WORLD CHALLENGE
Barr, Stringfellow
World Challenge A World in Revolution, by Sidney Lens. Praeger. 250 pp. $3.75. Reviewed by Stringfellow Barr I WISH I thought that John Foster Dulles would read this book. I wish that even Adlai...
...Unlike Lens, I am deeply convinced that such an Authority could exert pressure for social reform in feudal countries more efficiently than Washington could ever hope to exert it, and a great deal more efficiently than Washington would ever consent to exert it...
...Now the Asians, Africans, and South Americans want to industrialize...
...On the main issue, I see no need any longer for anybody to guess, not even Dulles...
...Like Justice Douglas, Lens is for backing social change...
...To help find it that way lies well within our "capabilities...
...It is better for us and for the rest of mankind to find it without resort to totalitarian political institutions...
...The non-Communist world that Lens has seen and that Dulles has so frequently flown over is partly capitalist and largely feudal, and Lens explains admirably why the capitalist portion has regularly propped up a decaying feudalism in the feudal, "colonial" portion—why, in short, Dulles can be counted on to put our money on the wrong pony almost everywhere...
...Two years ago, when I was driving a station wagon from India to the Mediterranean, via Afghanistan and Iran, I used to run into Asians who asked me if I knew Sidney Lens...
...But Lens and I are both, at this point, guessing...
...Like Kennan, Lens does not recognize the world Mr...
...and if we cannot think up more efficient ways to find the necessary capital for them than buying cannon-fodder for a defense of the free and feudal world against a Russia that is doing fine without fighting—well, then, they will have to get it from the Communist countries or get it the way Communists got it: by squeezing it out of domestic labor under a totalitarian regime...
...but he thinks the tensions inside UN today would thwart the program...
...We ought to incorporate in our proposal Lens' program of social reform: any World Development Authority set up by UN ought to make its grants, loans, and investments explicitly depend on the necessary social legislation...
...If the American voter and taxpayer knew to what extent the machine of civilization which Europe and America built was made possible by pillaging capital from all over the world, we might more gracefully return a bit to Asia and Africa and South America...
...For my own part, I would expect the tensions inside Washington to do even more damage...
...Heaven knows I dislike phrases like "capital accumulation," but I cannot see how we Americans will ever discover what the world revolution is about until we know why the "underdeveloped countries" are obsessed with this problem of capital accumulation—as obsessed as we are with communism...
...Lens documents these statements...
...for only social change can permit development, no matter how much "economic aid" Washington pours in...
...And goodby to both freedom and feudalism...
...Finally, I am convinced that such a step would electrify the "free world," especially the feudal part of it that Lens has so fruitfully explored...
...Now, after reading this book, I know why they asked in that way...
...In any case, he never hides behind the jargon of muddle-headed expertise...
...Since the war, Sidney Lens has been looking at that world, in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in South America...
...The way they asked made me want to meet Mr...
...We ought to make it clear that we are willing to do our share, but that we expect everybody to do his share, either in cash or kind...
...A really intelligent candidate in this year's elections would urge reversing our policy, telling the UN we Americans have carried the load long enough, and stating that we would go as far as other member states in financing a genuine UN effort to crack the problem...
...As one who has also been looking at it, in the same four continents, I should like to paraphrase George Kennan's recent dry observation about President Eisenhower's assessment of it, and record that I do recognize the world Lens portrays...
...Eisenhower is talking about...
...Lens' arguments are conclusive for pushing social reform in the feudal countries and for subordinating our military program to that effort...
...He points out, for example, why a country like Thailand can be basically rich and still lack that curious form of wealth known as capital...
...I wish that even Adlai Stevenson would read it...
...If they had, both groups would gag when they use our favorite postwar cliche—"the free world...
...I found myself parting company with him on only one guess: that the United Nations is a less good instrument for this international program than bilateral aid...
...For the sad fact is that neither Republicans nor Democrats have shown more than a hazy understanding of the world revolution this book analyzes...
...Lens shows complete awareness of why the UN method would be better, and cheaper, in theory...
...And I have yet to see a clearer, briefer, or more exicting account of the problem than Lens gives us in this book...
...And his narrative is so swift and his arguments so clear and incisive that I found myself forgiving some pretty clumsy writing and some pretty weird spelling and punctuation...
...The capital has got to be found...
...Europe and her sons overseas helped finance their industrial revolution by raiding the Americas for bullion, Africa for slave labor, and Asia for everything not too hot or too heavy to carry away...
...Ever since 1947 Washington has sabotaged annually the efforts of Asian and Latin-American countries to turn this job over to the United Nations...
Vol. 20 • May 1956 • No. 5
