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NONTHEMATIC / Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring 1953)


Faiths demanding integration, with themselves as the integrators, faiths that choose isolation and its barrenness and reject free and full communion with others and its enrichments, might well evince an immovable set against orchestration. To their prophets and apostles, their priests and philosophers, the war of the faiths might stay the revealed substance of their things-unseen, the sole reliable evidence of their things-hoped-for. A major work for the social philosophy whose intent is wisdom and whose method is freedom must needs be to illuminate and bring to the fullest clarity and distinctiveness which creeds and codes thus close the frontiers of sympathy and communication consummating in understanding.

Innovating individuals are not motivated by any desire to improve general standards of consumption. They desire only to improve their own standards, by means of profits, and there is only one way of doing that: by changes on the supply side. But the government of a country, the individuals--not as innovating entrepreneurs but as voters and political animals--are greatly agitated by the spectacle of higher consumption standards elsewhere and the promise of higher consumption standards at home.

Madison maybe be described as a striking historical figure, deserving to rank among the very great Americans who created this republic. He was a man of almost classic virtues--a statesman, a selfless patriot, and a political philosopher who was in the fortunate position of being able to translate his thought into living institutions. As one of the major architects of the American democracy, the 'Father of the Constitution' deserves to be better and widely known than he is.

In the long run the entrepreneur can invest in innumerable lines of production. Nothing appears to dictate his choice: he may invest in enterprise already proved profitable, or he may seek new and untrodden fields. But regardless of his decision, he will prove successful only if he reckons with the powers of individual choice. If he expands existing profitable capacity, he is responding to the mandate of the consumer. If he offers a new commodity or service, he must obtain the allegiance of the consumer in order to operate profitably. In a free market the entrepreneur cannot bludgeon the consumer into buying.

Labor has recognized from experience its lack of influence in the nationalized industries, the management of which it criticized as being capitalist-minded. Many bitter disputes were fought in these industries in the Weimar Republic. The nationalized public utilities were the best field for political agitators. The famous strike in the Berlin transportation industries, waged jointly by Nazis and Communists against the democratic government in the last free elections before Hitler's rise to power in November 1932, has not been forgotten. Public ownership in the Soviet zone has become a symbol of lies and exploitation. Therefore, although the struggle for nationalization has not been officially abandoned, not private ownership is the target, but private control.

The concept of continuous production has a technical and a value aspect. While natural resources are successively transformed and combined by labor and equipment until they are put out as finished commodities, value inputs of labor and capital services are successively imparted to them to form the ultimate output value.

Mannheim's intellectual experimentations, in his first period, were unified not so much by a logically flawless progression of thought as by a dominating spiritual purpose--that of an 'essential' comprehension of man's existence and 'fate' within an accelerated social process seemingly pregnant with the elements of a new future.

Review of Book by William Diebold Jr. Published for the Council on Foreign Relations. New York: Harper. 1952. 488 pp.

Review of book by G. D. H. Cole. New York: Macmillan (distributed by St. Martin's Press). 1951. 252 pp.

Review of book by Clarence A. Manning. New York: Philosophical Library. 1952. xii & 264 pp.

In the December 1952 issue of Social Research Professor Kurt von Fritz, head of the Department of Classics of Columbia University, reviewed my book entitled Morals and Law: The Growth of Aristotle's Legal Theory (Yale University Press, 1951). Professor von Fritz is a renowned, highly competent, and conscientious classical scholar. His innate sense of fairness manifested itself in the fact that he concluded his review by adopting Dr. Huntington Cairns' verdict, in the foreword, that the work is an important addition to a neglected field, and performs a substantial service for American legal thought. All this in spite of the fact that Professor von Fritz is an unflinching adherent and staunch defender of Professor W. Jaeger's views on Aristotle with which I take issue.

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