It certainly felt enormous, reading it.) Fischer covers a number of different aspects within overall society - race relations, the role of women, of the military, of social welfare, of economic history... the points of contrast go on and on. And the sheer weight of argument builds up and builds up, and although the general argument is strongly simplified (I suspect reality is a little more nuanced than the author sometimes makes it out to be) it's still genuinely fascinating to see how two often-competing ideals can drive development in two very different directions. It can, however, feel all too weighty and it does become a bit repetitive in places. I can't help but think that a bit of judicious pruning might have helped, as well as a more thorough exploration of potentially (adequately) free and fair societies - this last is given very short shrift in the conclusion, despite being one of the ostensible purposes of the book as a whole. All in all though, it's thought-provoking stuff and well worth reading.
• 
  Karl

  Entertaining and interesting, and I think the idea of writing a comparative history of the two nations was a good one. However this text could really have done with a NZ specialist editor for the parts where Fischer discusses New Zealand history. It got quite frustrating at times spotting the typos, the inaccuracies, and the errors. There are not a lot, granted, and most would not have survived a decent proof-reading (eg: having correctly stated that NZ ratified the 1931 Statute of Westminster in 1947, he then states in the very next paragraph that it was twenty-six (not sixteen) years later; in another unforgivable error he captions a photo of wounded soldiers in ANZAC Cove as being on 7 April 1915 - the landings weren’t until 25 April, as almost any NZer over the age of 5 would tell you).
  
  I began going back through the book to make a list for this review but decided that was too pedantic! Quite a few are just typographical anyway and overall it’s a good summative overview with which to compare U.S. history, and perhaps to lead some American readers on the path towards reading a bit more NZ history.
• 
  Angela

  The last time I read anything from David Hackett Fischer was many many years ago, and I had fond memories of reading Paul Revere's Ride. Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations. The premise was interesting and it was great learning more about the history of New Zealand, but overall the organization of the book was jumbled and I didn't think he presented enough evidence to back his claims about the fundamental differences between New Zealand and the U.S. The book started strong with Fischer's central thesis, but then went from being organized thematically to chronologically, and back again. I was also dubious about Fischer's interpretation of the women's rights movement in the U.S. and didn't like that he basically implied that if women would have shut up and played nice with men that the whole movement would have worked better (he basically says that all social movements in the U.S. would have worked better if we had followed New Zealand' example). Overall I thought the content of the book was interesting, but the execution was lacking and it was tough to get through some chapters.
• 
  Peter Mellalieu

  The book compares and contrasts the foundation and development of two former British colonies. I was born a Briton, was a forced migrant to New Zealand (aged 10), then married an American. I’ve also studied and worked in all three countries.
  
  This book informed me extensively on the histories of both countries. Every page was illuminating, fascinating, and brought me dazzling new insights into both countries. In the end I understand why I am proud to be a fair-minded Kiwi.
  
  My major disappointment was the book finished earlier than I expected due to the centimetre of notes, appendixes, references and index.
• 
  Stephen King

  A comparative analysis of the political, economic and social of the US and New Zealand, with the central contention that the US focuses on freedom and Liberty whilst New Zealand prioritises Fairness and Justice. It’s a little dated (2011) and of course, misses the Trump years which would’ve driven a coach and horses through much of the reasoning.
• 
  Jonathan Cassie

  Fischer's work should be known by all - he is a historian of prodigious interpretive skill and a keen storyteller. Another masterpiece.
• 
  Jane

  Too scholarly for me. I mostly skimmed through it, but I did enjoy the chapter on Women's Rights AND the sections on languages of the Native Americans/Maori.