PROBLEMS OF DEMOCRACY AT HOME
Barnes, Harry Elmer
Problems Of Democracy At Home THE THEORY OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY, by Paul M. Sweezy. Oxford University Press. $4. AN ECONOMIC PROGRAM FOR A LIVING DEMOCRACY, by Irving H. Flamm. Liveright....
...Most of our current enthusiasts for democracy, at least those that hit the public prints and the radio, are seeking for it on planetary or astrophysical scale...
...Flamm's book is an earnest attempt to work out an economic system which will end the worst abuses and defects of capitalism, introduce all needed public ownership and regulation, assure plenty, and preserve democracy...
...He sees no reason for an active clash between these systems unless the imperialists decide to wage a crusade to overthrow socialism, an adventure not likely to succeed...
...Harper...
...Reviewed by Harry Elmer Barnes IN ANY WAR for a Free World and for Four Freedoms, we must reckon with Marxist doctrine and its relation to democracy and imperialism...
...Johnson's book the best accumulation and exposition of the facts yet put between two covers...
...The world would then be divided into an imperialist system based on North America and dominated by the United States, and a world socialist system, in which the leading power would be Soviet Russia...
...Our justifiable agitation concerning Hitler's treatment of the Jews would ring a little more true and exude a greater aroma of integrity if we gave a little more attention to our own racial fantasies and oppressions...
...He disclaims any esoteric powers or purposes and laconically observes that what "Marx really meant" is presumably what he said...
...He maintains that Marx was right in holding that it is unlikely that capitalism can be supplanted by socialism through the peaceful and constitutional methods of democratic society...
...The book makes it clear that our war for democracy and multiple freedoms will be besmirched and suspect so long as our current attitudes and practices relative to the Negro are allowed to continue...
...Arthur E. Morgan, famed as a socially-minded engineer, originator of the Antioch Plan in higher education, and first chairman of the TVA, tackles the problem of assuring democracy at the other end of the scale, namely, in the local community...
...if all of them are tragic, some are amusing as well...
...Those interested in this timely subject* will find Prof...
...Sweezy holds that it is likely that all of Continental Europe and most of Asia will go over to socialism, and he doubts if active Anglo-American intervention against this trend could succeed...
...The general technique that he recommends is a broad social application of the plan followed in corporate reorganization, designed to reconcile corporate interests in fairness to all parties concerned...
...The book would repay prayerful study by capitalists and friends of democracy, for it presents a realistic and courageous program of economic and social reorganization...
...If Henry Wallace and the Free World boys are ever inclined to return to earth from their astral wanderings, they would find this book an admirable landing place...
...While he calls this a Wall Street plan, the Wall Street crowd would fall into a faint at such proposals as his "Social Utility Act," which would in-voivF^not only more state capitalism than the New Deal ever dreamed of but the nationalization of land and improvements thereon as well...
...He upholds Marxism as against Revisionism and contends for its greater validity...
...Charles Horton Cooley used to insist that the mainsprings of democracy are to be found in the primary groups of society—family, playgroup, neighborhood, etc...
...Much is being said and written today about discrimination against Negroes in industry, the professions, military service, and society...
...It treats nearly every form of discrimination—in the national emergency and war industries, in the armed forces, in industry, professional life, public service, housing, education, civil liberties, and the like...
...Now that our mechanical civilization and urban life have undermined these, we must seek substitutes to give democracy vitality and realism...
...Harper...
...It is impressive not only for its comprehensive picture of the extent of discrimination against the Negro, but also for its unusual presentation of the great contrasts, variations, divergencies, and contradictions in interracial attitudes and practices throughout our country...
...THE SMALL COMMUNITY: FOUNDATION OF DEMOCRATIC LIFE, by Arthur E. Morgan...
...Sweezy's book is one of the most competent expositions and sympathetic critiques of Marxism in the English or any other language...
...In the event of a military defeat of Nazi Germany, Dr...
...Morgan finds this new foundation of democracy in the small communities of the nation, and he gives us illuminating suggestions as to how such communities can be, and are being, organized and directed so as to encourage democratic attitudes and practices...
...Soviet Russia is likely to dominate a larger portion of the globe than any other power after the War, and while Russia is not orthodoxly Marxian it is loyal to the general idea and as close to a Marxian state as any revolutionary country is likely to be for a long time to come...
...3.50...
...PATTERNS OF NEGRO SEGREGATION, by Charles S. Johnson...
Vol. 7 • December 1943 • No. 52
