1.The Notion of Democratic socialism

...Nothing of this kind emerges from Sidney Hook's discourse on the . Mere of Democratic Socislism...

...They want "human freedom," but refuse to fight for free buying and selling snd free enterprise, which is not a little part of it, but the rock-bottom on which it rests...

...They are switching bade and forth •ftween the totalitarian Communist* Snd the democrsts **· believe in free enterprise, turning up naW In one...

...For their woe is not only that democratic Socialism ia impossible, but that adherence to this Utopian notion is diverting the energies of some •f the best men of this epoch from the real fight for freedom...

...And you have no choice but to share that increased power with the Communists, for that is the meaning of democracy...

...But if you believe in democratic Socialism, then you have only the power of the state...

...And those whose minds were incorrigibly political, even when they formed a government called "social-democratic," have steered a liberal capitalist rather than a socialist course...

...Instead of wasting our mental energy in thia jump, we should expend it jn a minutely specific examination of every particular proposal of "socialisation,'' to make sure that it genuinely promotes'the publie interest, makes private industry function better (aa in the ease of the TVA), and protects it from strangulation by monopolies that are Inevitable...

...The older, and lesser, peril of domination by "Big Business" ia held In check by the cooperatives , without recourse to the state...

...To defend the Soviet Union as a Workers State and denounce it as a Bureaucratic Usurpation in one and the same breath, is certainly the most extraordinary gymnastic ever put forth by a logical brsin as a political program...

...And that, it seems to me, is not ••«Mental...

...With characteristic courage —the courage of a dedicated mind—he seized both horns of the dilemma...

...Even where the state is still essentially political it ia hard enoup?h to hold them off, because they appeal to the immediate passions rather than the foreseeing minds of men, and they appeal to these passions with a program of affirmative action...

...They believe that a rigid bureaucracy Will supplant capitalists SS the ruling class, snd thst a one party dictatorship will follow...

...But to infer from the success of these stale run undertakings within a eyetem of private enterprise thst the eystam can bo abandoned, and the whole economy, or a major part ofjt, run by the state with like success, is a wild, and I now think, fatal jump...

...What...

...And Greece is s foretaste of what is to come...

...In the struggle against them, there can be no genuine compromise, for their sole aim is total control...

...eat be used as an engine of repression, or with tome plan to prevent its being so used...

...I underline the anti-climax.] That certainly is not the mood in which one rips i*p the foundations of society snd sets out to build a new tee...

...I do not mean that the pre-existence of these Communist gsngs ready to take over is the sole or basie reason to beware of large-scale "socialization...

...HE NEW LEADER haa printed s long series ef articles em the question, "Is Democratic Socialism Kealiubl...

...or is going to be, democratic...

...That is what we have learned from "the ghastly experiences of Germany and Russia...

...We must meet them on the economie field with a real program, not in the political super-structure within abstract notion...

...Yet'here, STtne dispute is ebout Socialism itself, he enters t»t lists with a bow to bis opponents and a tribute to tbtir "Integrity and intelligence...

...That is indeed true—nor the workers either...

...Hook exemplifies this in his "introduction" where he eseleres that "capitalism in any of its recognizable farms has practically disappeared in most of Europe," and that privation and need are so great that there ia as time for "capitalist accumulation" to "run its esurse...

...All that Is involved is practical imagination...

...We are asserting that under a free economy political freedom ie possible, under a etate-controlled economy it ie impassible...

...Premttere from the standpoint of meticulous inference, perhaps, but from the practical standpoint recklessly belated...

...We do not argue against publie ownership of any specific enterprise...

...Th* social forces on which we rely to defend political freedom are diverse and not well determined: the farmers, the "conservative" trade unions, the cooperatives, the individualistic business man, that part of the intelligentsia (regrettably small in America) who have political intelligence and love honesty better than power...

...He saw that, in order to go on believing in Socialism he had to declare the Soviet experiment a success...

...Because the Rnssisn Revolution under Bolshevik leadership ia a backward agricultural country produced Stalinism ia not proof that ai democratic social revolution, accomplished by gradual and peaceful but drastic reforma, will necessarily destroy individual freedom...

...The pious believers, it seems to me, will do one of three things...

...Many el-Mar sistu, alarmed at the totalitarian developments of Bolshevism in Raasia and ef National Socialism in Germany, have become convinced that statlam and collectivism go together...

...jj...

...The main thing the democratic Socialists ore doing' Pj* Is oscillating...

...Speaking of us who ??m decided that democracy and collectivism are in-eedpstible, he sayse "There was DO apostary in this development Its motivation waa a passion for democracy, heightened by s sense of the dangers to which the great liberal tradi-tien of the western world was exposed by the monstrous concentration of power in existing collect...

...A free mind aa bold and brilliant would have dared to see that Socialism is s failure...

...I would remind Sidney Hook that not only the "ghastly experieneea" of Germany and Russia, but the relatively beatifhj experience of the Scandinavian countries enters Into eur empirical argument...

...The future is for those who know thst private enterprise is not deed In Europe, snd thst where it has been wounded by fascism, it can be revived...

...And that ia where the democratic Socialists, forgetting the truths and preserving the pipe-dreams of Marxism, are pitching their camp...

...and those who are out to destroy the first ars wittingly or unwittingly helping to create the second...

...that if (here ia government ownership ef the basic industries, there will necessarily be government regimentation ef our lives...

...What action, unless they foruma cou?tergsng m resist the Communasia, can they take...

...But it was logic exactly that drove Trotsky into this ridiculous position...

...The rest of our "socialist" energy w* would poor, I think, mainly into the movements for international federation and the Consumer's Cooperatives...

...Those economic devices and organizational forms are totalitarian...

...plaos was a reexamination of first principles...

...Whether through historic accident or preponderant common sense, this general program has been followed in Sweden...

...Such comradely behavior is itself almost an srgu-sMat for Socialism, although one that its apostles have rarely employed...

...The TV a is a governmental undertaking both logically called for and brilliantly successful...

...And we are not relying on it to guarantee political freedom, either...

...If you admit them, they will soon be in totalitarian control...

...If Sidney Hook would ssy "the people" in-•hmd of "democratic political control," he would begin t» sense the problem in its concrete terms...

...They want democracy, ?JR refuse to defend the economic set-up in which ***e"<iy has Its roots...

...It is an intriguing discourse enlivened with penetrating remarks on many subjects, but I must say it has for me a lack of punch pare significant—in our most brilliant debater—than earthing it says...

...They are all ready and fixed by rigid discipline under a dictator to function as an individual...

...It seems to me," he begins, "that the conclusions •secerning s plsnned economy which were drawn from the ghastly experiences of Germany and.Russia were sat warranted, and that the case for a democratic Socialism, instructed by past errors and present dangers, is stronger than for any other alternative...

...Between them and the totalitarian gangsters it is no man's lend...

...But if the state goes into business, there is another reason why the Communists will take control: namely, that they are organised for it...

...And with industries to run, and these implacable totalitarians right there hitching up their pants to run them, the f'sntaay evaporates—that is all...

...For we need more public control in international affairs, but within the nation an overgrowth of the state is our chief peril...

...The whole political future of Europe, and perhaps of mankind, ia contained in the question: What are you going to do with the industries...

...If Sidney Hook will place himself in one of those European countries where a civil war arises, as in Greece, between s "capitalist" government and the armies of totalitarian Socialism, and try to And himself something .significant to do as a democratic Socialist, he will understand what I mean...

...They are out of the future...

...In the next sentence, instead, it grows weaker: "There are certain historical events and situations which maka the abandonment by genuine democrats of ? planned seOBOmy seem a little premature...

...The advocates of democratic Socialism have answered that this assumption ia unjustitird by history, by science, er by human nature...

...But if their understanding is profound, they will defend not only political but economic freedom—private property in the means' of production and a genuinely competitive market—for that ia so bound up with political Irmedom that the two will stand or fall together...

...The end-result will be much the same, in my opinion, whether the gang comes first or the "socialisation" first...

...It does, however, need following up tithe.r with some cogent proof that the planned economy wi...

...I would like to see similsr projects launched in the Missouri River Valley and elsewhere...

...In fsct, the preservation of democracy, particularly in poatwar Europe, depends on the building ef social democracy—the carrying through of such measures as the nationalisation of the coal minea in France, and the deep-going reforma planned by the British Labor Party...

...There was no blind panic or emotional revulsion...

...I ask Sidney Hook of what use, on this battle field, will be a pious belief in state-ownership under a different kind of state from that which has put it over once, and is under construction by s gsng of fsnatics to put it over again...

...It ia not "capitalists" but a capitalist economy on which we base our hopes...

...vist economies...

...Thomas Jefferson was right when he said, or implied, that a government which is to be democratic muat not govern very much...

...They talk themselves into thinking that the totalitarian state which actually puts the thing over t...

...Scientists and artists ought to be solidly on our side, but they are, alas, in groat part push-overs for political hokum...

...Still others will try—and these are the Trotskyists— to take both attitudes at once...

...w in the other...

...You have no choice but to increase that power by taking over more and more industries...

...It is the whole affirmative meaning of their rttfram...

...But he is mistaken when he says: "The newly won converts to free enterprise are . . . overestimating the strength of capitalist allegiance to democracy...

...The idea of running the whole economy of society by democratic process, or by a process that can be called "representative" and have the word mean anything, has been a fantasy all along...

...Sidney Hook is right when he says there is no "apostary" involved...

...If you organize to exclude the Communists, your organization is not democratic...

...Many communities own their power-plants, street car linos, waterworks and other public utilities, and ran them efficiently without too much damage to democracy...

...Nevertheless, it is the task of the intelligentsia primarily, the task of those with trained understandings to save the day in thia new struggle that is not of elasses...

...The fight Is for human freedom, snd those are its terms...

...There people with a seal for cooperation have—strange aa it may seem—cooperated...

...Indeed a high order of intelligence wss displayed in the appraisal of the multiform ways in which a plsnned economy could be used as sn engine of repression...

...Politically they ire nobody *d nothing, except on trivial issues an ignominious walance of power...

...How is "democratic political control" going to gesr in snd "redirect" hmmT Democratic political control is sn sbstrsct ides...

...And Sidney Hook can wield the blackjack, not to pastipn the rapier, with the best of them...

...Power for the gang is an affirmative concept, liberty for mankind is, politically, a negative one...

...People who lack, through dying loyslties, the heart to sea this, and speak it boldly, are out of the fight...

...The roadsfc, tht post office, the schools, the national parks—nobody would dream of turnirqp them over to private control...

...An abstract idea can not redirect, much less direct, •aything...

...I merely wish that the present picture in Europe might drive home to Sidney Hook's Imagination what his mind seems loth to learn: that if many little bosses don't -run Independent enterprises snd control our work, one big boss will run the stste and control our whole lives...

...And some of the strongest forces on the side of freedom in that struggle—however you like it—will be found in the business class...

...The ease will have to be stronger than that...

...The dispersion of power, the dispersion of property— defined wisely by Sidney Hook ss "power to control the disposition of things snd services"—is the sole prsetlcsl scheme for defeating the Communists in their grab for the "economic devices and organisational forms" created by the Nazia...

...Hsyek is right when he says: "There is no other possibility than either the order governed by the impersonal discipline of the market or that directed by the will of a few individuals...

...The struggle against totalitarianism is not a struggle between twe classes...

...The existing "economic devices and organisational forms" must therefore be "redirected by demo-em tic political control to get production going...

...aSlDNEY HOOK makes the point in his introduction that the "capitalists" can not be relied on to defend political freedom against a regime of terror...

...They were created by s gang of Nazis sei fascists to be run by a one-party police state...

...But it will fad alao, and more rapidly, if the central Issue in its economic aspect is blurred—the Issue between democracy's program of free competition snd the Communist program of the totalitarian state aa the aole employer...

...And this is more true, the more complex the business Is...

...Published in The Msw Leader for October 14, 1944...

...Others will sit honestly in a corner wringing their hands, as Norman Thomas and Lillian Symcs do: "Oh dear no, you've the right idea, hut you're doing it the wrong way...

...We have, aa it were, » controlled experiment I The itoend part ef this article will appear nemt week...

...A concern for genuine labor unlona, gigantic cooperatives, social security, moderation of unemployment, etc., will be essential to this struggle...

...That is what a lot of G. D. H. Colea, Julian Huxleys, Harold Laskies, and Max Lerners are doing about Russia, and no doubt will do when the question arises, in their own countries...

...The struggle will be primarily for a regime of free enterprise...

...That is the gist of our dilemma in the sphere of politics...

...That is our thesis...

...Political freedom will be defended, I believe, by a majority of those in every class who understand its peril...

...Sidney Hook will answer Max Eastman, and there will be further discussion of this, the outstanding problem of our era...

...In the postwar restoration the primary struggle o' all who believe in freedom, humane culture, and above all in a genuine labor move- l' meftt, will be against the Communists and their drive for the totalitarian state...

...Without them it will frit...

...It takes an individual to run a business...

...Socialists usually blackjack each other when they disagree, even jjjlyt se secondary an article of faith as Marx's whiskers...

...They will sell out democracy for the sake of their faith in Socialism...

...in order to go on fighting for Socialism, he had to declare it a failure...

...A (sag of Communists is organized and armed to take mem over and run them the same way...

...I DON'T know where Marx's perception of the prior importance of the economic factor ever seemed more cogent than in the countries liberated from the Nazis...

...It is surely '•sitimale to ask a pragmstist what he Is going to do —•hat are those who want the state to run the ajpstrlea, but the people to run the state, going t? the existing and imminent situstion in liberated ***»P...

...The struggle In progress Is 5**»mlc, and their program, in ita divergence from...

...That will create many small powers over against the single power of the state—and over against the Communist Party which is boring from within, with its expertly unscrupulous technique, to control the state...

...the reason for this, to a mind trained in Msrx-ought to be obvious...

...That is why Socialists should channel their energy into the cooperatives—yet here too without the false inference from part to whole, without the dream of making them absorb the entire populstion, which would bo another road to totalitarian gang-rule...

...2J^nnis*m, is purely political...

...I hsve the impression that Sidney Hook is defending his logical right to "believe in" democratic Socialism rather than declaring his allegiance to any practical effort to produce it...

...That will be of small help, but at least it is clear-headed...

...If you believe in free competition and the state as a regulative mechanism, then you will turn them over, to the extent compatible with regulation, to private owners...

...and scientists, too cruelly confined to fact in their specialties, relax the more essily into credulous dupes upon public questions...

...The Communists will be strong, especially In fascist countries, because they will offer the masses a new allegiance without a change of political habits...

...Moses wss right (snd Aristotle) when he ssid thst only where opposing social forcea are in equilibrium can freedom or justice flourish...

...Artists are swayed more by notiona than by fact...