Folks:  I just sent the following LTTE to The New
Yorker--FYI:
     There is much to admire in Andrew Delbanco and Thomas
Delbanco's thought-provoking historical treatment of
Alcoholics Anonymous ("AA at the Crossroads," March 20th,
'95).  As I read it, the authors advanced a two-part
argument:  (1) that AA philosophy is of a piece with an
old strand of American puritanism, as expressed for
example in Jonathan Edwards' call for 24-hour spiritual
watchfulness, and (2) that AA's origins in the Great
Depression era allowed the group to draw upon a wider
prevailing communitarianism in New-Deal America.  The
latter argument premised the authors' case that AA has
more recently experienced--and will continue to
experience--hard times in the more individualistic
American zeitgeist of 1980s and 1990s.  I'd like to offer
a different take on AA's spiritual foundations--one, as it
happens, that also invites a quite different reading of
the group's historical tea leaves.
 
     Yes, AA was born in the Great Depression, but AA
founder, William Wilson, (as historian John Rumbarger has
recently reminded us) was in fact a staunch anti-New
Dealer--given to burning the midnight oil to compose long,
rambling, and angry letters defending laissez-faire cap
italism to its arch-enemy, F.D.R.  The alcohol issue in
Depression America was anomalous political turf.  The 21st
Amendment (ratified 5 Dec 1933), repealing Prohibition,
was the most notable (and celebrated) legislative
exception to that era's trend toward increasing the reach
and authority of the federal government.  The political
struggle against Prohibition had, moreover, provided a
favorable context for anti-big-government as well
anti-Prohibitionist sentiment.  Half of the powerful
Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (the
organization largely responsible for orchestrating the
campaign for Repeal's passage) split-off to become the
vigorously anti-New Deal "Liberty League" after Repeal.
 
     And yes, as Delbanco and Delbanco contended, Bill
W.'s AA was communitarian in orientation.  But AA's
ideology also represented an embracement and personaliza
tion of laissez-faire capitalism's deepest philosophical
commitments.  The parallelism is striking.  Adam Smith's
"Invisible Hand" (IH) argument held that when people tried
to exercise control over the economy they instead
invariably screwed it up.  The economy was too complex to
be mastered by mere human intelligence.  Human economic
life was in any case already quietly under Providence's
wise and benevolent guidance, effected by the IH.  The IH
somehow managed to orchestrate unfettered individual
self-interest into an increasingly prosperous
commonwealth.  Economic planning--i.e., the intervention
of human egos--did not solve economic problems but caused
them.  Hence, best to butt-out and let the IH run the
show.  In short, Smith's logic offers a remarkable
aggregate-level parallel to the AA's individual-level
paradigm of egolessness.  AA's notions of "giving it up"
and "turning it over" are calls to surrender the
management of one's personal life to the guidance of a
Higher Power's--AA's "Invisible Hand."  In a perspective
that focuses on AA's marked affinity with laissez-faire
thought, AA may be expected to thrive (not whither, as
Delbanco and Delbanco suggested) in our own era's new
enthusiasm for that political economic philosophy.