mentioned by Jim Devine is reachable at the extension /HOME/NEWS/BOOKS/. Here are a few choice pieces. Sunday, February 8, 1998 Bull and Bear WALL STREET: A History. By Charles R. Geisst . Oxford University Press: 404 pp., $30 ; WALL STREET: How It Works and for Whom. By Doug Henwood . Verso: 372 pp., $25 ; By JOHN MICKLETHWAIT Indeed, in many ways, Wall Street is entering uncharted waters where its history is only a partial guide to its future. From this point of view, there is an argument for reading no more than the first two-thirds of "Wall Street" and then turning to Doug Henwood's book, which has the same title but is a theoretical broadside, not a history. Henwood, the editor of Left Business Observer, would seem to be a living oxymoron: a socialist who is fascinated by finance. In fact, the same could be said of Karl Marx. I always knew there was something strange about Doug; he's a socialist fascinated by finance, hence a "living oxymoron," and Papa Karl exhibited the same grotesque contradiction. Is this guy for real? The main difference is that Henwood has a sense of humor (one has to admire anybody who includes, among the various blurbs on the back of his book, the following comment from Norman Pearlstine, the former executive editor of the Wall Street Journal: "You are scum. . . . [I]t's tragic that you exist.") Was there some old personal score being settled thus, Doug? Wow, if anyone told me that, he'd be well advised to carefully guard the future of his own existence. Dismissing Henwood as an amusing irritant will doubtless comfort the partners at Goldman, Sachs. Yet they would do well to consider one recurring theme of his book and Geisst's: Wall Street tends to go too far. Inequality in America is on the increase. The downsizing that Wall Street has so applauded over the last decade has created a much wider class of malcontents than did previous waves of restructuring. Yes, and if they end up riding the rods like in the '30s, they'll at least take their laptops along; this army will stay in touch with itself. The middle managers who lost their jobs bitterly resent the huge pay packets being given out to those who orchestrated their downfall. As this generation of Daniel Drews is "limoed" back home to their penthouses on Fifth Avenue, they should wonder how the next generation will cope with the bitter harvest that they have sown. Not likely: that's way too far past the next quarterly statement. Surprisingly few Peter Druckers in that crowd. John Micklethwait Is the New York Bureau Chief of the Economist. he Is the Co-author With Adrian Wooldridge of "The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus" (Times Business) There's also a mini-symposium of 6 notables on the Manifesto, the optimal downer being - Who else? - David "There and Back" Horowitz, that established paragon of living oxymoronhood. valis