LETTERS
Have you read Galbraith's Affluent Society? I don't know what your plans are for dealing with it in DISSENT, [see p. 84] but I do know that it strikes me as a piece of wrong-headed...
...Leahy, op cit., pp...
...94-95.] And the O. S. S. report, Post-War Poland —Economic and Political Outlook, dated March 9, 1945, and classified "confidential" until May, 1950, clearly foresaw the future domination of Poland by Russia and advocated a Russian policy for Poland...
...American interest in any influence in an area turns out to be in large part economic...
...Much easier to say that since everyone has enough those who have a great deal have no need to worry or even wonder about the others...
...Such a situation is obviously not the best for a radical intellectual...
...If anyone in the State Department had even a passing acquaintance with the reports Harriman sent from Moscow about Russia's behavior in Poland [ibid., pp...
...The Soviet Union may insist on minor adjustments in its boundaries with Rumania...
...There was no need to prove it...
...2. The owner is: (If owned by a corporation, its name and address must be stated and also immediately thereunder the names and addresses of stockholders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of stock...
...4. Paragraphs 2 and 3 include, in cases where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or corporation for whom such trustee is acting...
...Because it is wrong...
...One would want, I think, to defend and admire an avant garde on grounds other than the necessity of seeing to it that high culture keep a step ahead of its always imminent vulgarization...
...The United States saw that she could be Primus inter pares only if the alliance of the three major powers was maintained in the postwar world...
...The point is it has been done and nothing which it is within the power of the United States Government to do can undo it...
...attack upon the centre of government in Athens...
...Defense of high culture, now that it has become a political gesture, would logically entail such analysis...
...the word "adequate" as defined by Kahi means living "from month to month [with] no savings...
...SEAL] BENJAMIN ELSHITZ Notary Public (Commission Expires March 30, 1959) From the above it follows that a socialist is one who recognizes that capitalism is not capable of eliminating its inherent problems of poverty, wars and crises...
...It is astounding that (a) he never defines what he means by affluency, and (b) never asks whether America is in fact affluent...
...But--and this is the sickening thing—Galbraith is not even aware of the problem that interpretation raises, the great problem which America is failing so miserably to recognize...
...I personally don't like it although I recognize that the Soviet Government has arguments on its side...
...America...
...The Mailer, Marquart articles introduced enough new material and analysis that wants development...
...Edward R. Stettinius, Jr...
...As a science it explains social evolution, in general, and capitalism, in particular...
...Galbraith: in 1939, 49% of the world's population lived on 2200 calories or less a day...
...also the statements in two paragraphs show the affiant's full knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner...
...This simple fact, which was overlooked by Galbraith, destroys the book and makes it quite useless except as a conversation piece...
...the "socialism" of scientific Marxists and so on...
...It includes Hitler's "National Socialism," Churchill's "Tory Socialism," the "creeping socialism" of the New and Fair Deals...
...Columbus, Ohio JACK BExax A Definition of Socialism Editors: DISSENT bases its purpose on socialist traditions and ideals...
...It is painful to see such a bad book going the rounds...
...The plan fell through because America misconstrued the extent of Russian aims and the degree to which she could be placated by American concessions and FDR's personal charm...
...Managing editor, none...
...Essentially, the movement arouses members of the working class and others to become socialists so that the majority become conscious of their interests and institute socialism...
...Quoted in William D. Leahy...
...Quoted in Department of State, op...
...I leave it to the reader to judge how much the Western policies partook of "realism" and how much of cynicism...
...By postulating the incorrect idea that Americans have plenty of money Galbraith can then put forward the thesis that the absence of public amenities in America is the result simply of some incorrect thinking...
...A far, far different thing...
...Dwight Macdonald states that the U. S. was forced to be imperialist, that "never has a world power taken up the insignia of imperium so reluctantly...
...S. Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch...
...I. Rns...
...REuEL S. AMDUR With Heads Unbowed Editors: The editors have indicated that there is not enough space in DISSENT to publish many important articles...
...then there is the "socialism" of the Labor and Social-Democratic governments...
...Quoted in ibid., pp...
...indicates the editors are inconsistent and therefore human...
...We may be told by the expert egg-heads of the Labor Party, John Strachey and C. A. R. Crosland, that it is the bible of our times...
...107-108.1 He also refers to the possibility of "post-war disunity of the three great powers...
...Why didn't he discuss the question in his book...
...Regarding America's "reluctant" imperium, it seems quite obvious from the wartime and postwar documents that the U. S. made deliberate plans to insure her superior position in the world...
...emphasis added...
...A fact for Mr...
...They have also indicated what a difficult task it is to select from the many important ones...
...America is not an affluent society...
...The fact that Dwight Macdonald was given eleven (11) pages in the Autumn issue for an impressionistic orgy ["America...
...in a few years it will be thrown on the trash heap with all those books in the 1920's which had the same message of good cheer for the wealthy few...
...That certainly is true...
...he would like, I assume, to do more than dissent, and to do more than dissent from kitsch culture...
...It is a moneyless, wageless, classless society...
...And, what's more, one of the assumptions of DISSENT is that before democratic socialism can be reconstituted, made into at the very least a possibility, American culture (and particularly mass culture) must be examined in all of its conditions...
...To start the ball rolling, I understand socialism to mean the following: Socialism has three aspects...
...Well, well...
...Consequently he should, I suggest, view what he is doing with more irony than does Rosenberg, who apparently would rush to the defense of any art that seemed to promise the making of a new avant garde on the premise that it is the fate of any given and established one to be diluted and debased by the mills of mass culture...
...Roosevelt and the Russians...
...Such a meaningless effort would have been a meaningful historic event had it appeared in a large metropolitan daily or a large circulation slick .. . For DISSENT's valuable context the Macdonald article was worthless...
...Why, then, should Rosenberg announce that it is time a halt were called to analysis of mass culture by intellectuals...
...315-316.] Churchill wrote Stalin in April, 1945, With regard to your reference to Greece...
...Because not only would he make the unpleasant discovery that American society was not affluent, but worse—much worse —he would have to realize that the crucial problem of American economic life is the distribution of income...
...where everyone co operates by giving according to his abili ties and receiving according to his needs...
...We know that the three Baltic States have been re-incorporated into the Soviet Union and that nothing which we can do can alter this...
...in the post-war period it has increased to 66...
...cit., p. 235.] Let us hear Leahy on Poland: Personally, I did not believe the dominating Soviet influence could be excluded from Poland, but I did think it was possible to give to the reorganized Polish Government an external appearance of independence...
...New York: Viking Press, 1951, p. 51.] Roosevelt also had a pretty good idea of what was happening to Poland at the time...
...The Forrestal Diaries...
...3. The known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total ampunt of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are: none...
...Churchill certainly made it sound in earnest...
...Is that affluency...
...He would have come up against the brute fact of inequality...
...It is my contention that the Western politicians very well understood what Russia was after in the countries in which she was acknowledged to have "predominant influence" and that the United States set out in deliberate fashion to remain the most powerful nation in the postwar world and to extend her power through agreements made at Yalta and elsewhere...
...Have you read Galbraith's Affluent Society...
...Over a majority of Americans were living "adequately," therefore, or less than "adequately...
...Finally, it is a system of society...
...As Admiral Leahy says in a letter to the then Secretary of State Stettinius, part of which was included in one of the Yalta briefing papers: .it is apparent that any future world conflict in the foreseeable future will find Britain and Russia in opposite camps...
...It is not a question of whether we like it...
...there is the Soviet concept of "socialism" as the early stage of "communism...
...However, probable upheaval following the liberation of Poland may create conditions in which political changes unimaginable before will become a matter of course...
...There are certain things in connection with the foregoing proposals which are repugnant to me personally, but I am prepared to urge their adoption to obtain the cooperation of the Soviet Union in winning the war and organizing the peace...
...With world misery increasing and I0I certain to continue to increase, Galbraith can tell us that we produce too much wealth...
...On page 86 he shows that in 1950 four-fifths of the families in America had an income (after taxes) of $4690 or less...
...Rosenberg's anxious search for a newer avant garde and his dissatisfaction that the old one should be accepted even in Hollywood may have a model in the suburbs, where the quest for novelty is also undertaken out of anxiety and dissatisfaction, though within no tradition...
...More to the point, however, is a letter from Hickerson to the Secretary of State: We have a pretty clear idea of the Soviet objectives in Eastern Europe...
...Rather than labor the point about American "reluctant" imperialism, let us look at what the documents and memoirs tell us about just how much the West misunderstood the meaning of "influence" to the Russians and how cynical the Western leaders were in their agreements...
...With good reason...
...1. The names and addresses of the publisher, editor, managing editor, and business managers are: Publisher, Walter Goldwater, 509 tatth Avenue, New York 17, N.Y...
...451-452], there was little chance for incorrectly interpreting Russia's aims there...
...Nothing available but impressionism...
...As a science, it encompasses the materialist conception of history, the law of value and the class struggle...
...Perhaps Galbraith's book is not worth much space...
...This materialist science rose in the earlier half of the 19th Century due to the developments of the time...
...Richard Lowenthal argues that spheres of influence arrangements were a matter of realistic politics in the postwar world because "Great Powers" historically have acted this way and because the West would have abrogated its duties by not doing so...
...First it appears as a science, then develops into a movement and finally emerges as a social system...
...but I see no reason why we should participate in their obvious joy in finding an Apologia for Snobs...
...Those of us responsible for printing the Macdonald article (they shall remain anonymous, if only for reasons of safety) still contend, and stoutly too, that it was lively and stimulating enough to warrant publication.—Ed.] Kitsch and Culture Editors: It seems to me that there is some inconsistency and confusion in the form that the defense of high culture takes in DISSENT...
...No good...
...America is not an affluent society simply on the basis of the facts which even Galbraith has to admit...
...that capitalism can no longer be reformed or administered in the interest of the working class or of society...
...But the fact is that what Galbraith is talking about is not an affluent society, but the existence of affluency within a society...
...He realized, he added, that this would be asking "rather a lot...
...New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1950, p. 352...
...Now that it has become necessary to write sociology of mass culture as if it were politics, I suggest that radical intellectuals bear this burden, if not less uneasily and nervously, at least more frankly and humanely...
...but that is another matter...
...We know the terms of their settlement with Finland...
...Just another grab from a bag he has been working out of for some time now...
...2311...
...The fact that America gets what its class structure demands is conveniently avoided...
...Perhaps when Galbraith talks about affluency he means the affluency of America as compared to other states...
...It would have taken some tough-minded analysis to have shown the upper bourgeois to its face why they have too much money while others do not have enough...
...STANLEY PLASTRIK Business Manager Sworn to and subscribed before me this 8th day of September, 1958...
...Or, which is to say the same thing, when culture is felt to be accessible to the radical's imagination in a way that politics no longer is...
...R&A No...
...It has been said that "we are all socialists now...
...The problem between the West and Russia arose over the question of just what "influence" in other countries meant, he argues...
...It may be concisely described as a social relationship where the interests of every member of society and society as a whole are in harmony...
...Boston: Houghton Miffin Co., 1953, p. 495.] At Malta, Eden wondered whether the Russians might give assurances to Great Britain and the United States of really free elections in Poland...
...It is an examination of the material conditions of existence (the interrelated social and economic forces) in a process of growth which gives rise to social changes...
...Now, of course, Galbraith would come back with his clever prose, and quibble by saying that prices were lower in 1950 than now, etc., etc...
...An article based on pure impression wrenched from the complexities of analysis is meaningless...
...the most likely political framework of an economic policy involving changes as radical as may be necessary to lead Poland out of its pre-war stagnaton...
...We have given repeated instructions that your interest in Rumania and Bulgaria is to be recognized as predominant...
...three-fifths had an income of $3440 or less...
...And this is a scholar's book...
...for then—the whole issue of inequality cannot possibly arise...
...is threefifths— well over a majority, note—of the families of America living on $3440, affluency...
...The only thing standing in the way of socialism is the lack of socialists, i.e., those who understand the significance of socialism...
...What does matter is, have DISSENT'S editors decided to take the easy way out when it comes to America...
...That culture has become politicalized is attested to in the Mass Culture volume...
...I Was There...
...The report also provides two possible methods of economic advancement for Poland: A rigorous dictatorship would be...
...The socal revolution in Poland, instead of being fought in the streets of Warsaw and Lodz, may be decided in the chancelleries of Moscow, London, and Washington...
...with all of the possibility of the ultimate impact upon the military position of the United States which such a disaster would entail...
...If owned by a partnership or other unincorporated firms its name and address, as well as that of each individual member, must be given...
...Further figures: according to Kahl, American Class Structure, the median cash income of American families in 1958 was under $4000...
...I don't know what your plans are for dealing with it in DISSENT, [see p. 84] but I do know that it strikes me as a piece of wrong-headed smugness which deserves the truth: that it is a bad book...
...1, 1958...
...As a movement it appears on the scene in response to the drives of social neces sity...
...Walter Goldwater, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York 17, N.Y...
...It is wrong for many reasons, but for one above all...
...The splendid issue DISSENT had on America indicates "NO...
...No wonder the book is selling well...
...Better, therefore, to cover the whole thing up with bunkum about affluency...
...The concepts of socialism spread over quite a range...
...The acts of the West in endeavoring to draw up these "spheres of influence" with Russia were, says Mr...
...For instance, in the Yalta Briefing Book Paper entitled "Reconstruction of Poland and the Bal kans: American Interests and Soviet Attitude," it is clearly stated that the U. S. will not oppose Russian domination of these areas provided that "some degree of equal opportunity in trade, investment, and access to sources of information is preserved...
...Lowenthal was certainly whistling in the dark when he referred to the Stalin-Churchill percentage division of spoils as lighthearted...
...and that socialism is possible and practical today...
...Would you like to know why Galbraith avoids asking those obvious questions...
...Garden city, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1949, p. 64.] And Mr...
...Was this article "just one of those things that happen" or does it indicate a change in the intent of DISSENT...
...I recognize the consideration which you gave me when we had to intervene with heavy armed forces to quell the E.A.M: E.L.A.S...
...The Soviet Union has already re-incorporated Bessarabia into its territory...
...The socialist revolution is, inherently, majority conscious and political, i.e., democratic...
...Elsewhere in the Yalta documents, one sees that FDR is forced to give up designs on Britain's hold on Hong Kong in order to line Britain up with the U. S. and Russia on Poland...
...Harold Rosenberg's reply to Dwight MacDonald in the Autumn, 1959 number is a case in point, for Rosenberg's cultural radicalism, in all its certainty that kitsch triumphs and inevitably must triumph and in its willingness to bring more and more under this rubric, exhibits the uneasiness and dangers of that position when it becomes the only possible radicalism left...
...For Macdonald's article seems to me to be out of context...
...I see that I have lost my temper...
...A brilliant book in its way...
...also James Vincent Forrestal...
...Editor, none...
...But there is one terrible failure in the book which ought to be emphasized...
...Quoted in Winston Spencer Churchill's Triumph and Tragedy...
...Quoted in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, pp...
...it matters little if it is the bottom of the old bag or a new velvet one...
...Washington: March 9, 1945, p. 9.] The other possible method of Polish economic development outlined in this report foresees greater American influence— foreign loans...
...if not owned by a corporation, the names and addresses of the individual owners must be given...
...In a conflict between these two powers the disparity in the military strengths that they could dispose upon that continent would, under present conditions, be far too great to be overcome by our intervention on the side of Britain...
...BILL NEWMAN What Part Cynicism Editors: I feel that in your Fall 1959 issue two of your writers have given an incorrect picture of American foreign policy...
...For it will do what it sets out to do, namely, justify every little bourgeois who has made his private pile in recent years...
...it also includes the "socialism" of many of the new nationalist movements in Africa and Asia as expressed by Nasser, Nehru, Nkrumah and others...
...Such a dictatorship would, under normal conditions, result only from social upheaval and civil war...
...Wyandotte, Michigan Toms Cox [Let us assure reader Cox that, by choice or fate, the editors of DISSENT will never take the easy way out on anything...
...In view of the widespread confusion attached to the meaning of socialism, it might be well for the readers of DISSENT to discuss in its columns what they understand by "socialism...
...STATEMENT REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF AUGUST 24, 1912, AS AMENDED BY THE ACTS OF MARCH 3, 1933, AND JULY 2, 1946 (Title 39, United States Code, Section 233) SHOWING THE CIRCULATION OF DISSENT, published quarterly at New York, N.Y., for Oct...
...Post-War Poland—Economic and Political Outlook...
...Business manager: Stanley Palstrik, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York 17, N.Y...
...It is the problem of how to establish an economic system for getting our wealth into the hands of the underdeveloped states...
...We know that the Russians will insist on the annexation of a substantal portion of East Prussia and a boundary with Poland roughly in accordance with the Curzon line...
...Why is it such a bad book...
...Lowenthal, "proof of realistic foresight rather than a morally reprehensible cynicism...
Vol. 6 • January 1959 • No. 1
