STATE AND CITIZEN

...The author scores a worthy point when he insists that our choices be guided by consideration of human personality and another when he contends that abstractions often becloud our thinking on concrete issues...

...Most of the New Deal and Fair Deal are disapproved— they depart from the sphere of morals into that of expediency...

...Orton's work distinguishes between moral and material issues and would confine the state to the former...

...When the state becomes the dispenser of benefits and assumes any responsibility for the maintenance of the citizen it takes the high (and historically well-traveled) road to ruin and tyranny...

...Harvard University Press...

...they offer the consumer alternatives and provide a ready yardstick of industrial performance...

...The fundamental freedoms are grounded in natural rights as stated by the Fathers...

...He concedes the necessity of a strong central government which, along with powerful unions and autonomous business, will maintain the balance of a mixed economy...

...4.50...

...One would suppose that depression unemployment threatening starvation without fault might involve some moral compulsion...

...The social costs involved in private exploitation of mineral resources and private organization of the transportation system (duplication) raise legitimate questions as to the wisdom of leaving these areas to private auspices...

...262 pp...

...Drucker's proposals aim at better administration of the private sector of the economy...

...The reviewer found himself unable to predict how Prof...

...It is a well-grounded examination of the institutional aspects of big business, including the big union...

...Economists have argued that free competition among producers and among consumers in a free market must inevitably maximize satisfactions, and their case has seemed persuasive because the cost calculus has ignored injuries to and burdens thrust upon third parties or the public...

...First plank in any platform for an enduring mixed economy should be Federal incorporation of interstate business...

...It is a study of private administration and a guide for industrial counselors...

...Kapp's Social Costs of Pri-vate Enterprise should be required reading for those who are alarmed at the expanding role of government...

...For example, he projects a new constitution for the big corporation...

...But they leave the reviewer with the thought that perhaps the only standard that can be soundly applied to the issue of expanding government is the pragmatic one of whether in each specific case expansion would work to the public advantage...

...representation on the board of directors would be broadened to include management, the "enterprise community" (all classes of employees), the geographical community in which the enterprise operates, and "management auditors" (like public accountants, except broader in function and competence...

...Reviewed by Harold Groves THE main justification for bracketing these three books is that they all deal more or less with the economic role of the state...

...the voting rights and responsibilities of equity investors would be sharply curtailed...

...To choose one example among many, what about the police and prisons made necessary by the production and sale of intoxicants...

...The growth of government generally has been a response to the democratic demand to prevent, minimize, and compensate for these often-overlooked social costs of private production...

...Nevertheless, private enterprise and competition have important advantages...

...Prof...

...Kapp submits impressive evidence of these costs...

...Drucker's book points up sharply the fact that the corporate institution is the neglected child of progressive agendas...

...It is in the direct line of Berle and Means' Modern Corporation and Burnham's Managerial Revolution, though more strictly from management's point of view...

...Orton would apply his standard to specific measures...

...Certain principles of organizations —specialized function and professional management—dominate the new and revolutionized society, be it capitalist, socialist, or communist...

...THE SOCIAL COSTS OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, by K. William Kapp...

...Factory legislation, minimum wage (with qualifications), and contributory social security are approved...

...It is work rather than legislation upon which the prosperity of the community depends...

...Prof...

...Only a shock to the moral sense of the community justifies coercion—which is the distinguishing feature of the state...

...But his own standard for the role of the state impresses the reviewer as close to the last word in abstraction...

...These books are commendable attempts to throw light on a subject that does and should perplex the thoughtful voter...

...However, Drucker's book also deals with the proper role of the state...

...Decision in each specific case by democratic process may involve some risks—especially if we must live with a.combination of welfare and warfare states—but the record to date presents no cause for hysteria...

...the time has come to recur to fundamentals...

...Peter Drucker's book, The New Society, cannot be said to be a study of the role of the state in any direct sense...