Economic Power

Gray, Horace M.

public wants is at long last governed by public consensus/' and concen­trated economic power "is moving for­ward toward greater responsibility at (historically considered) breakneck speed." At the...

...At the same time he con­cedes the possibility that such power may control society: "We shall control —or be controlled by—our power bearers...
...This theory of con­trol is a ghost from the Bull Moose era of "pitiless publicity...
...These modern lords spir­itual would possess no legal power, but their moral authority as shapers and directors of public opinion would, it is thought, suffice to hold the rapacious and irresponsible lords temporal (big business men) in check and compel them to perform their public duty...
...The lords spiritual could not, like their medieval prede­cessors, excommunicate wayward and intransigent lords temporal, and thus cut them off from both earthly alle­giance and heavenly salvation, but they could, like Caesar's spirit, cry havoc and unleash the dogs of polit­ical retribution against them...
...He seeks a solution for the power problem within the restrictive confines of two indefensible economic assumptions: competition is obsolete, and concen­tration is necessary...
...Big business men, the lords tem­poral of our system, operate "the eco­nomic service-of-supply of the United States...
...Even if the latter escape subversion they are not likely to prove immune to the corruption of power...
...Berle's failure to find a satisfactory solution for the power problem, within this frame of reference, sym­bolizes one of the deep frustrations of our time...
...All his ingenuity and learning will not suffice to extricate him from this self-created prison...
...This dilemma can be resolved by demoting these freebooting lords temporal to the humble and innocuous status of non-statist civil servants, and by sub­jecting them to the superior moral authority of the lords spiritual, who, it is assumed, will "energize political action" whenever that becomes neces­sary to restrain modes of behavior which violate the public consensus...
...We don't need the min­istrations of any lords spiritual...
...government, being dependent on them, cannot deny them the requisite power or veto its normal use because "a gov­ernment cannot be perpetually at war with its service-of-supply...
...Second, there is no compelling necessity—economic or technological —for extreme concentration of eco­nomic power to get the world's work done or to meet modern needs...
...Aggressive power groups, through a vast propa­ganda apparatus and control of mass communications, shape public opin­ion and values to their own ends...
...they have even been known to subvert lords spiritual...
...they infiltrate politics and control government...
...By contrast, the modern concept of regulated competition under a regime of public law is humanistic, construc­tive, and viable...
...The "power bear­ers," on his premises, must inevitably control society because there is no effective force to oppose or to subordi­nate them—neither the discipline of competition nor the superior power of the democratic state...
...We permit the economic base of liberal society to be destroyed, we permit great concentrates of irre­sponsible private power to develop— in fact, actually subsidize them—and then speculate endlessly on how to control them, how to make them be­have, how to neutralize their danger­ous power...
...Berle's pre­scription is no better than his diag­nosis—and that is faulty in important essentials...
...True democrats must say: "A plague on both your houses...
...In so doing, however, he uncovers a fatal flaw in his own argument...
...Third, concentrated economic pow­er cannot be restrained by a public consensus activated by an elite corps of lords spiritual...
...what we need, as Lincoln advised, is to "disenthrall" ourselves from false notions...
...Society thus faces a cruel dilemma...
...These lords temporal, however, are socially irresponsible and, like their feudal counterparts, prone to place self-in­terest above public welfare...
...we will have neith­er lords temporal nor lords spiritual to rule over us...
...First, he rejects competi­tion, but the thing he rejects is a Darwinian-Spencerian straw man— the law of the jungle, fit for animals, not men, and obsolete for 75 years...
...Lords spiritual are just as objectionable and irresponsible as lords temporal...
...it must of necessity grant to irrespon­sible private persons vast power which they are almost certain to abuse...
...In the power system thus conceived the post of honor is assigned to a small, elite corps of intellectuals, comparable to the lords spiritual of feudal times, who would serve as "keepers and developers of the public consensus...
...It will intervene only when the lords tem­poral, ignoring the admonitions of the lords spiritual and the values of the public consensus, get out of hand...
...The role of the political state is min­imal and essentially negative...
...Rath­er, such concentration is a product of institutional mismanagement and un­restrained lust for power, and it can be corrected by appropriate institu­tional adjustments...
...Berle fancies that our great universities might appropriately serve as head­quarters for these lords spiritual after the fashion of the great medieval universities...
...These quaint conceits, derived from medieval lore, are intriguing but wholely unrealistic...
...If they are to do so effectively they must possess and freely exercise great power in the organization and operation of industry...
...Trapped by these self-imposed limitations, and rejecting direct state action, he is foredoomed to hopeless seeking in a limbo of private pluralism where powerful lords temporal and fulmi­nating lords spiritual, both irrespon­sible, contend for supreme power and for mastery of the public consensus...
...Berle directs his sharpest critical barbs at liberals, particularly at their attitude toward power and their eco­nomic policy prescriptions...

Vol. 24 • January 1960 • No. 1


 
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