The New Leader Book Page
The New Leader Book Page What New World? fy AUXAMDt* MlftD tiff X*W WtU* THE BETTER WOMLD BE. By Carl L, Bicker. Knopf; $260, -H/JTHIN th« compass of a short book, Professor Carl Becker, the...
...How New Will the Better World Be" ia an amazing document of our time...
...he has written financial news for the New York Times, and has been chief editorial writer for the Saturday Evening Post...
...There is a long, cloudy discussion of man and his relation to the machine through the ages, and just when one would expect Mr...
...In short, Mr...
...A TIME IS BORN...
...J^'ytmg the existing trend toward J"****'«¦»» ha draws a parallel between JjWanlam and Fascism, stressing the art thst in both systems individual lib-*ke> sra suppressed- to the advantage dsooe-xitn dicUtorship and of a priv-party clique...
...Although this seems to be a useful technical forecast, it haa only a derivative valut...
...For the people who are to enjoy the benefits of technology must first control the system af which the technique of production is but a part...
...How New Will the Better World Be" ujk with isolationism, nationalism, power politics, the conditions of peace Tgnroue and the Far East, Communism, Fascism, the New Deal, "the -torn to normalcy," and sundry other topics...
...Pantkson Books...
...By Caret Garrett...
...Ttt experience haa shown that a clear am sanding government owned and taaraani economy cannot easily he Srstfn...
...It is understandable, there-fort that da-pit* Professor Becker's clear and simple style, the book reads i?Tnna of those crambooks designed to help the university student dead??1 between lack of time and lack or "rWe*»»r Backer helieves that there m M, return to "normalcy" or to frj-Hpl.* ia an age where unemploy-ImaVthe greatest nightmare and na-u.mJ>.™ the greateat curse...
...He rejects the Communist as well a tas Nasi way because both have vio-atei sll three of these basic freedoms, fie ¦ also against Socialists, of the Noras* Thomas school, who insist on self-iresrnaMnt and freedom of speech but kin aa faith in private enterprise...
...Yet gov-mana* intervention in the national iMamr does not weaken his faith in Hirsts enterprise, which, together with fSSk of speech and self-government H eeniiuVrs the cornerstones of democrat...
...Eric Johnston, recently off to Russia to talk business with that hard-headed free enterpriser Joseph Stalin, has had the perspicuity to engage the support of a number of editorial advisers, and with with their help has turned out a small book in which facile phrases roll off without strain...
...Johnston writes: "Russia and the United States will represent two extremes, and the inevitable competition for world markets will have about it something titanic...
...While both •stream are a deadly menace to democracy, their reconciliation is the msin ptekhm of our economic and political saattare...
...His classifi-tama of contemporary regimes is too "rie, "eluding as it does the element ef fiuidii.y ia all systems and obliterat-¦V the dangers inherent in our economy tai polities...
...It defeated inter-"•tionsl socialism during the First Wwld War, transformed communism in *»»ie mto a fervent love of "Mother auaaC and subordinated Communist ftrti*« all over the world to the nation-"j** policies of the Russian Empire...
...It was the heavy-Ig* doetrlnal rigidity af the Nasie *«» Proved the main stumbling block in their attempt to dominate Europe...
...For while he stresses that any politics is power politics, i.e., an effort to re-estalilish the balance of power in one's own favor, he fails entirely to see the changing balance of power in the Western World which the war is bringing about...
...We cannot live with the Nazis on the same planet...
...The book has the glib nesa that Mr...
...They receive orders Inm the government even if their costs an signer than those of private enter-fmmh But tendency of government to in-mass its economic empire is as strong "that of private business...
...Isolationists today, interventionists tomorrow, Marxists today, lovers of private enterprise tomorrow, patriots as long a we follow Stalin's dictates, fifth columnists as soon as we criticize Russia or Roosevelt...
...fines its triumph at the time of t**/reneh Revolution, has ateadily inlawed iht strength...
...If they hsve heard that U. S. Steel, Standard Oil, DuPont, Dow Chemical, et...
...Following this slley to the end mean* a new but certainly not a better world...
...Professor Becker, however, enwanplinm the problem...
...F*KOM what is implicit in the book, however, it is clear that the new capitalism isn't much different»from the old, and haa even less to do with the people...
...The books of capitalism's critics bristle with data taken from the files of government committees, and are aimed at toppling the economic structure with statistical dynamite...
...260, -H/JTHIN th« compass of a short book, Professor Carl Becker, the re-yU Kowned (Cornell historian, has attempted to answer most of the TT major questions of our time...
...Fully aware of Russis's emerging force and productivity, we confidently put our faith in the American way of life...
...It shows the blind alley in which too many of our leading thinkers And themselves: ahead of popular understanding and behind the facts...
...Aside from casus) mention of unemployment ss something that occurred in the dim long ago, there ia little indication thst these men know what it is thst made their system suspect In the midst of the moat devastating war in modern history, thsy rsn formulste no worthwhile plana for preventing wsr...
...12.60...
...He ass a middle way in what he terms Isestvelttsn Social-Democracy, and he |hft safe in outlining a progress of...
...In contrast to this the facility with which the Russian partisans all over the world adjust themselves to the momentary needs of nationalistic Russian policy proves the extreme flexibility of Communism...
...New Deal or Dr...
...And again in his effort to be a realist he shuns entirely the issues of Europe...
...145 pages...
...Yet, the undeniable ascendency of Russian power in Eastern and Central Europe is the creation of an entirely new balance of power which could hardly be the aim the great Western democracies had in mind when they rose in defense of their precious heritage...
...2.60...
...Johnston boasts of as being one of his major assets...
...American Menary-Doublsday-Do,an...
...ONE of the more perplexing facts of literary life among our writers on economics is the reversal of function that occars when their finding* are put between covers...
...Par from denying the importance of ¦etioulimt la the world today, Profes-ai Becker demonstrates how national...
...nor, ss a matter of fsct, are they unduly disturbed by the very fector of wsr...
...Garrett to reach some momentous conclusion, he concludes bis stint What he seems to be saying is that the plastics age will usher in the possibility of definitive control of the machine by man, since the Era of Synthetics will enable man to bring into being only those machines that he wants...
...Panegyrics to Capitalism By MfftMAN SIN«fft AMERICA UNLIMITED...
...He has written a book that ia all promise, and no fulfillment...
...Professor Becker's hopes of future peace hinge upon the hope of future collaboration of the Big Three...
...One is history's greatest democratic capitalist society, the other the greatest collectivist society ever known...
...The government-etaes enterprises are less heavily taxed a am taxed at all...
...Their basic theory of master race has crested an ocean of hatred in which Nazism will And its death...
...Garrett has been editor of the N. Y. Times Annalist...
...Possibly influenced by Marx, the idealists among the opponents of capitalism have rejied on the massing of facts which show up its tendency to provoke wars and crises, and its inability to prevent the rich from concentrating more and more of the nation's wealth in their hands...
...Johnston envisages a British Empire t hat is on its way out in the face «f 11...
...We welcome it just aa a well-trained athlete eagerly looks forward to a competitive teat of hia prowess...
...By Erie Jeknston...
...8. aggressiveness and a Russian regime which will be imperialist America's major economic rival...
...In addition to the key power of sadera scaaoraics— the power of taxa-bon-the government has privileges which make its competition with private fstwarim "unfair...
...It is an old •¦•—which is better, an open or a WffUkally concealed brutality...
...On the other hand, the defense of capitalism by its practitioners (or their ghost writers), and by capitalist apologists, has usually been presented in prose thst has all the pungency of bad poetry...
...Americans do not shrink from the mighty test...
...It has, on the surface, everything thst money can buy...
...Win-the-War —has hem assuming a partnership in a monopoly state—then they take care to see that little of this news escapes from them...
...Johnston la girding his loins for another knock-down light in a postwar world that looks just like the one we have—or worse...
...In view of this background, he is, naturally, a mystic...
...si were in control of major sectors of the economy, before 1941, anil that the war has intensified that contrul, or that the government—whether acting as Dr...
...one is people's capitalism at its best, the other state capitalism at its strongest...
...234 pages...
...for all practical purposes these ™J»nces are irrelevant, it ia hard to 2? "'th the author as to the greater ?W|it/ of fascism...
...He believes, how-**» that Fascism is "more dangerous J***** of its more complete denial of r^dp,M 01 justice, and hu*** r *™d "because it is more flexible Jm therefore more readily adaptable to ¦•kistoric traditiona and national turn-j***«"t of any country...
...Those altruists who want the world's goods equitably distributed have written the more splid indictments, as well as the more academic analyses, of capitalism...
...Given the task of describing the system that has sustained them, they have coin-posed charming essays on the beauties of free trade and free enterprise...
...One of the up-and-at-them imperialists, Mr...
...eaimtill tasks designed to prevent uenpkrytnent and business stagnation...
Vol. 27 • June 1944 • No. 26
