Not quite George Orwell

The Overton Window
by Glenn Beck
(Threshold Editions, 2010, 336 pages)

Glenn Beck is the extraordinarily influential host of a self-titled current affairs show on the Fox News channel, and his new novel, The Overton Window, takes its name from the political theory concept of the same name.  It describes a ''window'' of public policy options that are considered acceptable by the public, located on a spectrum ranging from too permissive to too authoritarian.

Take personal income tax:  both a 0 per cent personal income tax and a 100 per cent personal income tax are politically unviable;  instead there is a window of publicly perceived ''acceptable'' taxation levels that various groups can try to push towards one extreme or the other.

Beck's premise is that the American public's Overton window is moving further along the spectrum towards authoritarian controls over every aspect of life, as influenced by successive governments.  But his conspiratorial style is enough to alienate all but his most avid followers.  Beck's novel abounds in ham-fisted idealisations of a mythical American past, and gross simplifications.

Beck claims in his introductory note that he hopes The Overton Window will be controversial, saying ''anything that causes people to think usually is''.  He goes on to state that obviously, some of the more bizarre claims introduced by various characters are supposed to be extremist representations, and he pre-emptively attempts to slam critics that may label him as nothing more than a conspiracy theorist.  To be charitable I will grant that Beck probably doesn't believe a shady PR company fronted by some sort of malevolent Don Draper is egging the US government closer to one world government and total control of its people, but nonetheless many of Beck's personal conspiracy theories can be found in his plot, to the detriment of his small-government message.

A few of Beck's generalisations and logical leaps deserve particular mention.  Beck idealises an America which he believes is lost.  Casual viewers of his television program will no doubt be familiar with Beck's rose-tinted view of immediate post-Revolution American society.  Throughout The Overton Window Beck makes continuous calls for the ''restoration'' of the United States as opposed to its ''transformation'', harking back to an idealised past where presumably everyone was free and had the same opportunities.  Beck also suffuses his book with an anti-technology undertone, intimating that technological advances have amounted to nothing more than the provision of new ways for government to control its citizens.  I am not disputing the fact that government now has new ways to monitor and intrude, but Beck's reluctance to concede that any positive developments have occurred over the last 300-odd years is concerning.

Beck also turns his attention to ''globalisation''.  In keeping with his ''restoration not transformation'' mantra, Beck seems eager to return to the halcyon days of American isolationism.  In just a few garbled pages, Beck manages to ignore the benefits of international trade, comparative advantage, free movement of capital and labour, and any advance in wealth and living standards that you care to think of.  Instead, ''globalisation'' becomes a neat vehicle for Beck to air his concerns about the New World Order and One World Government, not to mention take a few more confusing shots at Goldman Sachs.

''Goldman Sachs'' is Beck's short-hand for every financial institution in the world that ever benefited in any way from a government bailout, and he characterises its CEO as a puppet-master, pulling the strings of US regulators and legislators.  I'm not a supporter of bailouts by any means, but attempting to distil all legitimate criticisms into a targeted attack on one bank makes Beck seem ridiculous, and is reminiscent of Sarah Palin's tired ''Main Street not Wall Street'' rhetoric.

As political philosophy, The Overton Window is trite and unimaginative.  As fiction, it is appalling.  Beck claims that his aim was to write a ''political thriller'', but The Overton Window does not successfully mesh these genres.  Instead, the experience is not dissimilar to reading a poorly written airport thriller with large slabs of Beck's radio show occasionally slapped in.  The effect is curiously disjointed.

Ultimately, The Overton Window is a book primarily designed to appeal to Beck's followers, albeit with a thin veneer of an attempt at attracting a more mainstream audience.  If you're interested in political fiction, go read George Orwell or Ayn Rand or Robert Heinlein.