THE NATION OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
EASTMAN, MAX
1. The Notion of Democratic Socialism m Planned Economy and Private Enterprise Co-Exist ? By Max Vast man rNLUCKILY for Sidney Hook, he published hit dafeamr of lalane ratit nritlim just a few...
...That fives , StttvsirtSf* in tMa debate which I >m loath to U tho f*B...
...Klm» Roper, Gallup's chief rival, report...
...Italics inaerted...
...No doubt Sidney Hook has other writers in mind, but I should like at least to demonstrate my own invulnerability to his thrust...
...And when, in a final paragraph, he sterna to rest his hope, not only on man's ability to learn, but on his moral character, the hunch that he it only defending a sort of unreal intellectual right to hetieve become* a conviction...
...1. The Notion of Democratic Socialism m Planned Economy and Private Enterprise Co-Exist ? By Max Vast man rNLUCKILY for Sidney Hook, he published hit dafeamr of lalane ratit nritlim just a few days trfM, Friserrtch Hayek's TAW freed fe Serfdom, brilliantly answers Mm, earns* out...
...I wiH only say that to a mind en Hayek's matore study, aefA empirical and of the nature ef th* planned economy, that aeciety might stop halfway in this mode of Ufa, or that anyone would be if it did, aweme eepeeialty impractical...
...I do not think the adjective "moral" or its opposite can be meaningfully predicated of "man" in general, or of what "man" succeeds or fails in doing...
...He explodes deftly the notion of Chase and ethers that, by surrendering our freedom in a sphere called "economic,'' we ran retain It ia saner ami "higher" sphere...
...What our nspdern planners demand is a central direction of all economic activity...
...basic drives or tendencies in human nature...
...Of the 50,000,000 world trsde union members, 27,000,000 are Russian workers...
...from his Marxian "activism" a* I think...
...However, the Argentine workers opposed to the dictatorship recognised the hard fact that any demonstration would result only in further decimation of their numbers...
...Strangely enough, Msrx himself, as an historian, was the first to see this...
...It i little like hoping a beei-constrictor will est only The issue is between two distinct far occ«mtptMriBg one and the same task— aa adjusting production to human If the impersonal mechanism of the market is be free buying and selling, Of entry into all trades, free movement of and no soutiui of the quantities of goods pro .If the mechanism of the personal directing center try to solve the problems it conditions can obviously not i met and the) market cannot function aa a guide to As Hayek puts H: "Planning and comi cam ho csssshinsd only by planning for comneti, bat not by ptasmiiig against competition.''* He also ?fsjMks*st thsst th* psywer which rent roll half an economy i In Germany) controls it all indirectly...
...Regional OPA officials classified company stores of two big coal corporations in group three—low ceilings...
...raws' are being challenged by CIO affiliate*, and in Florida an AFL affiliate is doing the protesting...
...But it makes Sidney Hook's peroration, in which he invokes the blessing of Marx on hii argument for democratic socialism, a little unpersuasive...
...Many of those stores have been ignoring their rating, have been charging top ceiling prices...
...There was no economic determinism in my remark, and ne "inferences" from past to future...
...He may not have drifted as far 'Abba P. Leraer, reviewing Hayek's book in a recent 'Leader professes to find some obscurity in Hayek's ction between planning in the good sense, and planning in the bad...
...They may hsve learned s bitter lesson from the slaughter of misled guerrillas in Spain who lost their lives in the premature uprising in Catalonis called not so long ago by the Communist Supreme Junta...
...I may be overworking my intuitions, but to me this is the speech of a man who is all but ready to tay that democratic socialism will fail, and will fail because it is not suitable to human nature...
...But it is net fas this general sense that our enthusiasts for m plsmaad society employ the term...
...Here is Stalin's dictum as expressed ia a conversation with H. G. Wells (July 23, 19M) : „ "Without getting rid of the capitalist*, without aeWis'iiny the principle of private property in the jjsnsjes of production, it is impossible to create a planned ay...
...At present the CIO Union of Office and Professional Workers riaisns around 60,000 members, only slightly more than membership announced by the AFL OAce Employees International Union, to which the AFL executive council has recently granted an international charter...
...It was on the basis of "empirical evidence" found notably in textbooks of psychology, in the communist colonies, end in the "ghastly experiences" of Russia, that I abandoned the misleading notion that Socialism could be democratic...
...A prediction made in this column a few weeks ago hss unfortunately come true...
...The fifteen-minute token strike call issued by the Latin American Federation of Labor (CTAL) did not get support from the Argentine workers...
...Some of Montgomery Wsrd'a young women customers evidently take an optimistic view of the service the Army is offering now it's in command...
...I was among the first, I think, to remark that Marx's understanding of the historic relation between democracy and capitalism might, if he had deigned to consider the future, have made him lesa reckless about abolishing capitalism...
...Asserting thst, "there is no over all manpower shortage, no manpower crisis," the AFL executive council is bseking the Taft bill, providing for voluntary controls...
...Rejecting th* Russian's secondary demand for unanimity vote, the conference has decided that a two-thirds vote of th* natlonsl organizations represented will prevail...
...Historically it is true that modern democracy as a political system eante into the world with capitalism...
...John L. Lewis, thu* simod with explosive immunition for hit coming wag* fight, is not roportod as weeping bitter tear...
...The word derives its meaning from distinctions we make among men and their doings...
...Democracy may be loot in a planned society," he aays...
...Vance Muse, secretary of the Chriatian American Association, announces that Texas will be a cinch for the Association's pet anti-closed shop, snti-labor bill...
...It ia upon good planning—planning to regulate the spontaneous activities of men instead of directing those activities from a single center—Hayek's whole hone of civilised and dssadualit culture rests...
...But they overlook the pluralistic character of the historic process and the distinctive roie that human knowledge and ignorance play within that process...
...Kaleidoscope of Labor bv Robert Park mm* THK CIO drive to organise 10,000,000 office and professional workers throughout the rountry will begin shortly...
...Crude economic determinists, who are happy that they are liberated from the dogmas of Marx, therefore infer that, with the decline of capitalism, democracy is doomed too...
...DNEY HOOK has torn* authority in Marx, or rather Engets, for asserting the causal, or at least accelerative, effect of knowledge on the historic process...
...Several orders have been received for tall, darkhaired sergeants bearing resemblance to any convenient movie star...
...Hia investigation* reveal that 20 percent of the public think the uniona are dominated by gangsters, and 84 percent betieve union* get their members by force...
...Senator W. Lee ("Pappy") O'Danicl of Texas is introducing the Association's measure ss a proposed constitutional amendment in Washington, and Muse is confident that in due time he can round up the necessary 32 states to make its adoption automatic...
...Speaking before a meeting of ILGWU officials, Roper blamed union leaders for their failure to develop public-relations activities, or to "clean up the bad spots" in their orgsniiatiens...
...For their purpose* it is not sufficient to design the most r«tioual framework within which the knowledge and initiative ef individuals are given the best scope, aa that theg can plan successfully...
...They want the resources of society 'consciously directed' to a social goal...
...In the opinion that private enterprise and a planned eeeaoiy conflict in principle, Hayek has the support ef the one man in history who ever totally created a jlannid economy...
...It is no accident that 'complete collectivisation' in Russia, instead of setting the workers snd peasants free, set free the hands of a complete tyrsnt...
...It M till A obvious to me now—though I have been slow, I must say, in coming to the conclusion- that the Institution of private property, the dispersion of power and importance that goes with it, has been a main factor in producing that limited amount of free-andequalness which Marx hoped to render infinite by abolishing this institution...
...Still there could be ho more complete drawing back from Marx to his predecessors than this resting of the essential argument for democratic collectivism on man's ability to learn...
...Mow, without even a reprimand for open violations, the OPA 'hss reclassified the stores to group one—highest ceiling ¦rice...
...for tho evolution of ail our democrat it fraartaoam, It never oecnred to him, lookingforward— with Owen's dream in hia eyes—that if this was se, these other frirdnans might di$mpp*ar with tho aholfcien of Urn (roe market...
...that there ia a large undercurrent of anti-union sentiment around the country, sentiment which may well be fodder for a flare-up of a new Ku Klux Klanism...
...The above sentence, I think, makes it perfectly clear...
...Russian delegates to the World Labor Conference in London have for the moment been defeated in their effort s to have voting conducted pro rata—in proportion to (he number of workers represented...
...Here is my remark in full: "If these things [psychological findings] are true, it is no accident that Owen's community—and the others like it—throve only so long as the founder stayed on hand to boss it...
...Membership in the party is s prerequisite to high union position in Rossis...
...In this article, however...
...It was, as I remember, the knowledge of Marxism to which, specifically, Engels attributed this effect...
...I dont know who those "erode economic determinists" are who, thoogh thinking themselves liberated from Msrxisn dogma, "infer" the future from Marx's account of the past...
...I myself once expressed the opinion that socialism will fail, and haa failed, because of "the site and complexity of the administrative problem" and "the...
...Therefore, to say that if democratic socialism fails, it will be a moral failure, ia tantamount to saying that it will fail for psycho-biological reason...
...The Supreme Court has agreed to review the constitutionality of Alabama and Florida union-restricting laws, generally considered mors »*v*re than the recently invalidated Texas law...
...I wonder what they will say to Hayek, who proves that socialism must fail because of the complexity of the administrative problem and the variety of human drivea or tendencies...
...The Red-influenced Argentine delegate to the CTAL conference reported that Argentina was ripe for revolt...
...The Alabama...
...If it it, itt low will not be an economic fatality ' but a moral failure, a failure of man to uae hi* intelligence to liberate the great poatibilitiet of plenty and freedom in a planned economy...
...And a* that control of an economy is control of i to all ends...
...Of course, this is only one essay, and Sidney Hook ' have more to say...
...My italics...
...From Marx's first question: Who w Being to educate tho educatorf to Engels' last word over his grave: tko phaee of development it to he est' plained by the method of production, and not vice verso, this kind of talk was ruled out That, of course, does not make it invalid...
...The argument advanced states that even the "exaggerated demands" laid out in WMC statistics will be met almost automatically during the year...
...He is the one who informed us, looking backward, that the evolution of private capitalism with its fro* market had hoea a eiasanawair...
...These others may be added »< *• "Everybody desires, of course, that we should handle our common problems with foresight...
...Man's strong sons* of the economic factors -which condition (and in his saetaphyskal pontifkations "determine") political forms, ia cited only to he poshed out of the way of that faith ia increased "heanan knowledge" upon which the utepiaa aocialiats rested their hopes...
...Included in the estimated figures of the AFL are 900,000 workers to be released by cutbacks and runouts, 400,000 returned veterans, S6O.00O yomtg person* coming of age, and new workers...
...The Kremlin formulates all policies of party members...
...My socialist critics dismissed me with the remark that human nature is too various to permit any inference in conflict with their views...
Vol. 28 • February 1945 • No. 6
