Organization and Freedom
FRANK, M. Z.
Organization and Freedom The American Anarchy. By Lionel Gelber. Schuman. 212 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by M. Z. Frank The phrase which recurs most often in this compactly written book is "organized...
...As the title indicates, the author calls attention especially to the pitfalls inherent in America's sudden rise to world leadership...
...For "nowhere is justice, whether for the one or the many, continuous, automatic, self-generating...
...The bitter lesson of our age is that progress can just as well be employed for the "devaluation" of man...
...Between as within nations, the prospects of liberty in the twentieth century have been and will be decided by a ceaseless struggle between responsible and irresponsible power...
...In the final analysis, it is the tradition, the habits of the people, their culture which can overcome these constantly recurring dangers to what Gelber calls the "revaluation of man," i.e., a society in which the dignity of the individual receives increasing recognition as the highest object of organization...
...The vastness of the organization presents dangers: In a totalitarian society, the "organized multitude" can be effectively controlled by a small hierarchy of rulers...
...The effort of reading this book is rewarded...
...but an entrenched bureaucracy, grown all the larger and more entrenched because of the complexities of modern society, can gradually pre-empt the power theoretically residing in their masters—the public...
...Nineteenth-century liberalism was naive enough to believe that the mere advance in knowledge and science would insure that "revaluation...
...He pleads for a better understanding of the forces at work in modern society and for tempering high-minded aims and moral fervor with a realistic approach...
...In a democratic society, there are certain checks on the power of the ruling groups...
...Yet, if the style is sometimes baffling, it is just as often arresting...
...There is thus no hard-and-fast guarantee in the form of government...
...To have read it is not only to have learned a great deal, but to have thought through intensely most of the basic problems of today's world...
...The conclusion...
...This is not an easy book to read...
...Too much thought and knowledge have been compressed into aphorisms of uncommon style to make for smooth digestion...
...Reviewed by M. Z. Frank The phrase which recurs most often in this compactly written book is "organized multitude...
...The development of technology has brought in its wake new techniques in organizing human beings into industrial, political and cultural groups...
...Gelber's penchant for epigrams, occasionally degenerating into puns, seems to be the only temptation to which he succumbs...
Vol. 37 • August 1954 • No. 32
