the freeman 1965

Tom Rose 3

Stanley Yankus 11

James E. Blair 13

John C. Sparks 22

Wendell J. Brown 28

William Henry Chamber/in 37

Clarence B. Carson 45

JULY 1965

Why Automation?

The Threat of Competition .

Regarding the Minimum Wage .

... If I Had the Power .

Defining Liberty .

The Great Communist Schism .

The Flight from Reality

10. The New Creativity.

Books:

John Randolph of Roanoke

Other Books .

John Chamberlain 58

61

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FINANCIAL STRENGTH - Assets over half a billion dollars. Strongreserves and high ratio of cash and government bonds to assure withdrawal of savings immediately on request.

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"A Businessman Looks at Communism Vs. Capitalism"For your courtesy copy of President Joe Crail's speech,write to:

Coast Federal SavingsPost Office Box 5150ALos Angeles 55, California

5-56A-l

~ A business economist-from Mis

'souri-shows why automation is nec

essary to stretch the supply of labor

and other scarce resources to meet

the market demands of consumers

........p.3

yI In Australia, as most everywhere,

Stanley Yankus finds competition pop

ularly acclaimed as something good

for others ..... p. 11

yI A scholarly critique of the theory of

minimum wage legislation and a sur

veyof the consequences of such laws

.. p. 13

.~ Those who dream of how they would

redistribute the affluence of. industry

are prone to neglect the essentials for

a productive economy p. 22

yI A prominent attorney defines lib

erty in terms of its goals, procedures,

and underlying faiths p. 28

"" William Henry Chamberlin steps in

for a careful examination of the breach

between Moscow and Peiping and the

implications, both favorable and dan-

gerous, for free men p. 37

~ In this chapter 10, Clarence Carson

examines how The Flight From Reality

has manifested itself in modern art

and literature, and especially in the

social studies by the Romantics, Evo

lutionists, Existentialists, and other

deviationists .... p. 45

"" John Chamberlain here reviews the

contributions of John Randolph as re

ported by Russell Kirk... . .. p. 58

"" If You Don't Mind My Saying So is

Joseph Wood Krutch's approach to

man, reviewed in this issue, along

with Richard Gummere's The Ameri

can Colonial Mind and the Classical

Tradition. . ..... p. 61

Anyone wishing to communicate with authors may sendfirst-class mail in care of THE FREEMAN for forwarding.

JULY 1965

LEONARD E. READ

PAUL L. POIROT

Vol. 15, No.7

President, Foundation forEconomic Education

Managing Editor

THE FREEMAN is published monthly by theFoundation for Economic Education, Inc., a nonpolitical, nonprofit educational champion of privateproperty, the free market, the profit and loss system,and limited government, founded in 1946, with officesat Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. Any interestedperson may receive its publications for the asking.The costs of Foundation projects and services, including THE FREEMAN, are met through voluntary donations. Total expenses average $12.00 a yearper person on the mailing list. Donations are invitedin any amount - $5.00 to $10,000 - as the means ofmaintaining and extending the Foundation's work.

Copyright, 1965, The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Printedin U.S.A.

Additional copies, postpaid, to one address: Single copy, 50 cents;3 for $1.00; 25 or more, 20 cents each.

Permission is hereby granted to anyone to reprint any article in wholeor in part, providing customary credit is given, except lIDefining Lib·erty," and liThe Flight from Reality."

Any current article will be supplied in reprint form if there are enoughinquiries to justify the cost of the printing.

WHY AUTOMATION

TOM ROSE

Concerning the relations of prices and customersto wages and employees

AUTOMATION is a popular topic ofdiscussion. Almost everyone iswilling to express an opinionabout it. Union leaders claim automation causes mass unemployment. Businessmen welcome it asa way to remain competitive. Andsocial reformers use the "threat"of automation to plan new welfareprograms.

The purpose of this article is tobring into focus some of the littleknown aspects of automation andto stimulate' and help crystallizethinking about automation and itsever-present twin, technologicalchange.

Mr. Rose is Director of Economic Education,Associated Industries of Missouri.

Some years ago a young manwas hired to turn small boxes atright angles on a conveyor belt.After a few days he found that,by holding his finger at a certainangle, the boxes turned .properlywhen they came in contact withit. The next day he brought astick to work, clamped it to makeproper contact with the boxes, andthereby "automated" his job!

One definition for automation is"the use of" machinery to controlmachinery." But this is simply arefinement of the practical conveyor example given above. Whena person views computers andautomatically controlled machinesin this way, he is apt to gain a

3

4 THE FREEMAN July

new perspective of automationespecially when he recognizes thatthe human energy that is replacedcan be either physical or mental.Automation, then, is simply a newname for an old process: thetransfer of work from people tomachines in order to lighten man'sburdens and to increase his output.

What Isn't Automation?

Actually, automation is blamedunjustly for effects it has notcaused. It has become the publicwhipping post for a bigger thingcalled "technological change."

Technological change is changethat is brought about by advancesin the application of skills ormethods of production or, evenmore importantly, change broughtabout by the discovery of newproducts that have new uses. Forinstance, the introduction of television dealt a tremendous blow tothe movie industry.

Private companies have investedmillions of dollars in research ona "new" metal called Titanium. Itweighs about twice as much asaluminum but has some superiorcharacteristics, so is preferred forsome uses in aircraft and spacecraft. Cost has been a barrier toits use, but the millions of dollarsinvested in research have paid offby drastically lowering productioncosts. Soon it may compete with

aluminum on a cost-weight basis.When this happens, lost aluminumsales could cause lowered employment in the aluminum industry.If so, the drop in employmentwould also be a direct result oftechnological change - not of automation. However, aluminum producers might turn to increasedautomation in an effort to lowerproduction costs and thereby winback lost customers.

This distinction between technological change and automationis one that more people should understand. And that better understanding may come through studyof some basic economic principles.

Basic Economics As a Benchmark

When a man buys a telescopicsight for his rifle, the first thinghe does after installing it is to"sight it in." Fire control men inthe Navy also "sight in" a ship'sguns to make sure they aim true.To assist· in doing this, they select a fixed point somewhere onthe ship as a "benchmark."Measurements are made from thismark to insure an unchangingpoint of reference.

When talking about automationand changes in production orproducts, we can refer to similarbenchmarks. Such referencepoints can be found in the following unchanging economic principles:

1965 WHY AUTOMATION? 5

PRINCIPLE #1

Man's Material Welfare equalsNatural Resource.s plus HumanEffort times Tools.

Man determines his materialwelfare (standard of living) bytaking natural resources and applying his human effort to developthem with the aid of tools.

This is an absurdly simple statement of fact, yet how many people forget it when thinking aboutautomation? If we remember thesimple rule that man's standardof living is· directly dependent onboth the amount of effort he expends as well as the number andquality of tools he uses,. it's easyto see that automation (Le., bettertools) can't possibly cause unemployment. Automation (bettertools) can only increase production. Therefore, ,the real cause ofunemployment must be found elsewhere.

PRINCIPLE #2

Man's wants are unlimited.

Some people claim automationincreases production so much thatoverproduction results. This ideasounds plausible until we remember that man's wants have neverbeen completely satisfied.· Regardless of how many products thereare, consumers always seem readyfor more new ones.

For example, if we could go back

100 years and list all the thingspeople could possibly want, thepeople of that day couldn't beginto name the thousands of wonderful new products that have beeninvented during the past century.If the list were up-dated every 25years, people's wants would groweach time by leaps and bounds:from coarse black stockings tosheer nylon hose; from molassesand sulphur to modern antibiotics;from food cellars to automaticallydefrosted refrigerators. Yes,there's no· doubt that people'swants always exceed the possibility of satisfying them. So, overproduction isn't the cause of unemployment either.

PRINCIPLE # 3

All employment comes from customers-when customers are lost,unemployment results.

Once the truth of this statement is understood, the real causeof unemployment begins· to rearits ugly head, and it's not· "automation" or "changes in productsor production." It's simply the refusal of customers to buy what isproduced. A totalitarian government might possibly force customers to buy, but in America werely on voluntary persuasion. Andthe best customer persuasion isusually a reduced price tag.

This leads to the next benchmark and to what brings about

6 THE FREEMAN July

automation and changes in products or production (technologicalchange) .

PRINCIPLE # 4

W hen a customer buys something, he pays these five costs:

• Cost of goods and services purchased from suppliers

• Cost of tools wearing out(depreciation)

• Cost of taxes• Cost of human energy (wages)• Cost of using tools (interest)

In the long run these five costsmake up the per-unit cost ofeverything produced. And payment for them, if a company is tooperate successfully, must comefrom the people who buy its products or service'S - its customers.

The important word "if" constitutes the intriguing challengeof being in business: can a company recoup its costs of production from its customers? A history of business fa.ilures could provide many interesting, but sad,experiences of entrepreneurs whohave personally faced the sad realization that costs do not determine prices that consumers arewilling to pay. Rather, it is theother way around: market priceslimit the costs that can go intoproducing an article for sale. If aproducer is to operate profitably,he must stay under the costs themarket is willing to cover.

The Difference Between Interestand True Profit

Perhaps it might be well to digress a moment to explain theabove designation of interestrather than profit as the "cost ofusing tools."

First, the question of profit as acost. In its true economic sense,profit doesn't add to the marketprice. It is residual. Profit is thereward a producer gets for keeping his cost of production belowthe price his goods will bring onthe market. When considered thus,profit certainly isn't a cost of production. It is extremely flexible,. Itmight be very great or very small,and even negative if a. businessoperates at a loss. The fact is thatnot very many businesses in akeenly competitive situation earna true profit over and above interest costs.

Next, the- designation of interest as the "cost of using tools."This is also logical and practical.By "tools" we mean not only ourplant and machinery, but all assetsowned and used by the business.This also includes ideas that havebeen patented, temporary cash balance held to pay the other fourcosts of production, and the like.Without these tools, our businesswouldn't exist. Unless a. businessearns interest on investment, itwill soon lose its investors.

Now, to get back to the signifi-

1965 WHY AUTOMATION? 7

cance of the five costs of production mentioned above. We've notedthat costs do not determine market prices. Thus, when customersrefuse to buy a product becausethe asking price is too high, producers must reduce the price tosell it. This reduced price will curtail future production of the item(with corresponding unemployment) unless· total costs can bebrought in line with the price ceiling set by the free market. If wayscan be found, the product can beproduced and sold, and unemployment thereby will be prevented.Now we begin to see the real causefor unemployment which is wrongfully blamed on automation: Failure to reduce the five costs customers must pay each time theymake a purchase.

From the financial data contained in the 1964 annual reportof a large U.S. auto manufacturer,we see that its income dollar wasdistributed like this:

1. Cost of goods and servicespurchased fromsuppliers .. .... .. .. ... .. ... .. ... ... 57¢

2. Cost of tools wearing out(depreciation) ........ " .. .. .. 5¢

3. Cost of taxes........................ 6¢

4. Cost of human energy(wages) 27¢

5. Cost of using tools(interest) .... ,........ ..... .... .. 5¢

$1.00

How to Cut CostsNow, suppose this is our com

pany, and that customers stopbuying our cars because they arepriced too high. What do we do?We look to see where costs canbe cut.

Our first three production costsshown above total 68¢. There islittle chance to cut them verymuch. Competition determines theprice we pay for our goods andservices. Taxes and depreciationare fixed by government, and ouraccountant will vouch for the factthat present depreciation rateswon't cover the cost of replacingour machines when they wear out.

Next, we look at the, two remaining cost items. We, find thatonly 32¢ remains to be divided between tool owners (stockholders)and tool users (employees). Here'show this 32¢ has been divided:

84 per cent was paid toemployees 27¢

16 .per cent accrued toowners 5¢

If savings have to be made inthese two cost areas, the greaterpotential for reducing the cost ofour cars, then, is the 84 per centof divisible income paid to employees for the cost of human energy (wages) . We can achieve thissavings (remember, the need tolower costs is forced upon us byour customers) in two ways:

8 THE FREEMAN July

By paying fewer employees atexisting wage rates, or

By paying the same number ofemployees at low'er rates.

The goal we· must reach to stayin business is clear: reduce ourper-car cost to the point wherecustomers start buying themagain.

If an inflexible wage contractprevents us from employing all ofour present workers at lower pay,we are forced to reduce wage costsby replacing some of them withmachines (assuming that we canraise the necessary investmentfunds). If we don't, we will haveto close up shop. Then everyonewill be unemployed. It would notbe right to blame the resultingloss of jobs on automation, sincethe real cause would stem directlyfrom the problem of inflexiblewages. (This is why many employers claim the decision to automate is forced on them. They areforced to replace people with machines in order to keep total wagecosts from going too high.)

Customers in Control

In summary, then, we see thatall jobs in our company arecreated by the customers who buyour cars. If the five costs whichwe ask each customer to pay gettoo high, we start to lose customers to our competitors. To winthem back, we must cut the price

we ask for each car. This gives usless money to pay toward the fivecosts of prod ucing each car.Whether our choice is increasedautomation at existing wages forsome employees, or lowered wagesfor all employees, the need to regain customers is the cause thatforces our decision.

Automation on one hand, orlower wage rates on the other, areonly the effects caused by the unavoidable need to meet the pricedemands of customers. This factshould be stressed and stressed bybusinessmen until employees,stockholders, and the general public understand it.

Once the direct relationship between prices and customers towages and employees is widely understood, a new basis for employee-employer understandingand cooperation will be opened.Employees will more readily recognize that the common interestsof tool users and tool owners canbe simultaneously achieved byconforming to the dictates of consumers. Such an understanding, inthe long run, is the only hope toachieve the necessary high degreeof labor-management cooperationto make our free enterprise systemwork at peak efficiency~ So letus now consider some illustrationsof the way in which automationserves to expand the market andregain lost customers.

J965 WHY AUTOMATION? 9

How Automation Helps ExpandMarkets and Regain Lost Customers

The Coal Industry. After WorldWar II, coal lost its competitiveadvantage to oil and gas.· This wascaused by two contrasting factors:Excessive wage demands had increased the price of coal, whilenew methods of production decreased the relative cost of gas andoil. Naturally, consumers spenttheir dollars where they got themost for their money.· Domesticand foreign use of coal dropped.Production slipped from 688 million tons in 1947 to 439 milliontons in 1962. Employment in thecoal industry fell with production,and thousands of miners were leftwithout jobs.

Now, coal has· made a comebackthrough the combined help of automation and technological change.

Automated machines mine morecoal at less cost.

Unitized trains and more efficient loading docks madelower freight rates p()ssible.

Larger coal ships have reducedthe cost of overseas shipments.

Big utility companies have increased coal purchases. Foreignershave, too, because U. S. companiescan now mine and deliver coal inEurope at a lower cost than European coal companies. As a result,

coal industry employment hasrisen in the United States.

Electronics Industry. The radiobusiness in the United States suffered a serious blow in 1959 whenJapanese-made transistors wereintroduced. They were of excellentquality and cheaper, so .consumersagain spent their dollars wherethey got the best value. By 1962,Japanese producers had capturedtwo-thirds of the transistor radiomarket in our country. The resulting decline in U. S. productioncaused a decrease in employment.

Recently General Ele.ctric announced it was selling transistorradios in competition with J apanese radios - not only in theUnited States, but even in far-offJapan! Again, it was automationand technological change - alongwith intelligent worker cooperation - that made the necessarysavings in costs possible. Streamlined assembly lines, swift conveyor systems, more productivemachines, and redesigned productsall combined to produce qualityproducts at competitive prices.

The Steel Industry. Widespreaddestruction in Europe and Japanduring World War II provided opportunities to build efficient steelmills from scratch. Enterprisinginvestors installed oxygen converters, computer-controlled systems,and other devices to increase effi-

10 THE FREEMAN July

ciency. These cost-saving tools, inconjunction with low wage rates,lowered the production costs offoreign steel mills tremendously.As a result, steel producers in theUnited States lost not only foreigncustomers, but also domestic customers. Within a few years thedollar value of our steel exportsdropped almost 45 per cent whileimports increased almost 250 percent. Lost foreign customers andincreased imports meant fewerjobs for American steelworkers.Better tools of production andlower wage rates in foreign countries stole away customers whopay the wages of American steelworkers.

To meet the foreign competition, our mills are installing automated equipment at a faster rate.For instance, one company is planning a new plant that will usethree major advancements of recent years: the basic oxygen furnace which turns out steel fivetimes faster, vacuum degassing toremove impurities, and continuous

casting which eliminates one production step. The benefits will bebetter steel at lower costs. Thesesavings mean more customers andincreased employment.

Every day we can see new examples of how automation andchanges in production and products provide higher -quality andlower prices to consumers - withincreased employment resulting.

The key points in gaining abetter understanding of automation, as we see it, are these:

All changes in production andproducts, all automation isaimed at winning customers.

If all segments of our economywill cooperate in meeting thequality and price demands ofconsumers, they will becomecustomers.

All payroll dollars have only oneultimate source: the customer.

The key, then, is to concentrateon doing what is necessary to wincustomers. If this is done successfully, the jobs will follow. ~

Equality of Opportunity

WE IN AMERICA have had too much experience of life to fool ourselves into pretending that all men are equal in ability, in character, in intelligence, in ambition. That was part of the claptrapof the French Revolution. We have grown to understand that allwe can hope to assure to the individual through government isliberty, justice, intellectual welfare, equality of opportunity, andstimulation to service.

HERBERT HOOVER, American Individualism (1922)

IN ENGLAND, the direct sale ofgasoline to passing motorists frommobile tank trucks is an established business practice. So, anAustralian businessman decidedto try it. The company's first tanktruck parked in an area alongsidethe road, advertising gasoline at a5-pence discount per gallon. Thelower price reflected his loweroverhead costs, and motorists recognized the bargain. One sale followed another in swift succession.

However, a nearby service station operator, upon learning ofthis new competition, jumped inhis car and sped to the scene.First, he threatened to set thegasoline truck on fire. When thisfailed to scare his competitor, hethreatened shooting, but· the tank

Mr. Yankus moved to Australia from Michigan in protest against government suppressionof competition in agriculture.

STANLEY YANKUS

trucker stood his ground. Eventually, two other service stationoperators arrived and the threeof them parked their cars to blockthe access of passing motoriststo· the tank truck. Finally, thepolice arrived, and the service station operators were told to vacatethe- premises.

If all the service station operators had been allowed to vote topass a law prohibiting the sale ofgasoline from tank trucks to retail customers, that law wouldsurely have been passed. Whenever someone has an advantageover us in our means of makinga living, there is a particularlystrong temptation to squash thatcompetitor's advantage by force.Thousands of socialistic laws originate in this manner.

Here is a typical example of socialistic laws already in effect.

11

12 THE FREEMAN July

Doctors who migrate to Australiaare prohibited from practicingtheir profession unless they repeat their studies in Australianmedical schools. In one glaring instance, a migrant doctor wrote atextbook which is in current usein Australian medical schools. Yethe was prevented from earning aliving as a doctor by restrictivelaw. The evidence is clear. Localdoctors aren't worried about thecompetence of migrant doctors;they do not want the competition.They personally find it distastefulto their conscience to threatencompetitors with fire, shooting, orother forms of violence. So alaw is passed empowering thepolice to fine, jail, or shoot thecompetitors who disobey.

Few individuals would personally attempt to stick a pin inanother person, or. give him a kickor a punch. It is· clear that suchviolence has a way of quickly turning upon its instigator. It is not

so easy to see that passing laws tosuppress competitors would havethe same effect. Suppose you hadthe police power to. impose restrictions on another person. Andfor every restriction you imposedon him, he was empowered to impose a restriction on you. In sucha simple situation,· it's easy to seethat the harm done to othersby restricting their creative actions will return to those who inflict it. There would be as littleappeal in imposing restrictions under such conditions as there wouldbe in cutting off another man'sfinger, .knowing that your ownfinger would be cut off the following day. Yet the list of laws suppressing competition is long indeed, simply because few individuals believe there will be a retaliation. The retaliation is oftendevious and not readily seen orunderstood. But, it is always there,and eventually will manifest itselfone way or another. ~

A Postscript from Stanley Yankus

"OUR LOCAL government officials hired a dog catcher. One of the

first dogs to be caught was the Mayor's kelpie. The Mayor and

other dog owners complained that the dog catcher was 'too

efficient.' He who passes laws for others seldom realizes that the

others include his wife, his children, and the friends he cherishes

most of all."

I. 25

1.00

7S¢

50¢

25~ • II I I

1938 1939 1945 1950 1956 1961 1963

REGARDING THE MINIMUM WAGE

JAMES E. BLAIR

GOVERNMENT REGULATION ofwages is, of course, an .. old practice. In Western Europe there existed a wide range of wage regulations prior to the rise of classical liberalism in the nineteenthcentury. TheNorth Americancontinent was largely free fromgovernment manipulation of wagesduring the, period which sawwages here become the highestin the world; however, from 1912to 1923 a humanitarian concernfor the poor resulted in the establishment of minimum wage lawsin fifteen states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. These laws,when tested in .the courts, weredeclared unconstitutional as viola-

Dr. Blair is a research chemist in New Jersey.

tions of the .Fourteenth Amendment.

The idea of a minimum wagelaw was revived with the FairLabor Standards Act of 1938,based on the Federal government'spower to regulate interstate commerce. The legal minimum wagewas set at 25t an hour in October,1938. This was raised to 30t inOctober, 1939 and to 40t in 1945.The rate went from 40t to75t on January 25, 1950, then to$1.00 on March 1, 1956, and wasraised to $1.15 on September 3,1961 at the same time extendingcoverage ·to additional persons at$1.00 an hour. In September, 1963the minimum wage was increasedto $1~25 in all jobs covered priorto 1961 and to $1.15 in jobs added

13

14 THE FREEMAN July

in 1961. New York City unsuccessfully attempted to establish a$1.50 minimum wage law in 1964,and "progressives" today are advocating a Federal minimum of$2.00 an hour. Indeed, if it ispossible to raise wages to anydesired level by governmental decree, one wonders why large segments of the population, especially those in lower paid jobs,are usually excluded from minimum wage coverage, and alsowhy the level is held down to whata typical low income worker isthought to need.

Theory

Before presenting the resultsof empirical studies made on theeffect of minimum wage laws, itis desirable to review the resultspredicted by the classical theoryof economics, to know what tolook for in the mass of data published by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.Let me hasten to assure the readerat this point that it is scientifically sound to use theory as aguide in the interpretation of data.Indeed, I hope to show that failureto consider data deemed important by theory has led many people to overlook some of the harmful consequences of our presentminimum wage law.

Simple application of the lawof supply and demand suggests

that employers forced to payhigher wages will employ fewerworkers. This indicates that theindustries affected will respondto minimum wage incre'ases byeither laying off existing help, orhiring fewer new workers thanthey otherwise would have done.

As a consequence of reducedemployment opportunity in industries "protected" by the minimumwage coverage, one would expectan influx of workers into industries not covered by the, lawworkers who would "normally"have been employed in the protected industries. Thus, theorypredicts that unprotected industries should show increases inemployment, or unemployment, orboth, depending on the particularindustry's ability to absorb thenew workers as the minimumwage is raised. As a result of theincreased competition for jobsone would also expect that wagesin the nonprotected industrieswould either fall, or else rise moreslowly than normal, when theFederal minimum wage is increased.

As the legal minimum is extended to more workers, or israised higher above the marketvalue of the worker as determinedby his productivity, the nonprotected industries will be less ableto absorb the workers precludedfrom employment in the protected

1965 REGARDIN'G THE MINIMUM WAGE 15

industries. Hence, one would expect (all else being constant) anincrease in the number of personsstructurallY unemployed. Thisshould be greatest among personswith little skill, or those who arefor one reason or another likelyto seek .employment in the lowpay jobs most affected by the law.

In the normal operation of themarket economy, if unemploymentdevelops in a given location (due,for example, to decreases in thedemand f or a product producedin that area), wages paid in thatregion tend to be reduced. Thelower wages serve as an induce'ment for industry to move intothe area, particularly industrysuch as textile and light manufacturing plants which do not re,quire highly specialized skills intheir workers. .Insofar as minimum wage laws tend to reducethe wage differential between "depressed areas" and areas of normal employment, they would beexpected to retard the movementof industry into depressed areas.

The IIRicardo Effedll

Another consequence of mInImum wage laws (discussed byLudwig von Mises in Human Action, pp. 767-769 of the 1949 Yaleedition) is the "Ricardo effect,"Le., a high minimum wage causesemployers to substitute machinery for labor because of the in-

creased cost of labor. It has beensuggested by some that the' Ricardo effect is desirable becauseit promotes automation. But thisneglects the' fact that it is usuallylack of capital which checks abusinessman's endeavor to improve the equipment of his firm.Since the minimum wage law doesnot create additional capital, theforcing of more capital expenditures in one industry leaves lessfor other industries, where itwould have been employed. moreefficiently, Le., would have yieldeda higher return on investment.Thus, the economy as a whole doesnot benefit from the Ricardo effect.And while, the worker' in the protected industry who has higherpay benefits from the' law, theworker who is laid off or replacedby a machine may see things in adifferent light.

The Consequences of Intervention

To summarize, classical economics predicts reduced e,mployment opportunity in protected industries, lower wages and increased employment in nonproteeted industries, and more unemployment in both types of industries than would have otherwise been the case. In addition, ashift of capital expenditures fromthe rest of the economy into someprotected industries would be expected. If the unprotected indus-

16 THE FREEMAN July

tries could not absorb the influxof workers precluded from theprotected industries, the decreasedemployment opportunity in thelatter would cause an increase instructural unemployment contributing to the development of "depressed areas." The classical theory does not claim that no workerwill benefit, or even that wages inthe protected industries cannot beraised for those workers fortunateenough to remain employed.

Proponents .of minimum wagelaws, or at least all of them thatI 'have read, base their supporton the assumption that the classical theory is invalid (if indeedthey indicate having thought aboutit at all) and that employmentopportunity will not be affected.In addition, they like to stressthe humanitarian purpose of thelaw. On this point I offer twoobservations: (1) Since a law isnot animate, we should rathertalk about the purpose of thelegislators who supported it. Butthis is impossible to determinewithout telepathy or a truth serum. Perhaps a congressman votedfor it because he thought it wouldhelp the poor, or because it wouldaid in his re-election, or becausehe wants to reduce the likelihoodof industry moving into depressedareas instead of into his state ordistrict. (2) The "purpose" is notrelevant to the actual effect.

The Data to Prove It

When the Federal mInImumwage law was passed in 1938,there were no data available, fromthis country at least, on the effectsof such a law. One could claimthat he "knew in his heart" theclassical theory is wrong. Now,however, there are both· theoryand data.

It is sometimes suggested injest (and even in earnest) thatsince average wages in this country have increased, and the legalminimum wage rate has increased,the latter caused the former. Thisargument does not even qualifyas post hoc, ergo propter hocsince the increases •in the legalminimum in each case followedthe average wage increase. I, forone, find it difficult to believe' thatthe national average wage rosepast the 75ft per hour mark inthe 1940's due to the minimumwage boost to 75ft per hour inJanuary of 1950. Studies on minimum wage law impact have to bedone a bit more carefully thanthis.

For one thing, since most workers are not directly affected byany given boost in the legal minimum, either because they alreadyearn more than that level or· because they are excluded fromcoverage, the effect can be seenonly by studying those industriesor geographic areas where a rela-

1965 REGARDING THE MINIMUM WAGE 17

tively large portion of .workersreceive low wages. An intelligentstudy must consider employmentas well as wages, and must studythe effect on industries excludedfrom coverage of the law as wellas those included.

Support for the law comes fromstudies printed in the Departmentof Labor's Bureau of L.abor Statistics' publication, Monthly LaborReview', so let us consider thesecarefully. The May, 1960, MonthlyLabor Review' (v. 83, no. 5, pp.472-83) contains the most recentsuch study entitled "Effects ofthe $1.00 Minimum Wage in SixAreas 1956-59." The six areaswere selected in low-wage regionsof the South where the law has ameasurable eff'ect. The survey reports average hourly wages inthe areas before and after thelegal minimum was raised to $1.00on March 1, 1956, and shows thatin the industries covered by thelaw, average hourly wages jumpedby around 10 per cent in most ofthe six regions. But no data aregiven on employment and unemployment figures in these regionsat this. time, and nothing is saidabout possible reductions in theworK ferrce. Indeed, the averagewage in an industry can·be raisedby simply firing the lowest-paidemployees. Hence, this Bureau ofLabor Statistics' study is· almostcompletely useless as an attempt

to test the predictions of classicaleconomic theory.

The study does contain someinteresting figures,however.Wages in the industries in thesesix areas which were not coveredby the minimum wage law showedan average reduction in one ofthe areas (Dothan, Alabama) ,and they either stayed the sameor increased by only a per cent ortwo in the other five areas. Thiswas during an upswing in theeconomy as a whole, when wageswould normally be expected torise. Thus, the· theoretical prediction that wages in unprotectedindustries will either fall or· risemore slowly than usual appearsto be supported. It should also benoted that this study shows thatin all six areas wages in coveredindustries were already higherthan in uncovered industries before the $1.00 legal minimumwent into effect. Thus the lawproduced an even greater difference in wages between the "high"and "low" pay jobs.

Higher Wages-fewer Jobs

As a consequence of studiessuch as the above, Monthly LaborReview in an article on the "Results of U. S. Minimum WageLaws" (March, 1960, pp. ·238-42)concludes that we know from experience that .it is possible toraise the average pay for workers

18 THE FREEMAN July

in low-paying industries by minimum wage laws. Classical economic theory doesn't dispute that.

A merica magazine (April 4,1959, p. 8) at least deals with anactual prediction of the theorywhen the editors observed: "Inthe halting progress of the legalminimum wage from 40¢ an hourin 1939 (sic) to $1.00 today, noneof these dire predictions has beenfulfilled. There has been no erosionof jobs...." It should be notedin connection with this observation, made with no evidenc,e citedto support it, that since World WarII, with the Federal minimumwage la,w in operation, successivebusiness cycles have each left anincrease in unemployment. Thispattern has been interrupted onlyrecently, probably by the tax reduction. We have also witnesseda "depressed area proble,m." Bothare in accord with the theoreticalpredictions of the effect of minimum wage laws, but since thereare many factors working in theeconomy we cannot conclude without detailed studies that theseproblems are caused by the law.However, detailed studies of thelaw have been made and I willpresent some of the results.

Effect on Low-Wage Industries

The effect of raises in the legalminimum on employment in var..ious low-wage industries covered

by the law is summarized in Manpower, Produc!tivity, and Costs byProfessor Yale Brozen of theUniversity of Chicago. In the twoyears following the establishmentof the 25¢ per hour minimum wagerate in October, 1938, 14 per centof the workers in seamless hosieryplants lost their jobs. Likewise,when the rate was raised to 75¢an hour employment in southernpine saw mills dropped by 17 percent. Similar employment dropsoccurred in the cigar, fertilizer,shirt, footwear, and canningindustries. The Bureau of LaborStatistics found an 8 per centdecline in total employment during the year following the increase to $1.00 in the five lowwage industries it chose for detailed examination. The application of the $1.00 minimum wage in1961 to a certain sector of retailtrade brought an 11 per cent decline in employment to that partof retail trade, while' retail tradeemployment in the other sectorsand in the nation rose. In each ofthese cases cited above, while employment in the protected lowwage industries dropped, sales,production, and employment wererising in the United States as awhole, because these figures werecompiled during a cyclical upswing.

Another study of the economicsof the minimum wage law is the


Ph.D. thesis of David E. Kaun,Stanford University (1964), whichis summarized in Dissertation Abstracts, 25, no. 2, p. 881. Kaunstudied fourteen low-wage industries, with large segments locatedin the South (where the directeffects of the minimum wage aregreatest). He considered· the behavior of wage distributions, employment, and labor force composition, among other things. Hislist of findings include "relativeadverse employment effects occurring where the impact of the minimum wage is greatest," and "increases in the minimum wage appear to have adversely affected employment opportunities for certain classes of labor, namely,Negroes, females, younger workers, and workers living. in ruralfarm areas." He concludes thathis analysis "results in conclusionsgenerally in agreement with theimplications derived from the competitive hypothesis," Le., classicaltheory.

A Cornell University study ofthe $1.00 minimum wage law onNew York retail trade, some ofthe results of which are given inMonthly Labor Review, March,1960, pp. 238-42, found that thelaw resulted in

• lower profits to stores• reduced hours for part-time

help• the laying off of workers, es-

pecially "inefficient" ones,which, the study explains,means elderly, handicapped,and part-time help

• reduced store hours, and• "more careful recruitment of

employees," which is explained to mean exclusion ofthe elderly, Negroes, andother "less acceptable" employees.

The Ph.D. thesis of M. A. Malik,University of Michigan (1963),summarized in Dissertation Abstra,cts, 25, no. 3, p. 1616, reportsthat of twelve low-wage industriesstudied in the United States,eleven experienced employmentdeclines in the immediate periodof two or three months after theestablishment of the $1.00 minimum (remember this was duringa general economic upswing). Ofthese, ten continued to show employment declines a year later.Since there are many other constantly changing factors which influence the employment situationin any given industry, Malik triedto find alternate explanations forthe employment reductions inthese industries. But in at leastfive of the industries he could findno other reasonable explanation the employment decline must bedue to the minimum wage law. Asexpected, the industries where thelaw had the greatest impact regis-

20 THE FREEMAN July

tered the largest declines in employment.

The final study I shall cite isthe effect of minimum wage lawincreases on a noncovered industry, household workers, by YaleBrozen in the Journal of Law andEconomics, 5, pp. 103-109, October, 1962. Studying the periodfrom 1950 to 1962, Professor Brozen's figures, from the Department of Labor and Bureau of theCensus, show that in each instancewhen the minimum wage raterose, thenumber of persons employed as household workers rose.The rise was· not the result of unemployed household workers finding .jobs, since there was also arise in the percentage of household workers unemployed in eachinstance (except 1961-62, when thedecline in unemployment percentage accounts for only 15 per centof the rise). This increase in bothemployment and unemployment inthe noncovered industry withraises in the legal minimum wageis exactly as predicted by classicaleconomics, and indicates thatworkers driven or precluded fromjobs in covered industries by thelaw must seek work in noncoveredindustries (like household work).Figures given on wage rates inhousehold employment indicatethat the wages are lower thanthey would have been without theFair Labor Standards Act.

Other Reasons Offered,But They Are Invalid

As evidence of curtailment ofemployment in low wage industries resulting from the minimumwage law has mounted, some proponents of the law have adopteda new rationale for their position; they say the law is good because it helps to eliminate "sweatshops." Since some industries arecovered and some exempt fromcoverage by the Fair Labor Standards Act, if some "sweatshops1'

have been eliminated, it has causedpeople employed in them to findjobs in others, generally at evenlower wages. If the law coveredeveryone in the economy, (including babysitters and the like) thosewho were "saved from sweatshops" would have nowhere to goto find jobs. It is all very well forthe "liberal" theorist to claim thata man is better off unemployedthan working in a "sweatshop,"but shouldn't the decision restwith the man in question?

One additional observation onthis point: often a low-paying jobgives a person the chance to learnthe business or demonstrate hisability, and can lead to a higherpaying position. Consider thenumber of company presidents andhigh officials who started theircareers in low-paying jobs, andimagine where they might be today if they had been "protected"


against being offered their firstjob by a minimum wage'law.

Thus, we see that the minimumwage law can raise average wagesin an industry by reducing theemployment of low-wage help. Insome respects the effects are likethat of a, tariff - it is easy torecognize those who benefit fromthe law, but harder to determinethose who suffer from it. We cansee the worker who is given a

raise because of the increasedminimum, but the worker who islaid off when he otherwise wouldnot have been, and the man whois not hired who otherwise wouldhave been, are harder to identify.But while the harmful effects ofthe tariff are spread over thewhole economy, those harmed bythe minimum wage law are mostly the very poor, the unemployed,the elderly, and the unskilled. ~

This article previously appeared in the January 1965 issue of Insight and Outlook,a conservative journal published by students at the University of Wisconsin.

Grossly Underpaid,

AN INVESTIGATOR for the Anti"Poverty Commission wasrecently asked to check on reports that a farmer was paying his help below-standard wages. He went out to thefarm and was introduced to all of the hired hands.

"This here is Gordon," said the farmer. "He milks thecows and works in the fields and he gets $45 a week.

"This is Billy Joe, the other hired man. He works in thefields and tends the stock and he gets $40 a week.

"And this young lady is Sue Ann. She cooks and keepshouse and she gets $30 a week, room and board."

"Fair ,enough so far," said the inspector. "Is there anyone else?"

"Only the half-wit," answered the farmer. "He gets $10a week, tobacco, room and board."

"Aha," said the inspector. "I'd like to speak to him.""You're talkin'to him right now," replied t~ farmer.

JOHN C. SPARKS

A CLASSROOM DISCUSSION concerned a successful and wealthyindustrial leader who had donatedmost generously to parks, museums, educational institutions, andother worthy endeavors during hislifetime, while expanding his company and the local job opportunities in the, community at the sametime. Then the teacher posed aninteresting que,stion to his highschool students. How would thestudents have spent this man'swealth if they had had the opportunity; and further, was itproper that the spending of sucha great amount of wealth shouldhave been decided by' one man?Written answers were requested.

There were· a fe,w exceptions,but generally the students failedto acknowledge the hard work,long hours, and ingenious ideasthat were required over so many

Mr. Sparks is a businessman in Canton, Ohio.

22

years to create, the wealth nowtheoretically in the hands of e'achstudent. Instead, only the secondhalf of the old saying, "easy come,easy go," was evident in the' imaginative spending spree,. Unawareof the responsibility of creatingwealth, they also lacked an awareness of the responsibility of using it. Obviously, most of thestudents thought they could have"spread" his wealth in a mannerthat would have accomplishedmore than the good achieved bythe industrialist. Many suggestedthat the government could betterhave spent his wealth than he did.

One student, however, whosewisdom belied her years, wrotethat the wealthy leader, who hadbuilt up such a successful company, produced good jobs, andamassed a substantial fortune, evidently knew better than othershow to use, his wealth. Besides,

1965 .•• IF I HAD THE POWER 23

she added, no matter what othersthought about his use of his riches, it was no concern of theirs. Itwas his property, and· he alonehad the right to decide its use.

At one time or another, most ofus doubtless have daydreamedabout what we could do with amillion dollars - not how wewould study, learn, work, sweat,labor, and save to create the fortune - but only how we wouldspend it if we were suddenly tocome into possession of it.

If I were king - if I were president - if I were rich - if I weremanager of the Yankees baseballteam - if I were calling the playsfor the Cleveland Browns' professional football team. . . . Whatself-entertainment it is to speculate in this manner!

While it may be tempting toimagine oneself qualified to assume one of these positions ofhonor, it is convenient to forgetthat one has not paid the exactingtoll to get there; and further, thatone is not actually responsible forthe consequences of decisionsmade only in fantasy.

Dividing the Pie

In a similar fashion, the government interventionist. (socialist,collectivist) tries to enter the picture, at the top, after the goodshave been produced by others. Inthis case, the speculation is not

innocent, passive fun but a viciousform of covetousness that wouldproject the "if-I-had-the-power"ideas into reality.

These advocates of compulsorycollectivism seldom find fault withthe productive prowess emanatingfrom a private-ownership, freeenterprise economy. There is nosuggestion from them how theowners of factories can producemore. No idea is presented thatwill improve quality, lower costs,and shorten production time. Notone of them comes up with theplan that encourages a worker tomake his actual output equal thepotential of his ability and effort.

The collectivist has no objectionto the unbelievably huge quantities and varieties of materialgoods and services pouring outof the factories and into the market places of the nation every day.Compared with the quality andquantity of a century ago, or evena decade ago, he will concede thefantastic abundance flowing froma free economy. This is not hisquarrel. More- than likely, however, it is his attraction. A nationof great wealth has greater attraction to the collectivist than apoor nation where little isavailable to divide. Given a choicebetween two pies of different sizes,he prefers to divide the larger pie.Not at all concerned with makingthe pie larger, he wants only to

24 THE FREEMAN July

divide it in a manner he thinksjust; and the bigger the pie, themore powerful and important hefeels.

All Were failures

One might wonder why themodern twentieth-century collectivist does not try to introduce hisideals to his fellow men by providing true-life illustrations ofthe wonders of collectivism, in experimental communities. Almostany up-to-date manufacturingcompany that develops a new product will first test the productand its acceptance by the publicin a limited. number of marketingareas before attempting to sell iton a nationwide· scale. Failure hadbest be ascertained sooner ratherthan later if disastrous losses areto be avoided by the company.On the other hand, successful promotion can better be planned fornational introduction after experiencing satisfactory results inthe test markets. The only sensible way, according to these manufacturing leaders, is to test theproduct on a small scale first.

Not for the modern collectivists,however! Collectivism, whereinthe individual is pushed asid.e forthe common good, has been triedrepeatedly over the centuries ingreat variety - monarchies, empires, socialist states, welfarestates, fascism, people's democ-

racies - to name a few of theforms of political despotism thathave repeatedly deprived man ofhis full heritage of freedom. Today's collectivist is not about toshow his wares in anything resembling a test market. And withgood reason. The collectivist isbored with the' hard facts of economic life. He does not want theresponsibility to ere,ate abundance.Production tires him, and well itmight, because the collectivistprinciple - from each according toability, to each according to needis not an incentive for anyone towork harder or strive for the better idea or the method that willproduce more material goods.

During the •. nineteenth century,numerous voluntary experimentalcollectivist communi ties weretried, and failed. Many of theseexperiments in the United Stateswere primarily religious in nature, including the earlier Plymouth Colony. The economic. aspect was usually secondary and ofconcern only as a means to fulfillthe spiritual objectives of themembers of these societies. Nevertheless, after initial zeal, the goodproducers soon tired ofbeirig illfed. They left. They chose not tobe responsible for feeding thosewho would rather be idle. In thosecommunities where the experiment was primarily economicrather than religious, the com-

1965 ••. IF I HAD THE POWER 25

munes folded after only two orthree years.

It should be remembered thatunder these experiments of voluntary collectivism, no walls or curtains of iron preve~ted the skillful and ambitious producers frompacking up their families and leaving. No guards stood armed toshoot those who had enough ofcollectivism. They simply left. Thecollectivist officials, the zealousmembers, the idlers, and the unskilled who remained thus werefaced with a choice' - collectivismand poverty on one hand, to whichthe older members sometimes didnot object, or a return to individual ownership. and responsibility.

Two Reasons Why the LocalExperiments Could Nol Su~ceed

It would be pointless for themodern collectivist to attempt toprove the glowing dreams derivedfrom a voluntary experimentalcommunity, because none hasworked successfully in the pastand none will work in the future- for two reasons. Membershipin such an experimental community is voluntary. A member candissociat~ himself with. the minimum of inconvenience. And if heis worth his salt, he will. Obviously then, the modern collectivistcannot afford to permit any liberty to choose. Too few would prefer collectivism if they actually

understood the system. Therefore,the people who do. not like it cannot be allowed to quit the nationalprogram. Good producers mustproduce for the benefit of the unskilled, indolent, and lazy - as wellas for those administrating theentire system.

The other reason why the experimental collectivist communities folded was the ready comparison between the results of collectivism and the results of privateownership, as seen in neighboringtowns and cities' perhaps only afew miles away. This detrimentalcomparison can be avoided onlywhen the collectivist principle isadopted nationwide on a compulsorybasis. The collectivist cannotafford to let the public seethe results of his ideas at work, comparedside-by-side with the resultsof private ownership and individual initiative. The comparisonwould reveal the collectivist shortcomings all too quickly. Therefore, collectivist laws must beadopted· throughout the nation sothat no comparisons exist.

People Can Be Misled

It seems unlikely that any people would accept a form of government in their communities thatembraced collectivist principles.Would the populace of any civilized nation accede willingly andknowingly to despotism and reg-

26 THE FREEMAN July

imentation, particularly after having tasted freedom? One wouldexpect them to be on guard, especially against any tendency todrift in that direction. Yet, paradoxically, what is impossible forthe collectivist to achieve on asmall scale in an experiment seemsto be more readily attainable onthe broad scale of an entire nation. This does not mean that collectivism can successfully bringabout an abundant, happy, creative life. It cannot any more dothis on the larger national scalethan on the smaller communityscale. But the public can be misledinto it, especially when no comparison is readily available toshow up the defects in a nationof complete collectivism.

This is freedom's great danger.This is collectivism's peculiar opportunity. Persons are attractedby the paternalistic-governmentpromises even though they are notachievable.

Strangely enough, many of theadvocates of these programs arenot schemers or conspirators attempting to hoodwink the people,but sincere persons with the bestof intentions. They honestly believe their system of compulsionwill benefit mankind. They arefrightened by the imagined"chaos" of millions of people, eachone making hundreds of decisionsevery day of his life.

Let us once more be remindedthat the collectivist does not likecomparisons. Even in a countrysuch as ours that suffers a mildercase of the collectivist disease, thecomparison of a government enterprise with a private enterpriseof like nature will be carefullyrigged to favor the former. Forexample, TVA electric power isrepresented as being less costlyto produce than the electricity ofprivate companies, although theTVA pays few, if any, of the taxcosts for governmental "services."L.ow-interest or interest-free financing are simply' ignored in thecomparisons.

Eliminating Competition

The next step beyond a "rigged"government - private comparison,is the elimination by law of theprivate method altogether. Thepost office is an example. Only thegovernment postal system is lawful; none other is permitted todeliver mail. Government education has not yet reached this point,although there have been suggestions to ban private education below the college level. In certainstates, private insurance companies are prohibited from supplying workman's compensationinsurance to employers. Only thestate insurance "company" is permitted to operate.

Thus, no one can justifiably ac-

1965 ••• IF I HAD THE POWER 27

cuse a collectivist of being a goodsport. He wants the rules of thegame rigged so that no others canshow up collectivism as the weak,incapable, unproductive, and immoral system it is. The systemhe advocates will not permit acontest on neutral ground and under uniform rules if it can behelped. The collectivist wants fourstrikes, while he restricts the private ownership competitor to twostrikes, or one, or preferablynone! It is not surprising thenthat no comparison at all is thepreferred position. After six yearsof Castro, some Cubans are losingthe sense' of comparison. One Cuban parent says: "Despite whatwe parents tell them, the youngpeople are beginning to forgetwhat life was like before 1959.They don't remember what it'slike to live well - or what freedomreally means."!

In order to guard against collectivism, it must be revealed forwhat it is, a system that removes

1 "What Castro Is Doing to Cuba,"U.S. New8 & World Report, LVIII (March1, 1965), 70.

freedom of individual choice, thatgives great power to a group ofdespots, that erodes the mind ofaccurate historical experience, andthat will cause mankind to degenerate rather than climb towardgreater material and spirituallevels.

Politically - elected officials intheir government capacities cannot produce abundance. The mostpowerful political office of theworld is incapable of producing ahigh level of material wealth, orof waging successfully a so-calledwar on poverty. Yet people, likesheep, are still swallowing theseabsurd claims of the political medicine man.

Increased productivity is theonly antidote for poverty. Toachieve such increase, all menmust be free to be creative withtheir ideas and efforts. The freemarket stands ever ready to reward and provide' the incentive toany who would achieve powerpurchasing power - by the honestsweat of his brow and the inventiveness of his mind. ~

Equality

No SOCIETY can rightly offer less than equality before the law;but there can be no equality of condition between youth and ageor between the sexes; there cannot be equality even betweenfriends. The rule is that each shall act where he is strong; theassignment of identical roles produces first confusion and thenalienation, as we have increasing opportunity to observe.

RICHARD M. WEAVER, Ideas Have Consequences

DEFININGLIBERTY

An Analysis of Its Three Elements

WENDELL J. BROWN

Abraham Lincoln said the American people were much in want of agood definition of the word liberty. Mr. Brown has accepted thatchallenge, and to define what liberty is he divides it into three elementsand analyzes each. He writes of the goals liberty seeks to achieve, theprocedures by which it moves, and the underlying faiths that sustain it.

SOCRATES thought that trial lawyers were too much in a hurry tobe good philosophers. Trueenough, there are witnesses anddocumentary evidence to be examined. Trial lawyers do not havemuch time for the creation ofphilosophical systems. A priorithinking is usually confined towhat we do when we guess whatthe law is before we take downthe books to see what it is.

Lincoln was a trial lawyer. Heused abstract exposition, but notfor its own sake. Rather it pro-

A member of the Illinois Bar since 1926, Wendell J. Brown received his legal education atthe Northwestern University School of Lawand has practiced in Chicago since. He is amember of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

This article is reprinted here, by permission,from the April, 1965, issue of the AmericanBar Association Journal.

28

vided him with a sense of direction during a period when therewere enough hot heads around tosatisfy the most belligerent. During that period one hundred yearsago he took time to say: "Theworld has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and theAmerican people, just now, aremuch in want of one."

Different from other forms oflife, Homo sapiens does occasionally have use for concepts. Libertyis one of them. The word libertyis its symbol. Of late, I have notseen the word identified by itsbasic elements in one short piece.That is the intent of this shortexcursion.

In the context of a free societythere are three, elements in the

1965 DEFINING LIBERTY 29

concept of liberty. One of these iswhat liberty seeks to accomplish.The second is how to accomplishit procedurally. And the third isits underlying faiths.

I.

WHAT LIBERTY SEEKS TO ACCOMPLISH

In terms of· what a free societyseeks to accomplish, liberty is fivefreedoms for each individual: (1)freedom to come and. go, (2)equality and justice before thelaw, (3) security of property, (4)freedom of speech, and (5) freedom of conscience. There aremany other names for these fiveindividual freedoms - freedom ofthe press, freedom of expressionand opinion, freedom of religion,freedom of association, right ofhabeas corpus, right of assembly,right of jury trial, etc. But thesefive individual freedoms are the"blessings of liberty" that constitute the first element of theword.

The active and politicallyminded members of a free societymay use a "more or less" liberal oran absolute "either-or" approach,but these five individual freedoms are what a free societyseeks to accomplish.

The intent of a free society isto keep the use of allman-madepower within the periphery .ofthese five individual freedoms.

This requires that the activitiesprovided for in our laws have tobe limited by the inherent giveand-take requirements .containedin each of these five individualfreedoms. We do not expecteither these five individual free ..doms or their conflicts with eachother to "wither away," and weknow that we could not havethem where the state is everything, or where. there is no state.

II.

PROCEDURAL WAYS TO REACH THE GOALS

Liberty is a political sense ofdirection. Therefore, liberty isalso a current process based onits procedures and underlyingfaiths. The second element in theconcept of liberty is identified inthe debatable area of the bestprocedural ways to accomplish it.

When I was a boy in a smallIndiana town, the statement wasmade with impunity by one ofour articulate statesmen that,"what this country needs is a goodfive-cent cigar." The popular inference intended by that otherwiseirrelevant comment was that wecould leave the processes of libertyalone and still have it. Today weare forced not to expect our procedures to work that perfectly. Atevery turn there is the requirement that an overwhelming number of us accept· the responsibility

30 THE FREEMAN July

our procedures impose; at everyturn we have learned to expectthat some will not.

Universal Suffrage and Majority Rule

There is no one procedural formula applicable to all nations alikefor the attainment of the five individual freedoms of liberty. Thenewborn of each nation come intoa society which has institutions,mores, laws, and habits which theycould not choose. The people ofeach nation have to custom-buildtheir own procedures and institutions. They are not conceived ina cultural vacuum. In a. nationthat would have them, there mustbe a dominant number who havealready made the convictions, morals, and habits of free men theirown.

The force of public opinion controls. Different from the militarypractices and propaganda powerof totalitarianism, communistic orother, it would be a contradictionof terms to say or think that liberty could be thrust upon the people of a nation. Physical powercan be thrust upon the people ofa nation, but not the power of liberty. Men are not persuaded, savethey persuade themselves. The inspiration and perspiration thatcreate and maintain a free statemust ultimately move from withinor not at all.

During the 2,500 years of re-

corded history there has neverbeen a dominantly free societywithout some form of self-government. Historically, self - government has been a common denominator of all dominantly free societies. The statement that theperpetuation of the five freedomsof individual liberty requires universal suffrage and majority ruleis of such persuasive power thateven though we know that the majority has to be a responsible majority, I believe that we have totake that gamble. Procedurally wetake that gamble aided by a. written constitution.

A Written Constitution

In the United States our political procedures are realisticallygrounded. Many years before Castro, Hitler, and Mussolini, and infact many years before Lord Acton said it, our Founding Fatherswere a.ware that "power tends tocorrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Accordingly, under our procedures we seek to accomplish the five freedoms of individual liberty by a representative republic under an organicwritten law. By its terms and infact our Federal Constitution isthe "supreme Law of the Land."It provides for a diffusion of delegated power into judicial, executive, and legislative branches, asystem of checks and balances, a


co-ordination of Fede'ral with staterights and a Bill of Rights, allwith the power to amend by orderly procedures. We have set upthese procedural odds in favor ofa free, society.

Other free societies may preferan unwritten constitution, but webelieve that a written one is thebest procedural way for. us to accomplish the five freedoms of individual liberty. When we make itwork for us, we avoid a concentration of arbitrary power, both private and public.

Thus far, we have found thatwhen our written Constitution isinterpreted by use of the cardinalrules of construction applied tolegal instruments, it is a •powerfultool in the maintenance of the fivefreedoms of individual libertyand the right to an equal ballot.This attitude toward our Constitution does not result in. completeagreement, but that does not perturb me. On the contrary, I doscare easily when I read a majority opinion of our United StatesSupreme Court which shows anattitude toward our written Constitution that allows it to be' interpreted without any real use ofthe cardinal rules of constructionof written instruments. For example, such is the accusation ofJustice Harlan in his dissentingopinion in Reynolds v.Sims, 377U. S. 533 (1964), when he writes:

... It is meaningless to speak of constitutional "development" when boththe language and history of the controlling provisions of the Constitutionare wholly ignored.!

Our procedure's to maintain afree society do not allow for thatattitude to become a habit. In thesame dissenting opinion JusticeHarlan says why this is so:

... The Constitution is an instrumentof government, fundamental to whichis the premise that in a diffusion ofgovernmental authority lies thegreatest promise that this Nation willrealize liberty for all its citizens. ThisCourt, limited in function in accordance with that premise, does notserve its high purpose when it exceeds its authority, even to satisfyjustified impatience with the slowworkings of the political process. Forwhen in the name of constitutionalinterpretation, the Court adds something to the Constitution that was deliberately excluded from it, the Courtin reality substitutes its view of whatshould be so for the amending process.2

In actual litigated controversiesthere have been more' than 4,000decisions authored by our UnitedStates Supreme Court which haveinterpreted and applied its lessthan 7,000 words - more than 50,000 pages of interpretative decisions. Some of these controversies

1 377 U. S. at 59!.2 377 U. S. at 625.

32 THE FREEMAN July

have stemmed from the use of legislative power, some from the useof executive power, some from theuse of judicial power - and -allfrom a claimed usurpation of pubHcor private power. But in eachnew justiciable controversy we,the people:\ return to our writtenConstitution for the tools of advocacy of political liberty, includingthe five freedoms of individualliberty. The periphery of separatelegal controversies has thus beenprocedurally set.

The .advocates of liberty arealert to the interpretative fact thatthe "interstices" in our Constitutionare it part of that documentin the same way that the interspaced cracks in a sidewalk are apart of a sidewalk. It is an entityand its parts are to be interpretedand applied in that way. The process of staying on the sidewalk,even for the sane and sober, is notuncontroversial. Still, I preferhaving a written constitution todoing without one.

An In-dependent Judicial'Y

A paradox in our procedures tosecure liberty is that an independent judiciary, our United StatesSupreme Court, without purse orsword, has a limited power ofcoercion. Justice Jackson reminds

:3 Including trial lawyers and the members of the United States Supreme Courtin most instances.

us that decisional law could notexist except "where men are free... and judges independent." Thisinterdependence makes it doublyclear that (1) the zeal that a judgefeels for what the law ought to behas to be tempered with a zeal forwhat the law is; and (2) a practical test of a free society is the willingness of its administrators tolend the judges their aid, and ofits people to obey their constitutional decisions until changed bythe court itself under its twoedged, self-imposed weapon ofstare decisis or by amendment ofthe Constitution.

LBarned Hand once wrote that"liberty lies in the hearts of menand women; when it dies there,no constitution, no law, no courtcan save it; no constitution, nolaw, no court can even do much tohelp it."" The underlying issue, Ibelieve, for a free society to facehead on is· one of the acceptabilityor nonacceptability of a faith thatthere are progressively higherlaws that can be merged into manmade laws under orderly procedures. When Charles EvansHughes, a great trial lawyer,stated that the Constitution iswhat the Supreme Court says itis, he merely stated the hard factthat the trial lawyer has to faceonce the Supreme Court has spo-

4 HAND, THE SPIRITOF._L.mERTX.144: ...(1944) .


ken unequivocan,. In a free societythe procedural adaptation of liberty is not the sole responsibility ofthe three branches of our government. The supreme power and,therefore, the supreme' -politicalresponsibility for the· attainmentof liberty resides in the -people.There, too, are its underlyingfaiths, without which the five freedoms of liberty are unattainablewith any procedures that we maydevise.

III.

THE UNDIRlYING FAITHS OF LIBERTY

The third element in -the concept of liberty is its underlyingfaiths. My quest at this point isnot for absolute certainty, but tounderstand, the best I am able, theunderlying faiths of liberty. I..-nture to think that a more ambitious quest would fade away into acopiousness of words. The why ofliberty is too deeply related to thewhy of life for me to expect to domore.

When I think of ultimates forthe human race or for just me,there is no certainty. Harold Macmillan, former Prime Minister ofGreat Britain, recently made thecomment that the only thing ofwhich- he is sure is that there isa God. Justice Holmes remindedus, "Every year if not every daywe have to wager our salvation

upon some prophecy -based on animperfect knowledge."5 This mixture of ego and humility is not anuncommon asset of the advocateof liberty; it could never be foundin an advocate of any politicalfaith that it premised on infallibility.

There is a spirit of conciliationbetween reasonable' men when weconsider the finer reaches of thefive individual freedoms whichliberty seeks to accomplish. Also,there is a spirit of conciliation between reasonable men when wethink of the best procedural waysto achieve liberty. But t~ere canbe no spirit of compromise in itsunderlying faiths. We believe inthem or we do not believe in them.If we believe in -them, we cannotbe diverted from them or allowthem to be destroyed.

The strength, the compassion,the courage and the Jlrtelligencebehind the concept of libertyevolve from its -underlying faiths.These underlying faiths eithermove from within ourselves or notat all. There is no formula forthem and there is no certainty.The creed of'liberty leaves all supposedly final philosophical formulas with an open end. It does notanswer the why of life. Partly forthat reason it has a. chance to survive without changes in the sense

5 Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S.624 at 630 (1919) (dissenting opinion).

34 THE FREEMAN July

of direction that is its underlyingessence.

The creed of liberty, I believe,can be stated in one fairly shortparagraph as:

A living organism differs from anymechanical device that man can conceive in that it forms itself and keepsitself in working order and activity.Man is a living organism. Biologicaland psychosocial cultural man is different from most or all other livingorganisms. Man has an inner powerof choice that has to be kept alive orhe ceases to live as such. With liberty he keeps himself in working order and activity. Without it he doesnot. It is, therefore, an operationalneed in the process of living of a human entity.

This is the basic approach tothe underlying faiths of liberty.But I cannot stop with a statement which depends upon the wordliberty itself. The more than semantic question persists: "Whatare the underlying faiths in theconcept of liberty?"

In the United States it is ourcultural habit to take it impatiently for granted that we know theanswer to that question. Not merely that we, would rather be thoughtblase than to be thought naIve.Rather we feel that we have anintuitive sense of liberty thatneeds no further identification.We impatiently sense that whenwe refer to liberty, we refer to

that essential element in social,economic, and political life bywhich man is enabled to keep himself in working order and activity.This is essential, but it is not, Ibelieve, the totality of our faithsin a free society.

After seve'ral "pace-offs," JohnDewey decided that one fairly accurate way to conceive of the human mind is by reference to itsability to "resolve doubts as such."Human beings are endowed withthe power to see, that doubts aredoubts, and to resolve some ofthem, rightly or wrongly. The firstdoubt for me to resolve in mysearch for all the! underlyingfaiths of liberty is to determinewhat a faith is. I shouldn't takeit for granted that I know whatfaiths in general are.

A faith is a "rule of conduct,"but that answer is a part of theobjective effect of a faith that wealready have and does not completely identify what a faith is.

Different from a mathematicalproposition, a communicable' faith,before it can limit and govern ourgroup actions, I suggest, musthave an emotional appeal as wellas a valid rational appeal. Libertymakes good use, of the feelings ofcourage and compassion, for liberty begins when the weak becomestrong and ends when the stronglose their sense of compassion.The statement that e'motion and


reason are a house divided is onlya metaphor. Man functions as anentity. He is at once an emotional,instinct-packed, volitional, physical, and sometimes rational entity.The underlying faiths of liberty,like all faiths, must be a part ofall of these characteristics functioning together, inasmuch as eachman has to function that way ifhe functions at all.

Liberty is not a mathematicalformula. Much less is it an artifact, a product of human workmanship that we can pick up withour hands and examine for color,size, and content. We cannot pointto it, weigh it, or count it. Toprove it we cannot explode it overthe deserts of New Mexico. It isa belief system in the process ofbiological and psychosocial living,and a belief system requires ameeting of the minds about a faithwhich we have in common andwhich each of us has made hisown. Before we can say that ourfaiths in liberty are a part of us,we must be able to say that "wefeel them," "we think them," and"we act them." That is what faithsare.

Liberty Lies Within the Man

The core of individual liberty isa matter of faith, a faith thatthere is an inner life for each individual, the liberation of whichwill produce results, the only re-

suits over which we human beingshave any control. These resultsare a part of a stream of life, butthe advocate of liberty believesthat they can be credited or debited to an individual account - anaccount without an infallible bookkeeper.

The advocate of liberty believesthat by the use of the individualinner drives of compassion, courage, reason, and intelligence, mankind need not inevitably destroyitself and that the course of mankind can continue. He believes thatliberty, if he has it, is in the process of living and never at the endof a rainbow of wishful thinking.He believes that it is complementary of the orderly laws of causeand effect, of probability and ofchance, of which man is not completely informed. It is complementary of them because it rests inpart upon the faith that each individual is endowed by his Creatorwith some power of individualchoice.

The great contempory contributions of others in his scientific fieldcaused Einstein to question whathe could claim for his own. Butwith all his skepticism or humility,he never lost faith in his sense ofselfhood. Each advocate of libertybelieves that the responsive andpositive chords in his life mustbe struck by him.

What are the underlying faiths

36 THE FREEMAN July

of liberty? A faith in the God-given and yet spontaneous spark ofcreativity in each of us whichmakes us different from all others;a faith that this spark of creativity can be preserved in its totalityby just laws applicable to all equally; a faith in the worthiness ofits preservation; a faith in thepracticality of its preservation bythe people themselves - these arethe underlying faiths of liberty.

The division between scientificthought and critical philosophicalthought, between observable obj ectivi ty and value j udgments,though useful, does not cause oneto think that man, individual man,does not have to function as aseparate entity of energy if he isgoing to function at all, or thatany political system can evade thatfact and· survive.

The discoveries of nuclear physics make it imperative that we,all mankind, use value judgmentsthat are universal. We cannotthrow senseless rhetoric or eliminative bombs at each other andexpect the species Homo sapiensto survive in perpetuity.

More than Mere Words

Although there is easily observable evidence to the contrary, political liberty is not a mere play onwords that each side of currentcontroversies uses for its rhetorical effect. Rather, by its three

specific elements it is a synthesisof thought and action, a conceptthat can be accepted or rejected.It is not as certain, perhaps, asthe concept that God made Iittlegreen apples, but thus far the onlyperceivable bridge between scienceand philosophy and between nations and between men that willpreserve the life and hopes of theindividual and of mankind, is theconcept of liberty - the grand concept of the dignity and brotherhood of man under a just andcosmic God.

"Where liberty dwells, There ismy country." These words, utteredby John Milton, the blind poetwho yet could inwardly see, mayhave been words of pride or wordsof yearning. For mankind todaythey are optimistic words - wordsof hope. They suggest a sense ofdirection based on the three elements of liberty in the context ofa free society. In a world in whichman must seek his salvation withimperfect knowledge, could therebe a better way?

It is the only way that I can seethatwill give my grandchildren achance to decide for themselvesthe course their lives shall take ina free society. Right now theykick about going to bed at night,but I think they are tough enoughto handle their share of responsibility in a free society when theirtime comes. ~

THE GREAT COM M U N 1ST

WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN

BETWEEN 1917 and 1949, withinthe span of a generation, com,munism achieved a leap from thestatus of the small, little-knownpolitical sect in the Russian revolutionary movement to a systemthat dominated the lives of onethird of the population· of theworld, including the Soviet Union,mainland China, and the considerable area in Eastern and CentralEurope which had been subjectedto communism as a result of Soviet military invasion and occupation. Not since the early sweep ofthe Mohammedans from the deserts of Arabia over the Near andMiddle East and North Africahad a new doctrine acquired

Mr. Chamberlin is a skilled observer andreporter of economic and political conditionsat home and abroad.

power so swiftly on such a largescale.

What made the success of communism seem more formidablewas its apparent concentration ofpower and authority in Moscow.Stalin had only to whisper a command and it was translated intoaction not only in the countriesunder Russian military and policecontrol, but also by the communistparties in America and WesternEurope, where they had not yetgained power. An article in aFrench communist publication wassufficient to cause the Americancommunists to discard the comparatively moderate leadership ofEarl Browder and substitute themore violent, intransigent WilliamZ. Foster.

The communists seemed to have

37

88 THE FREEMAN July

discovered and applied, first inRussia, then in the satellite countries of Eastern Europe: and inChina, a magic formula for holding power, once a successful revolution had been brought about,whether by internal collapse, civilwar, or military intervention fromoutside. This formula, which alsoserved Hitler, Mussolini, and lesser fascist dictators very well (itwas by no means the only featurecommon to communism and fascism in 'practice) might be summarized as follows: unlimitedpropaganda plus unlimited terror.

After a communist take-over,all means of information, entertainment, and instruction - theschools, the· press, the radio,theater, and the arts - we·repressed into the service of glorifying the all-powerful state and theruling Communist Party. It wasexpected that this would proveespecially effective with a youngergeneration that had no knowledgeof foreign countries, no knowledge of previous conditions.

And, for those who did not accept the propaganda, there wasruthless unrelenting terror, ranging from loss of a job, denial ofthe right to publish writings, tothe more extreme measures: arrest, exile to forced labor, execution before a firing squad. Diabolical as this technique was,from the standpoint of the' free-

dom and dignity of the individualhuman being, it was also diabolically effective as a means of organizing and regimenting peopleand repressing and discouragingany organized resistance and dissent.

Dissension Sown Abroad,But Prohibited Domestically

So, while the communists usedevery conceivable trick and deviceto extend their sw:ay by settingclass against class, race againstrace, group against group in noncommunist lands, they insulatedthemselves against movements ofprotest and revolt in the countriesthey ruled by this steady a,pplication of the method of propagandaplus te'rror. With this were linkedtwo characteristics of all communist regimes, regardless ofother differences: one-party political dictatorship and economiccollectivism in the sense that thestate, in one form or another, became the sole employer, operatingthrough various agencies allmines, factories, farms, store·s,and other economic enterprises.I t is difficult for one who has notlived under it to imagine thecrushing weight of concentratedpower represented by a statewhich combines the politicalpower of the most absolute despotsof the past with the economicmastery represented by a monop-

1965 THE GREAT COMMUNIST SCHISM 39

oly of possession of all economicenterprises.

Imagine a government operating without any of the safeguardsfor the individual written into theUnited States Constitution, directing the contents of everynewspape'r, of every radio broadcast and, on top of this, managingall the economic production facilities, with the functions of management and lahor organizationalike controlled by the single ruling party. That affords a fair picture of what the communist stateis like and of how difficult it isto organize opposition or resistance to its monstrous grasp.

Signs of Internal Weakness

Yet, with communism, as withMohammedanism and other worldconquering movements, internalschism among the communiststates has clearly set in, creatingdifficulties which were not foreseen in the first years of the Russian Revolution which Lenin,Trotsky, and Stalin envisaged asmerely the- first step toward worlddomination through world revolution. The first breach in the granite fa~ade of international communism occurred in 1948, whenJosip Broz Tito, the communistdictator of Yugoslavia, secededfrom the overlordship of Moscow.

Tito's breach with Moscow didnot mean that Yugoslavia ceased

to be a communist dictatorship.But the Yugoslav dictator resented the idea that his power,even his life, might depend on thereports of the Soviet agents whomStalin sent into Yugoslavia to spyon and supervise his activities. Aveteran of the communist movement, he had built up such atightly organized political machinein Yugoslavia that he was ablesuccessfully to defy Stalin's effortsto destroy his regime by all meansshort of war, including economicblockade and incitations to subversion. Sitting on the fence politically between East and West, although maintaining a generally"anti-imperialist" attitude in foreign relations and .retaining asomewhat modified, maverick communism at home, Tito receivedlarge quantities of United Statesaid (considerably reduced in recent years). He also extractedsome Soviet help when Stalin'ssuccessors decided to restore morenormal state relations betweenMoscow and Belgrade, althoughcontinuing to censure Tito as arevisionist more or less severelywhen matters of communist theorywere under discussion.

Stalin's death in 1953 was followed by several signs, in the Soviet Union and abroad, that communism was not the impregnablefrozen fortress it had seemed tcbe. There were anticommunist reo

40 THE FREEMAN July

volts in East Ge'rmany in 1953, inPoland and in Hungary in 1956.These were all put down, the onein Hungary after a heroic, tragically uneven struggle by the majority of the Hungarian people,with workers and students takinga leading part, against the' superior arms of the Red Army.But at least the myth of happyacquiescence of the' peoples undercommunist rule was destroyed.And the Poles, who proceededmore discreetly than the Hungarians and did not push mattersto the point of an armed crash,obtained the elimination of someof the more unpopular Sovietagents and of some of the crudersigns of Russian domination, especially distasteful because of bitter Polish memories of Russianoppression before the First WorldWar.

Moscow vs. -faeiping

Then, gradually but unmistakably, came the rift between thetwo communist giants, the SovietUnion and Red China. Becauserelations between Moscow andPeiping were like an iceberg,mostly concealed from public view,and because there were intermittent efforts, on the Soviet side,to coax the Chinese back into· theorthodox communist fold, it ishard to set a definite date for abreach that also produced impor-

tant repercussions in the satellitestates of Eastern Europe'.

Perhaps the exclusion of theSoviet Union, as a "white" nation,from the Bandung conference ofAfro-Asian countries in 1955marked the· beginning of the disagreement. Khrushchev's belatedrepudiation and denunciation ofStalin in 1956 did not appeal tothe Chinese communists. Whenthe latter, by bombardment andthreats, attempted to oust theChinese nationalists from the: offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu in 1958, Khrushchev offeredonly verbal support.

With the passing of time, differences of national interest andeven of interpretation of communist ideology between the SovietUnion and China became more andmore evident. In two ways theforme'r is a "have," the latter a"have not" country. The SovietUnion today controls, directly orindirectly, far more' territory thanthe Empire of the Czars. Thereis no unredeemed area with aRussian population. And, althougheconomic well-being is far belowthe standards of the United Statesand Western Europe, the SovietUnion has built up a considerableindustrial plant, which it wouldnot like to expose to the hazardsof nuclear war. So, apart fromlapses like the threat to WestBerlin and the injection of mis-


siles into Cuba, both of whichended in failure, Khrushchev andhis successors so far have displayed a tendency to avoid sha.rpcollisions with the United Statesand to rely on such methods assubversive propaganda and building up what they believe will bea superior economic system (nota likely prospect in view of theresults to date) to sap and finallyoverthrow the capitalist order.

China is a much poorer countrythan the Soviet Union, probablyat least a generation hehind ineconomic development. It regardsas a major foreign policy objective the reconquest of the islandof Formosa, seat of the ChineseNationalist government of ChiangKai-shek. This objective, howe'ver,cannot be realized so long as Formosa is guarded by United Statessea and air power. With less tolose in war, the Chinese, at leastin words, are much more militantin preaching the doctrine of waragainst imperialism. And they· resent Soviet unwillingness to"share the wealth" by giving themliberal economic aid, and Sovietunwillingness to back them up inmilitary adventures against Formosa and India.

By 1960 Moscow-Peiping relations had become so strained thatthe Soviet .government abruptlypulled out of China hundreds ofSoviet scientific and technical ad-

visers who had been helping withmany new Chinese industrial installations. These were left in var'iOllS stages of incomplete, construction; the Soviet adviserspacked up their blueprints anddeparted, leaving the Chinese tocope with the situation as bestthey could.

Heated Words

It would go far beyond thebounds of a brief article to citeall the polemical exchanges between the two big communistpowers. But two quotations showhow envenomed the tone, had become in recent years. A Sovietmessage to Peiping of October 18,1963, read as follows:

"Serious differences are beingused in Peiping to unfold a campaign against the fraternal parties, unprecedented in its scope,which is sharply hostile in tone.... All the resources at the disposal of a large state have' beenset in motion to wage a strugglewithin the communist movement.... Enormous harm is being doneand every communist is obliged todo everything possible to stop thedevelopment of events in the direction Peiping wants to givethem. If this is not done in time,the consequences for the entirecommunist movement may be extremely grave."

The Chinese response took the

42 THE FREEMAN July

form of contemptuous personalabuse of Khrushchev:

"The United States imperialistshave not become beautiful angelsin spite of Khrushchev's Biblereading and psalm-singing. Theyhave not turned into compassionate Buddhas in spite of Khrushchev's prayers and incense burning. However hard Khrushchevtries to serve the United Statesimperialists, they show not theslightest appreciation. . . . Theycontinue to slap Khrushchev inthe face and reveal the bankruptcy of his ridiculous theories prettifying imperialism."

Here one comes close to theroot of the feud. The Chinese areclaiming for themselves the roleof champions of Leninist communist orthodoxy and accusing theRussians (the charge is spelledout in detail in many other Chinese publications and communications) of slackness in the revolutionary cause, of "revisionism,"the most insulting word in thecommunist political vocabulary.

A Maior Cleavage

What has happened is more serious than a dispute between thetwo largest communist parties. Itis a schism in the whole international communist movement, someparties siding with the Russians,some with the Chinese. The Chinese appeal is especialIy strong in

Asia, whe're the, communists of Indonesia, Japan, North Korea, Burma, and New Zealand are in theChinese camp. This is apparentlyalso true for the majority of theIndian communists. And the Chinese seem to be ahead in a bitterstruggle for influence in NorthVietnam. China has also acquireda European satellite' in tiny Albania and has launched splittingmovements in the parties of Italy,France, and Belgium. The Chinesehave also been very active inAfrica, competing with the SovietUnion in attracting students andbribing African government officials in the ne·wly independentstates. In Africa the Chinese emphasize the color line, pointingout that the Russians are, afterall, a white people.

Most of the European communist parties have remained loyalto Moscow, but have taken advantage of the Moscow-Peiping riftto win more political and economicautonomy. Khrushchev was unable, despite many efforts, to convene an international conferencefor the purpose of excommunicating the Chinese Reds from theinternational communist movement. In Stalin's time Moscow'sposition as the sole center of theinternational communist movement was unchallenged. Now theconception of "polycentrism" putforward by the recently deceased


Italian communist leader, PalmiroTogliatti, has made considerableheadway.

Rumanian Deviation

Because the Soviet communistleaders are under heavy pre,ssurefrom the schismatic Chine,se, theyare in no position to impose strictdiscipline on. the East Europeansatellites. The liberalization ofliving conditions in Hungary, thesweeping departures from rigidstate planning in Czechoslovakia"most of all, perhaps, the. de,monstrations of increased political andeconomic freedom from Moscow inRumania are all significant strawsin the wind.

Indeed, Rumania has put on apretty good exhibition of the roleof "the mouse that roared." Richin salable oil and wheat, the Rumanians pressed on with steel development and trade with theWest, despite Khrushchev's attempts to persuade: the,m to holdback on industrial developmentand remain a supplier of rawmaterials to other communistruled countries. And about a yearago, in the spring of 1964, theRumanian Workers (Communist)Party published a remarkably independent manifesto, which wouldhave been unthinkable in the Stalin era.

This manifesto began by offering a number of criticisms and

recommendations to the Sovietand Chinese parties, with the professed objective of mediatingtheir conflict. Then it repudiatedin strong language the idea thatsome supranational planning body,such as the' COMECON (the economic association of the communist-ruled states) should dictateto these states their proper linesof economiC' development and asserted Rumania's economic independence in the following terms:

"It is UPI to every MarxistLeninist party, it is a sovereignright of each socialist state, toelaborate, choose or change theforms and methods of socialistconstruction.... No party has orcan have a privileged place, orcan impose its line or opinions onother parties."

Dangers to the West

Polycentrism doe,s not changethe nature of communist regimes.These continue to deny politicaland civil liberties that are takenfor granted in free countries.They retain strong political andeconomic ties with Moscow. Theymay be expected to continue voting with the Soviet Union andagainst the United States on mostissues that come up in the UnitedNations. The governments in theEast European states remainalien, imposed from without, and,in a big crisis, would look to Mos-

44 THE FREEMAN July

cow for support against any insurgent movements of their ownpeoples.

Nor is the. effect of the disputebetween Moscow and Peiping certain in all circumstances to workout for the benefit of the freesocieties. The pressure of Chinesecompetition in revolutionary propaganda could conceivably push theSoviet Union into steps which arenot in line with its true interestsand desires.

Yet, after making all due allowance for these possibilities, thegreat communist schism, on balance, seems advantageous to thecause of freedom. The nightmareof a monolithic communist blocof almost one billion people,stretching from the Baltic to thePacific Ocean, has been dispelled.We may be seeing only the beginning, not the concluding phasesof the disintegration of the hugeempire which Stalin, exploitingthe moral and political weakness

of the Western powers, carvedout after the Second World War.It is better that the Soviet Unionand China should be at odds thanthat their resources should becombined for subversive ends.

Provided there is no weakness,no appeasement in the face ofthreats emanating from Peipingor Moscow, provided that communist aggression is held in check,it is possible that in the course oftime the hostility between Moscow and Peiping may advancefrom words to blows. The freenations muffed a promising diplomatic opportunity when they failedto direct their prewar diplomacyto the end of insuring that, if warmust come, it should involve onlythe Nazi and communist tyrannies.If another such opportunity shouldarise, one may hope that experience will teach more insight andrealism, that the free peoples willremain enthusiastically disengagedin the event of a clash between thetwo totalitarian giants. ~

Protectorate

A PROTECTORATE was an arrangement by which a strong

country agreed to protect a weak country from all tyranny.

Except from the strong country itself.

From a child's exam papercited by Art Linkletter

10.The NewCreativity

CLARENCE B. CARSON

Divine am 1 inside and out, and 1 make holy whateverI touch or am touch'd from.

-WALT WHITMAN, 1855

... In fact, we philosophers a-nd "free spirits" feel ourselves irradiatedas by a new rosy dawn by the report that "the old God is dead",. our heartsthereby overflow with gratitude. ... At last the horizon seems. once moreunobstructed . .. ; our ships can at last start on their voyages once more. ••.

-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1882

. . . Now this empirical knowledge has grown till it has broken its lowand limited sphere of application and esteem. It has itself become an organof inspiring imagination through introducing ideas of boundless possibility... irrespective of fixed limits. ... It is convertible into creative and constructive philosophy. -JOHN DEWEY, 1920

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY aboundsin paradoxes. Not the least ofthese is the disparity betweentechnological developments on theone hand and developments in arts,politics, and social arrangementson the other. No other century inhistory can match what has already taken place in the twentiethin technological inventions, improvements, and devices. It stag-

Dr. Carson is Professor of American Historyat Grove City .College, Pennsylvania. Amonghis earlier writings in THE FREEMAN werehis series on The Fateful Turn and TheAmerican Tradition, both of which are nowavailable as books.

gers the imagination to surveywhat has been wrought in the lasthundred years, to extend the survey back into the previous centurya few years. Some will· not consider all the innovations unqualified blessings, but everyone mustmarvel at what has been provided:electric lights, automobiles, mechanicalrefrigerators, phonographs, airplanes, radio, television, typewriters, calculators, andso on through an ever-increasinglist- of contrivances. It has notbeen many years since a hospital

45

46 THE FREEMAN July

was usually a way station to thefuneral parlor. A revolution - touse the word dubiously - has occurred in the last generation inmedicine. Scientific developmentshave taken place which have rendered the doings of scientists intosomething beyond the ken of outsiders. Technological progress hasgone forward at an unparalleledpace.

By contrast, there has been adecided retrogression in the artsand literature. The techniques forpurveying the arts and literaturehave kept pace with technologicaldevelopments elsewhere. For example, the invention of recordingand of phonographs has made possible, the reproduction of musicalprograms in the home with greatfidelity to the original playing.But the quality of music composedin this century is generally farinferior to that of the precedingcentury. It is true that audienceswill now tolerate a selection froma twentieth century composerfrom Stravinsky, Bartok, Ives, orCopland - if it is surrounded inthe program by pieces composed inearlier centuries.

Contemporary painting andpainters apparently flourish, butthe art of careful drawing andpainting is largely kept alive bycommercial requirements. The novel has degenerated into barely disguised biographical accounts of

the doings of bohemians, or intothinly coated historical recreations. Contemporary poetry consists of jingles on the one handand jumbles of words withoutform or rhyme or reason on theother. If the case of architectureis somewhat better, it can probably be attributed mainly to thetaste of those who pay the bills,not to those who purvey the services. Such exceptions as occur tothe above generalizations onlyserve to highlight the general condition.

Objections Anticipated

The usual objections to theabove critique need to be dealtwith, at least summarily. It canbe objected that the evaluationof the arts and literature is amatter of taste. This amounts,however, to saying that there areno standards by which to judgethe arts. The belief, and the practices that follow from it, thatthere are no standards is just another instance, as well as a cause,of the deterioration in the arts.Another frequent objection to theabove critique goes something likethis: Every age and time has itsmediocre and inferior artists. Inthe course of time, these are f orgotten, and only the giants remain.Such is undoubtedly the case, butit is largely irrelevant as a refutation of the above contention.

1965 THE NEW CREATIVITY 47

My point is not simply that thetwentieth c~ntury has no musicalmaster of the caliber of Beethoven,or that not every writer hasreached the heights of Mozart; itis rather that the composers ratedas first rate are inferior to firstrate composers of earlier centuries, that the second rate are inferior to the second rate ones, andthat the caliber of music beingproduced does not measure up topast standards. I read somewherethat a composer had a scholarshipfor a year, I think it was, in whichhe composed a violin concerto.Mozart composed five concertos forthe violin between April and December of 1775. If it be objectedthat Mozart was a genius, oneshould still note that like geniusesare missing from among us. Inshort, there is no evidence of progress in the arts commensuratewith that in the sciences and technology.

Political and Social Deterioration

Political and social developments a're not quite so difficult toevaluate, nor the positions takenquite so controversial as thoseabout the arts. The evidence forpositions taken is more readilyassembled and more nearly apparent. The indications of politicaldeterioration in this century areabundant and conclusive. In thepolitical realm, the tendency al-

most everywhere in the world hasbeen toward totalitarianism, dictatorship, arbitrary government,the police state, the rounding upand imprisoning of political dissidents, the overthrow of olderorders, and political experimentation and manipulation. The beliefin and observance of lawful modesof operation by agents of governments has fallen below what itwas generally in the seventeenthcentury. (There are, of course,countries in which this is not yetthe case.) Socially, the breakupof the authority of the familyevinces itself in divorce rates andjuvenile delinquency.

Many would object to the particulars of the above formulations,but there is widespread agreement that there is great disparitybetween developments in scienceand those elsewhere. In academiccircles the disparity is acknowledged backhandedly by some suchanalysis as this: The. humanitiesand social sciences need to catchup with the physical sciences andtechnology. Knowledge about human beings has not kept pace, itis alleged, with that about things.

In Proper Sequence

Such a way of putting it almostcompletely obscures the roots ofthe untoward political and artisticdevelopments. It puts the best possible face on what has occurred

48 THE FREEMAN July

and allows the very men and ideaswhich have wrought the consequences to go free of responsibility for it. Historically, politics andthe arts were not behind technology in the application of ideasdrawn from science. If anything,the reverse was the case. The artistic, political, and social implications of modern science were beinggenerally pointed out and appliedby the eighteenth century. (It willbe remembered that modern science emerged in the seventeenthcentury.) By contrast, the technological implications are still unfolding, and this is largely a nineteenth and twentieth century development.

It does not follow, of course,that the social studies and humanities are ahead of technology now.They are neither ahead nor behind. What has happened cannotbe fitted into a nice progressivistformulation at all. Politics and thearts have been cutoff from reality; the proponents and developers of them have been engaged ina flight from reality. By contrast,technology is still rooted in itsscientific foundations, and practicing scientists appear to becloser to reality than do other intellectuals. If technology shouldfollow the path of the socialstudies and the humanities itwould be cut loose from its foundations in laws and might be ex-

pected, subsequently, to degenerate.

Creature or Creator?

The key to understanding whathas happened in the humanitiesand social studies (and from themto the arts and to politics) is. thenew conception of creativity. Theway has been partially preparedthus far in this study for understanding the New Creativity, butbefore pointing out the connections to it of positions already established it may be well to examine the idea of creativity froman historical point of view.

So far as I can tell, the use ofcreativity to refer to somethingthat man does or can do is a recent innovation. Certainly, thisusage has no foundation in themain Western tradition ofthought. Traditionally, creationwas what God did when hebrought the universe into being,or, following the account in Genesis, gave the universe its form andbrought beings into existence. Oneunabridged dictionary gives thisas its first meaning of the word"creation." To wit: "The act ofcreating from nothing; the actof causing to exist; and especially,the act of bringing this world intoexistence." On the other hand, theAmerican College Dictionary dropsthis particular meaning to thirdposition, and deals with it as a

1965 THE NEW· CREATIVITY 49

special phrase. It says, "theCreation, the original bringing intoexistence of the universe by theDeity." The most absolute view ofcreativity imaginable was held bySt. Augustine concerning God'screation of the world. He held thatit was created ex nihilo, out ofnothing.

How, 0 God, didst Thou makeheaven and earth? Truly, neither inthe heaven nor in the earth didstThou make heaven and earth; norin the air, nor in the waters, sincethese also belong to the heaven andthe earth; nor in the whole worlddidst Thou make the whole world;because there was no place whereinit could be made before it was made,that it might be; nor didst Thouhold anything in Thy hand wherewith to make heaven and earth... .1

There were differences amongphilosophers, of course, as to theextent and character of the Creation. Aristotle did not even believethat the universe had been created; it has always existed, hethought. Probably a more usualview was that the universe wascreated, but that this consisted ofgiving it form and order. Be thatas it may, what man does was notconceived ·of as creativity. Platoand Aristotle conceived of theartist as imitating reality. For ex-

1 Quoted in W. T. Jones, A History ofWestern Philosophy (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1952), p. 354.

ample, Aristotle said: "Tragedy,then, [by which he meant a tragicdrama) is an· imitation of an action. . . ."2 They did not necessarily, or particularly, mean a literal imitation of things as theyappear to the sight.

Conveying the Ideals.

Traditionally, the arts have beenimitative of an underlying order.They have evoked ideals, caughtthe essence of man, or of a man,captured and set forth that whichthe most sensitive perceive in athing. In short, the artists, too,labored in a metaphysical framework. They did not create; theyimitated, but this was by no meansa lowly task. Few things could bemore worthy of doing than tomake visible by painting andsculpture, to make audible bymusic, to communicate by dramaand poetry, or to cast in concreteform by architecture the underlying order in the universe andthe ideals of justice, honor, truth,beauty, and piety by which menshould live. That the artist didnot create these was no reproach;it was enough that he should convey them. In this context, if theartist were to create, he would becommitting a fraud, for he wouldbe deceiving men as to the natureof the underlying reality.

Nor were other kinds of activity2 Ibid., p. 250.

50 THE FREEMAN July

conceived of as being creativity.Social thinkers were not supposedto be creating social and politicalrelationships, but rather discovering them and setting them forth.Morality was behavior in accordwith the order in the universeand/or Divine injunction. Noticethe language in which the workof authors and inventors is described in the United States Constitution in the phrase which empowers Congress "to promote theProgress of Science and usefulArts, by securing for limitedTimes to ,Authors and Inventorsthe exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."Even the inventor was apparentlythought of as a discoverer.

Something New

But a change has occurred.Nowadays, all sorts of undertak.ings are described as being creative. There are courses in creativewriting in colleges. There arebooks on creative thinking, researches into the sources of creativity, articles on creative groupthinking, and public expressionsof concern about how to fostercreativity. Invention, discovery,innovation, artistic endeavor, andsocial thought are now conceivedof as being creative. The following definitions and examples ofusage indicate the scope of theword as it is now employed. One

writer approves this definitionheartily: "Creativity is the imaginatively gifted recombination ofknown elements into somethingnew."s Another writer says:

My definition, then, of the creativeprocess is that it is the emergencein action of a novel relational product, growing out of the uniquenessof the individual on the one hand,and the materials, events, people, orcircumstances of his life on theother.4

He points out that his definitionembraces all sorts of activities:

Creativity is not, in my judgment,restricted to some particular content.I am assuming that there is no fundamental difference in the creativeprocess as it is evidenced in paintinga picture, composing a symphony,devising new instruments of killing,developing a scientific theory, discovering new procedures in humanrelationships, or creating new formings of one's own personality as inpsycho-therapy.5

Dictionaries have come to include these new meanings of creativity. The American College Dictionary offers as one definition of

3 Harold F. Harding, "The Need for aMore Creative Trend in American Education," A Source Book for CreativeT kinking, Sidney J. Parnes and HaroldF. Harding, eds. (New York: Scribner's,1962), p. 5.

4 Carl R. Rogers, "Toward a Theoryof Creativity," in ibid., p. 65.

5 Ibid.


"create": "to evolve from one'sown thought or imagination." Another defines Hcreation"as "anything produced or caused to exist,in mechanics, science, or art; especiallyan unusual product of themind; as the master creations ofart."

It could be objected that this isall a matter of semantics, that theword has come to have an additional meaning, that at most thereis some ambiguity in such usuages.But the loose use of language isnot something to be taken lightly,even if this were all that is involved. We think and express ourselves in words. We may not beconscious of the connotations andovertones of language; these nevertheless influence our thinkingand color what we say for thosewho hear or read it.

But what is involved here is notsimply a. matter of semantics. Anew conception of creativity hasbeen developed. Many have cometo think of man as a creator. Invention, discovery, innovation, andorigination have come to bethought of as creation. The framework within which this occurredhas already been set forth. It included the cutting loose from reality, the sloughing off of the pastby denying repetition in history,and the positing of a new realitya reality consisting of change, society, and psyche. The impetus to

social creativity was provided bythe visions of utopia that couldbe created, and a new pseudo philosophy - pragmatism - provideda substitute philosophy which allowed free play to the imagination.

The Role of Romanticism

Several lines of thought converged to buttress the new conception of creativity. Romanticismwas the first of these outlooks toappear. Romantics exalted the imagination, the will, desire, feeling,and subjective experience. Theytended to withdra.w inward to discover that which was most important to them. Romantics tendedto exalt literary and artistic activity, to see in it a means of contact with the Divine, or, depending upon the thinker, a divine activity itself. The poet, or otherartist, was thought of as havinga particularly high calling, for hecould transcend the limits of ordinary experience by intuitionsand grasp things of the greatestimportance. The artist, at least,became a kind of demigod to manythinkers.

Evolutionism

A second strain in the New Creativity came from what can becalled evolutionism. If it is properto speak of revolutions in thought,then it is no exaggeration to saythat the theory of organic evolu-

52 THE FREEMAN July

tion was the basis for a profoundintellectual revolution. All sortsof hypotheses were spawned inthewake of the spread of this idea.If accepted in all its implications,Darwinian evolution fundamentally altered conceptions of creativity.Christians had generally believed,prior to the latter part of thenineteenth century, that Creationwas a completed act of God. Butnow some thinkers began to conceive of creativity as an ongoingprocess, something that had occurred in time and might be expected to continue in time.

The crucial point for creativity,as it is being considered here, waswhether or not man could actuallyparticipate in this evolutionarycreativity. Social Darwinists, suchas Herbert Spencer and WilliamGraham Sumner, held that hecould not. The course of evolutionwas determined by "forces." Perhaps the most influential philosophical theory that man participates in evolution is the theory ofCreative Evolution. It was setforth in 1907 by Henri Bergson,a French philosopher. Bergsonheld that evolution cannot be explained by the operation of mechanical forces. There are moments of "spontaneous originalityin nature, and especially in certain activities and experiences ofmankind. The work of a great poetor painter clearly cannot be ex-

plained by merely mechanicalforces. . . . This kind of activity... , resulting in something new,is typical of creative evolution."6

Man Participates

There has been a variety of applications of the notion that manparticipates in evolution creatively. The most important, from thepoint of view of this study, is theone known as reform Darwinism,a doctrine advanced particularlyby Lester Frank Ward. Ward heldthat by social invention man coulddirect and control the course ofsocial evolution. That is, he couldcreate instruments for doing this,and, indeed, had been doing so forages. Man participates in evolution by developing means for cooperating with the process ofevolution. The idea would seem tobe this: one may by study discernthe evolutionary trends. He canthen work with them to bringabout desired ends. Ward thoughthe discerned a rising social consciousness in his day, that thetime when society would take overthe direction of affairs collectivelywas at hand, and that the acquisition of knowledge would be forthe purpose of fostering this development. He said, "If it can beshown that society is actually moving toward any ideal, the ultimate

6 Encyclopaedia Britannica, VI (1955),652.


substantial realization of thatideal is as good as proved. Theproofs of such a movement in society to-day are abundant."7

Science and Technology

A third stream to enter the NewCreativity has been called scientism. Noone has advanced a doctrine or ideology by that name;it is a derogatory term applied tothe practice of indiscriminatelyextending the ideas or methodsof science. More specifically, thedevelopment to which I alludeshould probably be called. technologism, though the language is already sufficiently barbarized by"isms" without adding another. Atany rate, there is a view of creativity drawn largely from technology. Many people have beenswept off their feet, as it were, bydevelopments· in technology. Theyhave been so awed by the achievements in this area that they havethought there was a major cluefor all areas of human activity intechnology. There may be, but thedevelopment to which I refer wasbased upon a misunderstandingof technology~ As we have seen inan earlier article, John Dewey confused science with technology,failed to take into account the factthat technologists apply previous-

7 Lester F . Ward, "Sociocracy," A merican Thought, Perry Miller, ed. (NewYork: Rinehart, 1954), p. 117.

ly discovered laws, deduced methods from the behavior of technologists, and proposed to applythes.e to all human thought andactivity. Essentially, he thoughtthat the inventor created, and thatthis kind of activity could be endlessly extended.

Existentialism Promoted:Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

The fourth support for the newconception of creativity came fromexistentialism. Actually, this philosophy did not get much fame, ornotoriety, until after World WarII with the writings of· Jean PaulSartre and Albert Camus. Butthe origins of the ideas are tracedback into the nineteenth century,primarily to Soren Kierkegaardand Friedrich Nietzsche. Thus,some of the ideas can be said tohave buttressed the New Creativity, though the philosophy wasnot yet known by its currentname. Nietzsche's impact, at least,was considerable in artistic circlesin the early twentieth century.For example, H. L. Mencken wasan early American devotee of Nietzsche.

There are several schools of existentialism, but they generallyshare several premises with oneanother. The basic one, the onefrom which the name comes, isthat existence precedes essences.Existentialists see man, or per-

54 THE FREEMAN July

haps men, as creatures existingin space and time. The most important fact in the world, to them,is existence. They are not interested in, indeed are opposed to,essences, or the search for essences. They want to confront experience in all its richness, not insome abstraction from it. To reallybe is to act, for in acting one'sexistence is filled out and extended.Existentialists run the gamutfrom rugged individualists toChristians to Marxists. But whatever their tendency, they are concerned with the here and now,with the given existence, with acting upon it and coming more fullyto be.

Did Man Create God?

Nietzsche provided the mostdrastic foundation for human creativity. God is dead, said Nietzsche, and he had a profound conception of the significance of whathe was saying. He was proclaiming, too, that the past was dead,that the foundations of Westerncivilization were gone, that man'sviews must be drastically reoriented. As one writer puts it, "Forwhen God is at last dead for man,when the last gleam of light isextinguished and only the impenetrable darkness of a universe thatexists for no purpose surroundsus, then at last man knows thathe is alone in a world where he

has to create his own values."sIt meant something more too;

it meant that men created theirgods. God existed for Nietzsche,only so long as men sustained theirbelief in Him. This was an exactreversal of the traditional view,the view that God created man andsustained him by His Providence.There are implicit conclusions thatmust logically follow: namely, thatman is higher than the gods, forhe has created them; that man isthe lord of creation, for he is thehighest being; that if creationcould occur, it would probably beby man. Nietzsche talked of aSuperman, the unusual man (ormen) who would rise above morality, go beyond good and evil tobecome the new master.

Before God! - Now however thisGod hath died! Ye higher men, thisGod was your greatest danger.

Only since he lay in the gravehave ye again arisen. Now onlycometh the great noontide, now onlydoth the higher man become - master!9

Not all the exponents of theNew Creativity were as sensa-

8 William Barrett, "Introduction,"Philosophy in the Twentieth Century,III, William Barrett and Henry D.Aiken, eds. (New York: Random House,1962) 148. Italics mine.

9 Quoted in Richard H. Powers, ed.,Readings in European Civilization (Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), p. 505.


tional in their advocacy as wasNietzsche, of course. But even thepedestrian John Dewey talkedabout a theory of art which hasits foundation in the new view.Dewey discusses essentialism as away of seeing things. He doesnot, however, believe that thereare any essences which subsist ina metaphysical realm. The habitof looking to essences is merelysomething created and maintainedby artists:

If we are now aware of essentialmeanings, it is mainly because artists in all the various arts have extracted and expressed them in vividand salient subject-matter of perception. The forms or Ideas which Platothought were models and patterns ofexisting things actually had theirsource in Greek art, so that histreatment of artists is a supreme instance of intellectual ingratitude.lo

It turns out, then, according toDewey, that the foundations ofWestern philosophy were plantedby artists in the mind of Plato.Philosophy, it appears, was reallycreated by dramatists.

A New Creativity has emergedthen, a radical view of man's capabilities, a changed conception ofart and social affairs. Those whohold these views see man as acreator. The roots of the creativity

10 John Dewey, Art as Experience(New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1934),p.294.

are in the psyche, in the subconscious; in short, creativity arisesfrom the irrational depths of themind. Great value is placed uponinnovation, change, originality,experiment, all of which are supposed to result in new creations.

Subconscious and Irrational

Perhaps the strangest of contradictions in a paradoxical ageis that between the avowed evaluation of man and the men oneconfronts in imaginative literature. On the one hand, man is heldin the highest esteem, supposedto be capable of doing greatthings, viewed as entrustable withgreat power, held to be innatelygood, and life is presented in theethos of the time as a potentiallyhighly enjoyable affair. On theother hand, novels and stories aremore apt than not to show thegradual degradation of a man inthe course of his life, the disintegration of his personality, theemptiness of the things he does,and so on. This story is told overand over again in modern fiction.

These contradictions, and othersalluded to earlier, can be explainedlargely in terms of the New Creativity. The attempt to locatecreativity in the subconscious hasresulted in irrational artistic productions. That which is dredgedup from the irrational is irrational; that which is undisciplined

56 THE FREEMAN July

in its production is undisciplined.It is at least plausible that thecontents of the subconscious aresubconscious for good and sufficient reason, that the subconsciousis the. garbage pail of the mind,and that one may no more look forthe clue to life or for sustenancefor healthy living there than inactual garbage pails. That whichcomes to us directly from thesedepths poisons life. The evidencefor such a conclusion now existsin great profusion.

The attempt to create somethingout of nothing, or to draw fromthe junk yard of the psyche, resuIts in noise instead of music,chaos rather than order in painting, disfigurement rather thanform in sculpture, the denigrationof man rather than his exaltationin literature, the death of artrather than life. Social inventionaimed at creation based on theinchoate "needs" and "desires" ofpeople has resulted in arbitrarygovernment, the loss of liberty,the tendency of governments tobecome total in character, the disruption of economies, social dislocation, and inharmonious relationships among people.

Materializing the Mirage

The explanations for these developments is now before us.Thinkers and artists have cutthemselves off from their exper-

ience,·posited or accepted a "newreality," and believed it was possible for them actually to createsomething. They calculate or actin terms of time, society, and beliefs or feelings of men, all ofwhich are subject to change. Theyignore the underlying and enduring realities: the laws in the universe, the principles of humanaction, the essentials of artisticor economic production, human nature, and the conditions of liberty.

If man could indeed create, therewould be no theoretical reasonwhy governments could not issuefiat money and prevent inflationat the same time, why everythingcould not be controlled and directed by governments and theliberties of the people increased,why a world government of lawcould not be established withoutputting up with the inconvenienceof having laws founded upon anenduring order, why the UnitedStates (or the Soviet Union) couldnot intervene in the affairs ofother countries without subtracting from their independence, whytaxes could not be lowered andgovernment services increasedwithout any untoward effects, whygovernments could not confiscateprivate property and still get private investors from other landsto pour money into their industries, why the prices of thosethings that go into the production


of goods could not be fixed andhave retail prices remain flexible,why writers could not create avision of order which would inform their writings without believing in any such real order,why painters could not picturebeauty and order without discipline, why children could not bemade good by surrounding themwith pleasant objects without anysupport from the belief in andknowledge of a moral order. in theuniverse, why the economy couldnot be collectivized and individualism retained, and so on throughwhat could be a much longer listof the fads, foibles, and dangerousdoctrines of an era.

It is not strange that literarycritics should be fascinated withambiguities today. Men who lacka firm grip on the nature of man

and the universe must surely beovercome with the failure of thatwhich was intended and promisedto materialize. There is an explanation for all of this. The no-tion that man can create realitiesout of irrational longing is notitself founded in reality. All attempts to act upon such premisesmust needs be abortive.

There is an explanation, too,for the otherwise· strange and incomprehensible doings of reformers in this century. They havelargely lost touch with reality.They have imagined themselvesas gods or demigods who couldcreate a reality out of their dreamof it. It turns out that they wereonly men. It is small wonder thatthose who feel deepest should turnupon man, then, and describe himas so contemptible. ~

The next article in this series will treat of "The Domestication ofSocialism."

From a seller's tag attached to a handbrush:

User's Duty

TRUTH spreads by testimony. There is a sort of high compulsion,which lofty spirits recognize, to bear witness to the truth whenever found. That is how good standard merchandise gets worldwide distribution. A purchaser who has pleasure and satisfactionfrom the use of this brush spreads the news of. his discovery toothers whom he desires to. enrich. If this brush pleases you, willyou not tell about it to the most appreciative person you know?

A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

RUSSELL KIRK'S excellent JohnRandolph of Roanoke: A Study inAmerican Politics, which on thedate of its first issue in 1951 wasa harbinger of modern conservative scholarship, has been republished by Henry Regnery of Chicago (480 pp., $5.95) with new appendices containing Randolph'smore important speeches and aselection of his letters. The' newedition is extremely welcome, forit comes at a time when Kirk isunder considerable fire from onewing of the conservatives for hisattempt to make the thought ofthe Anglo-Irishman EdmundBurke relevant to an Americawhich, supposedly, has never hada Burkean tradition. What JohnRandolph of Roanoke emphasizes is that this country once hada Burke in politics - though theresemblance of Randolph, a tormented, sickly, sardonic SouthVirginia slaveholder, to Burke isobscured by so many surface differences that it takes some digging to find it.

The main point made by Kirk is

58

that his two intellectual heroeshad a common· horror of abstraction in political thought such asL.ocke's theory of "natural rights,"or Tom Paine's "rights of man."The things men did have a rightto, in the Burke (and Randolph)view, were the benefits and traditions incorporated over the agesin their culture and society. "Allwe have of freedom, aU we useand know, this our fathers boughtfor us, long and long ago," as Iseem to remember Kipling. Kirkputs it this way: "Men's rights, inshort, are not mysterious giftsdeduced from a priori postulates;they are opportunities or advantages which the stability of a justsociety bestows upon its members."

I find myself biting on air whenI read a sentence like that, for thedefinition of a "just society" wouldseem to demand a theory of thenature of man, which gets usback to "rights appropriate toman's nature," or "natural rights"tout court. But if my sense of logic makes me a Lockean, my tem-

1965 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE 59

perament makes me a Burkean,for I agree with Kirk (and Burkeand Randolph) that the tissue oftraditional Anglo-American liberties should not be subjected tosudden change by legislaturesor courts! -prodded by the momentary clamor of pressure groups.

Just as Burke venerated thetraditions of his eighteenth century British society, Randolphtook the "Old Republicanism" ofTidewater Virginia as somethingthat should remain beyond thereach of revolutionaries. Randolphdid not like slave,ry, and he belonged for a time to Bishop Wilberforce's English society for thesuppression of the slave trade.But he had inherited his slaves,and he considered that it would bea cruel thing to do to turn themoff into a society not yet readyto absorb them as free men. Abolitionists angered him, for theybelieved that "all is to be forcednothing can be trusted to time" orto nature." In his will John Randolph did give freedom to hisslaves, who were sent after hisdeath to lands which he had provided for them in Ohio. Kirk remarks upon the bitter irony thatensued when the people of Ohio,an abolitionist state, met Randolph's Negroes "with violenceand drove them from the farmsthe southern champion had purchased for them."

Men of Honor and Learning

The Burkean reality of Virginia Tidewater life at the end ofthe eighteenth century was thatit produced men of honor andlearning. Randolph wanted it tocontinue that way. But he foundhimself in a Congress that hadlittle use for his Old Republicanism. The Jeffersonian Republicanswere, to Randolph's way of thinking, levelers; they looked to thedevelopment of an America, ofsmall yeoman farmers, and theyangered him because of their enmity to such institutions as entailand primogeniture. The Federalists were no better, for they believed in the development of industry, the creation of cities, andthe centralization of power in afederal state.

Old Republicanism requiredstrict construction of the Constitution for the preservation ofstates' rights. In economics, itmeant Free Trade, for the planters who supported the Old Republicans needed English markets for their crops, and foundit more expedient - and cheaper- to trade for English manufactured goods. In foreign affairs,Old Republicanism meant political isolationism, for wars interfered with overseas commerce andput high taxes on agrarians whoweren't prepared to pay them.

Since Randolph was never one

60 THE FREEMAN July

to curb his tongue, he found himself embroiled with practicallyeverybody else in politics in theJeffersonian and earliest J acksonian periods. For a while he madecommon cause with the New Englanders who opposed Jefferson'sEmbargo and the War of 1812.The embargo and the war accomplished the ruin of both the Virginia Tidewater planters and theNew England shipping interestand after the war was over Massachusetts' Daniel Webster, agreat opportunist, went over tothe High Tariff enemy when itbecame apparent that the shipping interest would never comeback. This left John Randolphwith no important congressionalallies.

But he did pass on the substance of his thought to John Calhoun of South Carolina. Originally a War Hawk and a nationalist,Calhoun embraced a Burkean defense of the tradition of states'rights when he realized that a nationalist North and West wouldmenace the slave economy of theDeep South.

The Problems Remain the Same

Reading about Randolph's career in the Congress of a hundredand fifty years ago is a melancholy business. If the quixotic OldRepublican were alive in 1965, hewould recognize at least a hundred

contemporary ironies as beingvery similar to the irony thatforced southern enemies of slavery such as himself into the position of defending the rights ofstates to deal with their "peculiarinstitution" in their own way,What would Randolph, the enemyof Jefferson's Embargo and "Mr.Madison's War," do about tradingwith Soviet Russia or about warin Vietnam and the DominicanRepublic? He would be forced,would he not, to the Burkean expediency of supporting little expeditions and an embargo on tradein strategic goods in order to forestall the coming of a big atomicblow-off.

As for Selma,Alabama, and allthat it connotes, would Randolph,as a strict constructionist, invokehis principles to welcome a strictconstruction of the constitutionalclause that says the privileges andimmunities of the citizen shall beequal? I fancy that Randolphwould acknowledge the· Federalright under the Fifteenth Amendment to guarantee even-handedregistration and to police the polls,but would fight to the end for theright of a state to impose educational qualifications on voters in anondiscriminatory way and to retain the poll tax in local elections.This would leave a modern Randolph standing in uncomfortableisolation between the two fires of

1965 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE 61

the Ku Klux Klan and the "liberals," a quite familiar spot for abattler for Old Republican principles.

Randolph would find himselfright at home in the controversiesover reapportionment and in thefight to cut foreign aid. The virtue of the Kirk study is that itshows that, while times do change,principles do not evaporate. Thisis a fine work even though it doesargue in a circle on the subject ofnatural law. ~

~ IF YOU DON'T MIND MY SAYING SO, Essays on Man and Nature by Joseph Wood Krutch,NewYork: William Sloane Associates,1964, 402 pp., $5.95.

Reviewed by: R. M. Thornton andE. A. Opitz

WE MAY NOT be able to frame adefinition of philosophy, but wecan, nevertheless, recognize a phi10sopher when we see one. Hewould be a man who had served along and varied apprenticeship:professor of literature at Columbia University, dean of Americandrama critics, biographer of Samuel Johnson and Thoreau, naturalist, student of contemporary science, observer of the human sceneon several fronts. He would, inshort, be Joseph Wood Krutch.

Krutch wrote a little bombshellof a book in 1929, The Modern

Temper, all the more shatteringin its conclusion because of itsurbane style. The book examinesthe universe supposedly revealedby modern science, draws somelogical conclusions, and calmlydemonstrates that the human spiritcan· no longer be or feel at homein such a universe. Exactly 25 yearsand many books later, Krutch returned to the general subject ina book called The Measure of Man.He does not here attack the argument of his earlier work, butrather outflanks it. The diagnosisof The Modern Temper stillstands, but the prognosis is revised upward. Mr. Krutch setsforth his "reasons for no longerbelieving that the mechanistic,materialistic, and deterministicconclusions of science do have tobe accepted as fact and hence asthe premises upon which any philosophy of life or any estimate of(man's) future must be' based."The new perspectives are furtherelaborated in several recent booksand essays. Mr. Krutch calls himself an "essayist by habit," and inthe present collection, culled fromvarious journals and spanningmany years, he has given us a delightful book, a book to enjoy, andthen to ponder.

Krutch views his fellow creatures - and himself - with detachment and amused tolerance, sothat his strongest criticisms per..

62 THE FREEMAN July

vade one's thinking without setting up any unnatural resistanceto what he has to say. He doesnot scold the social scientists fortheir infatuation with statisticsand polls; he pats them on thehead with a witty essay entitled"Through Happiness with SlideRule, and Calipers," and they visibly diminish. In "Whom Do WePicket Tonight?" he de'flates thosewho feel called to mind otherfolk's business by observing thatit is "sometimes easier to head aninstitute for the study of childguidance than it is to turn onebrat into a decent human being."Dealing with those who disparagemarket competition, he writes:"When men cannot compete forwealth they compete for position,for authority, for influence in theright places. When they cannotown a palace, four automobiles,and ten servants, they manage toget themselves appointed to jobsin connection with which thesethings are assigned them. Moredreadfully still, when these samemen find themselves no longer required to pay the common man todo their work for them, theyquickly discover that when theprofit motive has been abolished,the fear motive affords a veryhandy substitute."

The things that people of agiven period take for granted areanswers supplied to them by

thinkers whom they might noteven know. It is the task of socialcriticism to confront us with themen we permit to do our thinkingfor us, to make us aware of ourassumptions. Here is Mr Krutch'sthumbnail analysis:

"The fundamental answerswhich we have on the, whole made,and which we continue to accept,were first given in the seventeenthcentury by Francis Bacon, ThomasHobbes, and Rene Descartes, andwere later elaborated and modernized by Marx and the Darwinians. These basic tenets of ourcivilization (in chronological butnot quite logical order) are: (1)the most important task to whichthe human mind may devote itself is the 'control of nature'through technology (Bacon); (2)man may be completely understoodif he is considered to be an animal,making predictable reactions tothat desire for pleasure and powerto which all his other desires mayby analysis be reduced (Hobbes) ;(3) all animals (man excepted)are pure machines (Descartes);(4) man, Descartes notwithstanding, is also an animal and therefore also a machine (Darwin);(5) the human condition is notdetermined by philosophy, religion, or moral ideas because allof these are actually only by-products of social and technologicaldevelopments which take place in-

1965 OTHER BOOKS 63

dependent of man's will and uninfluenced by the 'ideologies' whichthey generate (Marx)."

Krutch jokingly asserts that hisclaim to fame is that he knowsmore about plant life than anyother drama critic, and more aboutthe theater than any botanist!Essays in both fields are here,plus pieces on Johnson, Thoreau,and Mencken - whom Krutch regards as the' best prose writer ofthe twentieth century.

Thoreau wrote that he came into the world, not to make it better,but to live in it good or bad. Similarly, Mr. Krutch, who turns askeptical eye on many of the reforms currently proposed to improve the lot of mankind. He believes that society can be improvedonly by improving individual menand women and that "saving theworld" is, perhaps, a task beyondman's capacity.

Krutch is proud of having neverbeen taken in by communism, aswere so many intellectuals duringthe past half century. Nor has heworshiped the other false gods ofour time - Rationalism, Relativism, Progress, Equality, Science,and Democracy. He discusses attempts to cure educational ills bypouring money into school plant;he shows the fallacies in pacifism,and in the sociology which exhibits a more tender concern for thecriminal than for his victim; he

is critical of those who wouldmake poverty the scape,goat forall social problems, and who thenlook to government to rid us ofpoverty. Mr Krutch distrusts allpanaceas, for his faith is placedon the responsible individuat Heargues cogently that there is discoverable me'aning and purpose inhuman existence, and that man isa unique creation gifted with thewill and the imagination to makea world, not merely submit toone. "Man's most important characteristic and that which bestowsupon him his dignity is his freedom to choose."

Who says a book of essays hasto be dull? ~

~ THE AMERICAN COLONIALMIND AND THE CLASSICALTRADITION by Richard H. Gummere, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 228 pp., $5.25.

Reviewed by Robert M. Thornton

MANY EARLY SETTLERS in America, and especially the intellectualand political leaders of colonialand revolutionary days, were college men, but mastery of the classics was by no means limited tothose who had attended institutions of higher learning. The rateof literacy in settled regions wasremarkably high, and the wisdomof Greece and Rome was continuously brought to bear on the prob-

64 THE FREEMAN July

lems of everyday life. Mr. Gummere traces the classical ancestryof the Constitution which, like theDeclaration of Independence, wasin large measure the product ofmen whose schooling had been in"the grand, old, fortifying classical tradition."

"Two ancient ideas were regarded as fundamental by preRevolutionary Americans," saysMr. Gummere, "the Greek conceptof a colony independent of themother state, in everything butsentiment and loyalty, and the Lawof Nature which took precedenceover any man-made legislation."He quotes Cicero's celebrated version of this Law of Nature .orHigher Law:

True Law is Right Reason, inagreement with Nature; it is of universal value, unchanging and everlasting. It is a sin to alter this law... we cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and weneed not look outside ourselves foran expounder. There will not bedifferent laws at Rome and at Athens;but one eternal and unchangeablelaw will be valid for all nations andall times. God is the author of thislaw. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying hishuman nature.

"The high water mark of theclassical tradition in colonial writings" is, in Mr. Gummere's opinion, the correspondence between

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson(1812-1826) . "These two elderstatesmen reveal a mastery of theclassics and a practical application of ancient ideas to modernsituations." They were, he writes,"at home in all fields of history."

It is precisely this at-homenessin history that is lacking in ourage of innovation, with collegesoffering practical courses, trivialelectives, and quick returns. Here,as at so many points, Albert JayNock speaks to our condition:

"The literatures of Greece andRome," he writes in his Memoirs(p. 81), "comprise the longest,most .complete, and most nearlycontinuous record we have of whatthe strange creature known asHomo sapiens has been busy aboutin virtually every department ofspiritual, intellectual, and socialactivity. That record covers nearlytwenty-five hundred years in anunbroken stretch.. . . The mindwhich has attentively canvassedthis record is much more than adisciplined mind, it is an experienced mind. It has come, as Emerson says, into a feeling of immenselongevity, and it instinctivelyviews contemporary man and hisdoings in the perspective set bythis profound and weighty experience."

The effort to recover our pastmight be the most effective way toassure our future. ~

the freeman 1965

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