The Flight from Reality 18: The Origins of Reform Methods; C. Carson

8 if ideas, aims, and purposes were all-important but how they were put into effect was of little or no account. It is likely that historians are reflecting their materials when they give this emphasis, for re formers have been concerned mainly with their central ideas, or obsessions, and with the great results that would occur once they were put into effect, not deigning to concern themselves overmuch with the vulgar business of mak ing them operational. Yet method is extremely im portant; for social reformers, it should be all-important, for their ideas are instruments for chang ing the existing state of things. If this could be done, it would have to be done by the methods adopted for the purpose, and by methods adapted to the purpose. The results achieved will be those that follow from the methods used.

1966 THE ORIGINS OF REFORM METHODS 9 The consequences of actions are determined by the methods rather than by the intent, purpose, de sire, will, wish, hope, or faith of those who act. Dreams, hopes, vi sions, ideas, purposes, and desires may move a man to act; but, how ever noble his purpose, however much enthusiasm he brings to the matter, however much thought he may have given to the idea that something ought to be done, his actions will still be only as effec tive as the methods he adopts for achieving his end. The Theory in Practice It may well be that many re formers and revolutionists have believed their aims would be achieved by such things as the in evitable working out of the inher ent processes of history, by the victory of some ideology in the contest of ideas, by men of good will when they have in their hands the instruments of government, by the withering away of govern ment, by a politically conscious elite acting for the "people" or the "proletariat," by a return to na ture, or by the enfranchisement of whole adult populations. But when revolutionists and reformers have actually come to power, they have come face to face with the prob lem of m.ethod which they had hitherto evaded. That is, how is the sought-after social reconstruction to be brought about? How is an ideology to be turned into actu ality? How does one go about, for example, realizing the "principle,"

"from each according to his abil ity, to each according to his need"? How can the ability of a man be determined? It cannot be with any exactitude, but if it could, it would only pose a new problem. How can a man be in duced to perform according to his ability? If he does not, what is to be done? In general, either the rewards or punishments will have to be increased. But, according to the Marxian formulation, the re wards are not to be apportioned in terms of performance. That means that the punishment will have to be increased, an excellent device for tyranny but not one calculated to get from each accord ing to his ability. The latter part of the famous formulation poses just as great practical difficulties as the first. What are the needs of a person? Who is to determine them? If they could be deter mined, how would they be met? By what instrumentalities would the goods be gathered and handed out to the needy? What assurance would there be that this would be done "justly"?

Nearer home, note these pro nouncements by Theodore Roose velt in his acceptance speech fol lowing his nomination by the 10 THE FREEMAN Progressive party in 1912. "Our aim is to promote prosperity, and then see to its proper division .... We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wageworkers and reasonable prices for the con sumers." What are "good wages" for workingmen? What are "rea sonable prices" for consumer goods? Even if these questions could be answered, other than in the marketplace, how could gov ernment go about securing these ends? Who would decide what are "reasonable" prices? How would he go about administering them? By what instrumentalities would such controls be effected? What institutions are appropriate to such regulation? Scant Attention to Methods In the nineteenth century, re formers and revolutionaries usu ally talked in the broadest gener alities. They favored the expropria tion of the expropriators, a single tax upon the unearned increment or social surplus, government own ership of the means of production, or government ownership of public utilities. How would property be taken over? Who would manage it? Who would determine what should be produced? Who would determine what prices should be paid for goods? How would these things be determined? Americans did not usually talk the language of revolution, not if they expect.ed to be elected to office; but they, too, often talked vaguely about how their ends were to be achieved and glowingly about the ends.

This lack of attention to meth ods has often become apparent when socialists have come to poli t ical power. In Soviet Russia, fol lowing the Bolshevik seizure of power, chaos reigned, particularly from 1917 to 1921. The commu nists were rather adept at the de struction of the existing order, at murder, at regicide, at expropria tion; but they knew almost. noth ing about building and producing. Force is, after all, much better suited to destruction than to con struction. Moreover, ideologues often have only the foggiest of no tions about how the world's work gets done. But the important point here is that the socialists in Rus sia had not devised methods, if such could be devised, for accom plishing their aims. Almost thirty years later, when the Labor party finally came to power with a full commitment to the "nationaliza tion" of major industries in Eng land, they still had only the va guest of ideas as to how this could be accomplished.

That is not to say that methods of reform have not been adopted. Even communist revolutions have become somewhat stylized. Fa1966 THE ORIGINS OF REFORM METHODS 11 bians, or gradualists, have adopted methods, too, and these have tended to be universalized. In the United States, where the socialist tendency has been gradual, meth ods have been adopted for each reformist move, and the move has been made by and with the method adopted. This reflects the legalis tic approach to socialism .. In other words, insofar as reform has been undertaken within the existing framework, and insofar as the ex isting framework requires gov ernment by law, reforms have been given a semblance of lawfulness. This has meant, to some· consider able extent, that the methods of reform have been adopted prior to or concurrent with the introduc tion of the reforms themselves. This was necessary to give the re forms the appearance of legality.

Reversion to the Past The central question is: Where did these methods come from? American reformers have usually claimed that their reforms were new, unique, and innovative, that they were adopted to deal with new and unique conditions. The old, the traditional, the custom ary, was held to be out of date, no longer appropriate to these mod ern times. The new reform meth ods were progressive, as opposed to the outmoded methods to be re placed. There has been much talk of bold, new social planning. Lester Frank Ward and John Dewey wrote confidently about "social in vention." The pragmatic approach, according to the lore of the con temporary orthodoxy, is one of continual innovation, testing, and adjustment as to methods. Such claims are interesting, but the only reality to which they refer is the mythology of reform from which the rhetoric emanates. The methods of the reformers are not new creations; they are usually variations upon methods that have a considerable antiquity. The meth ods of reform have been obtained by the process of abstraction of older or contempora.ry methods, the abstraction of them from the context in which they existed, and the application of them to different purposes. Many of them have long histories and have been subjected to a variety of uses. Let us examine some of the sources of reform methods, and in so doing look at some of the methods themselves.

Reform in America, and else where, has proceeded by dealing with the population as if it were divided into classes. To put it another way, reforms have usually been aimed at, or provided for, peo ple in certain groups; and these groups are often thought of as composing classes. For example, it has been common to refer to the business class, the working class, 12 THE FREEMAN March the professional class, the white collar class, and so on. In practice, reformers have extended this idea considerably; there are many other classes or sub-classes: farm ers, women, the aged, teenagers, Negroes, minority groups, and veterans. Americans have always spoken of classes; the word was a part of the English language which they inherited. It is a word which had rather precise meaning in the Middle Ages in Europe, and had rather definite descriptive meaning in many European coun tries down to the twentieth cen tury. It referred to divisions with in society which were established at law or were protected by law, to a system in which one was born into a particular class and might be expected to remain in that class for the whole of his life. A class system, in short, is a system in which certain groups are em powered and/or disabled by legal prescription, and the condition has usually been hereditary, though it need not be.

Dividing Americans into Classes Now, in this sense, America has hardly had classes at all. After the adoption of the Constitution, the only definite class was tha t made up of Negro slaves. After the abolition of slavery, there were no classes in America, though Ne groes suffered some disabilities by law, and women may have, also, in some places. Americans still re ferred to upper, middle, and lower classes; but these were vague classifications which one might ap ply according to his predilections. Into the breach came sociologists with their baneful penchant for "thingifying" abstractions. To be more specific, there came Karl Marx and assorted hosts of so cialists and reformers. Marx con cocted a theory of universal his tory in terms of class struggle. His idea of class was probably drawn from earlier history, but he applied the abstraction of it to the industrialization going on around him. The bourgeoisie and proletariat were for him classes as rigid as any that had ever ex isted. This conception, or, rather, misconception, of class was spread by socialists in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Many American intellectuals came to hold this conception also.

According to the rhetoric of re formers, "labor" was sinking into a permanent state of dependence, "farmers" being reduced to the perpetual state of sharecropping, Negroes bound over to a new ser vility, and small businessmen squeezed out. "Big business" was often the villain of the piece. The point here is that the population was divided into classes. This di vision provided reformers with 1966 THE ORIGINS OF REFORM METHODS 13 one of their methods, the method of using government to disable certain "classes" and to empower others. Anyone familiar with the reforms of the last fifty years or so should recognize the method as it has been employed: regulate and control "business," particu larly big business, subsidize farm ers, and use the power of govern ment to support labor unioniza tion, for example. Government-like Institutions Other general methods of re form were abstracted from the system of government in the United States. One of the most prominent of these abstractions is that of the "democratic process,"

that is, of voting, majority rule, and representation, and its broad application to all sorts of under takings. For example, the meth ods drawn from government have been generally applied to union organization and activity. There are votes as to whether the work ers in a craft or plant shall be represen ted by a union, votes on whether to strike, whether to ac cept the terms of contracts. The decision of the majority is usually binding upon all. Representatives of the workers negotiate with companies; and these, too, are chosen by the vote of the workers. These are clearly methods ab stracted from the American governmental framework. This partic ular method has become a method of reform because the United States government has long since thrown its weight behind these processes, and undertakes to guar antee that they will be faithfully applied. Thus, methods which have an important and legitimate role in government are applied to a supposedly nongovernmental mat ter.

Federalism, too, has been instru mented to reform purposes. In the American system of government, as conceived, local governments performed most governmental functions, local initiative was es sential to political action, and lo cal customs and traditions deter mined the character of action tak en. Some reforms have been un dertaken at the local level, but over the years the tendency has been to have them initiated, financed, and administered by the central governmen t. Local governmen ts have been used increasingly as ad ministrative units and as a frame work within which to impose and control governmental programs by the central government. An exam ple of this would be the welfare program, that· is, the program of old-age assistance, aid to depen dent children, and aid to the dis abled. Moneys are provided by both the United States govern ment and the state government in14 THE FREEMAN Ma,rch volved. The program is adminis tered at the county level; but it is administered according to pre scriptions laid down by the cen tral government, in the first place, and, within that, according to sta te law and procedure. Thus, the county is reduced, in this and many other instances, to an ad ministrative unit. The federal sys tem of government becomes an in strument for reformers by revers ing the direction of the flow of authority; it becomes one of the methods for reform.

The Perversion of Voluntarism Many of the methods of gov ernmental reform have been ab stracted from practices, proce dures, and services of voluntary or ganizations. For example, cases of need and hardship were generally looked after and provided for in the nineteenth century by volun tary charitable organizations. In rural areas and small communi ties, permanent organizations might not exist; each case would be handled by relatives, neighbors, and churches as it arose. But in cities, more nearly permanent charitable organizations were formed and maintained. Many services provided by such organi zations were eventually taken over and provided by governments. It would make an interesting and in formative study to examine into the question of how many ser vices now provided by govern ments were originated and initial ly provided by private industry, individuals, and voluntary groups.

My guess is that it would include almost all of them. Many roads and bridges were built and oper ated by private companies in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century, though they were often chartered monop olies, in keeping with the mer cantile mode of operation. Educa tion was generally provided dur ing the same period by voluntary means. Voluntary associations within professions, such as the legal and medical, have maintained standards and "policed" them selves. Industries had inspectors before government provided them. Insurance was a private func tion long before government got into the business. There were pri vate savings banks before the United States government set up Postal Savings in 1910. Hospitals were built and maintained by phy sicians, churches, and voluntary organizations. Volunteer fire de partments even preceded city fire departments. Housing for the poor was provided by private enter prise long before "public housing"

measures were undertaken. Even the tenement, which is surely the model for government-financed housing in large cities, was ini1966 THE ORIGINS OF REFORM METHODS 15 tially built by private initiative. It was, after all, the apartment house in times when capital, technology, and entrepreneurship had not made the labor of many workers sufficiently remunerative to afford better. The chances are good that "Duncan Hines ate here" before state inspectors did generally, and his is still considered the more im portant recommendation. In per spective, it looks as if the vaunted "social invention" of reformers has been restricted largely to in venting arguments why govern ment should perform services that were already being performed. Business-like Bureaucracy Not only have many of the ser vices now performed by govern ments been taken over from the individuals and voluntary groups who originated and maintained them, but administrative organiza tion and procedure was taken over, too. Boards of trustees, boards of directors, boards of dea cons, committees, and boards of education - the control bodies of private organizations - often have been perpetuated by governments.

When a state takes over a private college, for example, it usually continues the same mode of ad ministrative control, having a president 'or chancellor and what ever its board of control happens to be called. It will, of course, be brought under the sway of the government, in one way or an other. The various "authorities" by which governments engage in business activities, as, for ex ample, the Tennessee Valley Au thority, will have some figure as head who will likely be called chairman, patterned after the chairman of the board of directors of a private corporation, and a board or commission which itself appears to have been abstracted from corporation organization. Some methods of doing things have had a long and checkered career. Take, for example, the re cording of births, marriages, and deaths. A few hundred years ago such records were ke'pt by churches. In nineteenth century America, following the change in the political position of churches, many families kept such records in the family Bible. Counties took over the function, and began to require that reports be made to them of these affairs, authoriza tions be got from them in some cases, and certificates began to be issued commonly. The Federal cen sus, authorized as a population count for the purposes of appor tionment of electors and represen tative among the states, began to collect and contain more and more information about the citizenry,.

Now, the information which gov ernments collect through these and 16 THE FREEMAN March other devices is being made into an instrument for the advance ment of reform by way of govern mental planning based upon the projection of figures drawn from the information. Feudal Practices Revived A goodly number of the meth ods of reform are adapted from other eras. An example of this is the use of the power of eminent domain to acquire property for reform uses. The power of eminent domain is the power to take pri vate property for public use by government. Such a power was assumed to be appropriate to gov ernment at the time of the adoption of state constitutions and the United States Constitution, for pro vision was made for its exercise. The theoretical justification then was that it derived from the sov ereignty of a government. The idea of sovereignty was carefully for mulated in the sixteenth century, was drawn from the powers of the monarch, and served to buttress the thrust of kings to absolute power in the seventeenth and eigh teenth centuries. But the powers of the monarch over the land of the realm go back to the Middle Ages and the feudal system, when the patents or rights to land belonged to and stemmed from the king. It is somewhat a matter of choice as to whether one traces the power of eminent domain to feudalism or to divine right monarchy. The use of the term "eminent domain"

appears to be peculiarly American, but the power is not. For most of American history, the power was used only to a. limited degree, and some limitations upon it were em bedded in constitutions. However, in recent years it has tended to be used as an open sesame for gov ernmental appropriation of land for reform purposes. This is par ticular ly glaring in the case of ur ban renewal projects, but its use is not restricted to this arena. Other practices can be traced back to the Middle Ages, at least. The "just price" is a Medieval conception and practice which has been used in price controls. Maxi mum wages were set by the Eng lish government as early as the fourteenth century, in connection with the Black Death. The setting aside of lands as forests and parks has its model in the Medieval "commons" and the king's for ests. Mercantilism Refurns The most fecund historical source for commercial regulation and control is mercantilism, which reached its earlier apogee in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen turies. The protective tariff was the classic mercantile device for regulating and inhibiting trade 1966 THE ORIGINS OF REFORM METHODS 17 among the peoples of various na tions. Monarchs also issued pat ents and charters which gave to individuals and companies monop olies of trade. Regulations upon the export of precious metals were adopted. Monarchs inflated the currency, as governments have done from time immemorial, large ly by reducing the metal content of coins supposed to have a cer tain and fixed value. Practices to promote the "economic self-suffi ciency" of nations were used with in the mercantile framework. Sub sidies and bounties were paid for the production and manufacture of certain goods. Sumptuary laws were passed to discourage or pro hibit the consumption of certain goods.

Virtually all of these mercantile practices have been revived within the last century. Modern reform ers have made some alterations in them, however. They are more apt to set minimum wages than maxi mum wages. They call their "just price" a "fair price." Mercantilist governments usually subsidized the growing of scarce items, while modern reformers tend to subsi dize the production of goods in surplus. However, the recently au thorized reduction of the silver content in American coins differs not at all from the ancient prac tice. Other reform methods ha ve been borrowed from the Europe of more recent times. Many Ameri can intellectuals have been, of course, enamored of things Euro pean. For some of them, it has been enough recommendation of a practice to declare only that it is what is done in Europe. If Euro pean countries have government financed radio and television sta tions, it is taken to be a proper way to do things. If European countries subsidize the arts and maintain theaters and concert halls, it is presumed to be an en lightened undertaking. Be that as it may, reformers have learned some of their methods from the Europeans. England undertook to impose an income tax in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Imperial Germany set up welfare programs in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and England got into the welfare business just before World War 1. Reforms at tempted in England are quite often copied by American reform ers, without making royalty pay ments either. War a Prolific Incubator of Reform Methods But perhaps the most prolific womb of methods has been war; it has been a veritable incubator of reform methods. Reformers have long been fascinated by the "accomplishments" of a country 18 THE FREEMAN March at war. They have noted the full employment, the rise in wages, the immense production, the rise in farm prices, and, altogether, the aura of prosperity. There are those who suppose that war does indeed bring prosperity. A con siderable myth was propagated by Charles A. Beard and others that the great industrial surge in the latter part of the nineteenth cen tury was a product to a large ex tent of the Civil War. No one has ever explained how the great waste and destruction of war could pro duce prosperity, or why construc tion is the product of destruction.

Such history is on a par with a history that would claim that be cause roosters crow before the sun comes up that their crowing causes the sun to rise. Still, these myths have attracted a large fol lowing. Reformers have abstrac ted methods used in wartime from their context and applied them in peacetime .. One history, in deal ing with the origins of the New Deal, contains these remarks: "The power which the federal gov ernment could exert over the econ omy had been amply demonstrated by the War Industries Board and other wartime agencies in 1917 and 1918. Roosevelt and a number of his advisors, including George N. Peek, H ugh Johnson, and Ber nard Baruch, seem to have been greatly influenced by their experiences in economic planning during World War 1."1 Wartime Inflation This does not begin, however, to tell the impact of war upon re form. Perhaps the most momen tous abstraction from war has been the inflationary device. Now inflation - that is, the increase of of the amount of currency in cir culation - has not been restricted to war. But in the United States the government inflated most ex tensively during wars until well into the twentieth century, if not to the present. This has been true because those in power have not seen fit - have not thought it pol itic - to finance the wars by the ordinary route of taxation. They have, instead, employed surrepti tious tax measures such as infla tion. The first time that this meas ure attracted the attention of re formers to any extent was after the Civil War. The government had issued a large number of greenbacks during the war. It later began to retire them from circulation, which was a respon sible fiscal undertaking. Nonethe less, it drew the fire of reformers.

A political party called the Green back party was even organized. 1 Gilbert C. Fite and Jim E. Reese, An Economic HiBtory of the United States (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959), p. 590.

1966 THE ORIGINS OF REFORM METHODS 19 This particular movement died out but not the desire to inflate. The silverite movement of the latter part of the century was an exten sion of the inflation· movement. During World War I the govern ment had a much more potent mechanism for inflation - the Fed eral Reserve Banks. The extensive use of this system to facilitate government financing during World War I was continued after ward, and this system became an important auxiliary of the Treas ury and for manipulating the cur rency supply. Large-Scale Government Planning During World War I, the first concerted attempt in American history was made to coordinate, regulate, and direct the economy by the government to a definite end. Economic planning was car ried out on a large scale. The War Industries Board, under the guid ance of Bernard Baruch, was even tually given powers to establish priorities for all types of mater ials for war use, and to convert old facilities for manufacturing from their former use and to cause new facilities to be brought into being. Baruch had a life-and-death power over manufacturing and could, through the threat of the denial of materials, bring a busi ness into line. An Advisory Food Committee, with Herbert Hoover as Food Commissioner, was set up. It was soon given great pow ers over certain kinds of agricul tural activities. Food processors had to be licensed by the govern ment. The act granting these pow ers prohibited the use of foodstuffs for making alcoholic beverages; thus began the "great experiment"

in national prohibition. The price of wheat was set by the govern ment, and a corporation was set up to achieve this end. A War Trade Board was authorized and given power to regulate exports and imports. An Emergency Fleet Corporation was organized with power to buy, lease, build, and op erate ships. The model for this was the private corporation, but the government was going into business. The first government dam on the Tennessee River was built during and after World War 1. A War Labor Board was set up to mediate labor disputes, the first time the government became of ficially involved in these matters. The government could manipulate wages by the wages it paid in gov ernment-owned war plants. "Wil son used this power to make an informal but firm bargain with labor. He undertook to establish the principle of union recognition in government plants and to secure wage increases as rapidly as prices rose. In return, he extracted a no strike pledge from organized la20 THE FREEMAN March hor in basic industry for the dura tion of the war."2 This experience was abstracted and much of it applied to reform ist ends. The crisis motif has been taken from its war context and applied to depression conditions, for instance. Reformers have come to talk about wars on poverty, on death, and so forth. But the meth ods used during World War I have been specifically applied to peacetime uses also. The concen tra tion of powers in the hands of the President, done during war, has now become a common mode of operation by government. The creation of all sorts of boards and commissions has become standard operating procedure. The War In dustries Board served as a model, of sorts, for the National Recov ery Administration. The costs of the agricultural programs in the early New Deal were to be paid by a tax on food processers, a tac tic obviously drawn from the meth od of control during World War I. The National Labor Relations Board was modeled after the War Labor Board. A dam built because of the exigencies of war became the first of a large number to be built upon the Tennessee River by the government. The list is not 2 George H. Mayer and Walter O. For ster, The United States and the Twenti eth Century (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), p. 244.

complete, but it should be sug gestive. Means and Ends On the face of it, all of this may not appear to matter much. After all, does it make any difference whether reformers are original, in some kind of "creative" sense, or not? Is it not appropriate to use the methods with which one is familiar, or which may be learned from history, for the accomplish ment of new ends? Is this not how everyone operates, more or less? Perhaps so, but it must be kept in mind that it is the reformers who have insisted upon the uniqueness of the times and upon the new and experimental character of what they were doing. If it were not new and different, it would not be "progressive." Moreover, if the methods had been tried before, there would be historical evidence as to their efficacy. As to the validity of the proc ess of abstraction employed in this way, it should be kept in mind that this depends upon the identi ty of the nature of the things to he dealt with. It may be appro priate to adapt a method used in one undertaking to use in another, if the undertakings are similar in kind. For example, if a corpora tion is an effective business or ganization for manufacturing bolts, it is reasonable to suppose 1966 THE ORIGINS OF REFORM METHODS 21 that it will be equally efficient in organizing for the manufacture of nuts. The assembly line method for manufacturing buggies may be abstracted from this undertaking and applied to the manufacture of automobiles. But the assembly line cannot be utilized to produce cus tom-made automobiles. They may be called custom-made, but they will be uniform because products of an assembly line must be, or, rather, they must be if the meth od is to be effectively used.

The Method Affects the Result Weare back now to the original point of departure in this article. The methods employed determine the results produced. Aim and pur pose have bearing upon the matter only if they have determined the methods to be used. To be more specific, feudal methods produce nea-feudalism when they are ap plied. Mercantile methods produce mercantilism. The reason for this c~n be readily understood. When government deals with groups within a population as if they were a c~ass, it creates a new class sys tem. In short, if it grants privi leges or immunities to some ele ment of the population, empowers or disables it, it has brought into being a class. When wartime meas ures are applied to civil purposes, the measures· retain their warlike character. War mobilization methods are suited, if to anything, to the augmentation of governmental power for the destruction of an enemy. When these methods are used for civil purposes, if they could be, their character is un altered. Their use still results in the augmentation of governmental power, and such power remains, in the main, destructive. There is no real enemy - of flesh and blood, with weapons and war plans - that can be designated by the name, "poverty," against which to use this power. There are only people and goods, and such power as is exercised will be exercised against these, not against some abstrac tion. This should have been clear when the New Deal's war on pov erty was conducted; it was con ducted initially by plowing up crops and shooting animals. But, then, war is war, and its methods are the methods of destruction.

However subtlymethods abstracted from war may be applied to the domestic situation, they continue to be wars on person and property: whether they be wars on savings by inflation, wars upon possessions by taxation and confiscation, wars upon human relationships by the prescription of behavior, or wars upon production by way of crop limitations. Methods abstracted from other kinds of activities are equally inap propriate to reform by the use of 22 THE FREEMAN March governmental power, though they may not always be so devastating in their consequences when ap plied. The use of force or the threa t of force by labor unions is nonetheless a use of compulsion an assumption of pseudo-govern mental powers - regardless of whether the principle of majority rule has been applied or not. When governments provide welfare for the needy, it ceases to be charity, even though the same organization for the provision of the service be ada pted from pri vate and chari ta ble societies. The adoption of the forms of business organization by governmental bodies does not re sult in maintaining responsibility along the lines that it was estab lished in private companies. A gov ernment board is just not respon sible for what it does in the way that the board of directors of a private corporation is. When the power of eminent domain is joined to presidential power, or to that of somebody under the President, it takes on its old ,character of ab solutism, embedded in the method all along.

We are not to suppose that re formers are aware of the grotesque incongruities that exist between their professed aims and the meth ods they use. It is unlikely that many of them are aware of the origins of the methods they em ploy. They have a rhetoric which hides them from such recognition. They talk in terms of bold, new ex periments, of breakthroughs and innovation, of pragmatic testing; but theirs are the age-old methods of feudalism,of absolutism, of mercantilism, of war, and of vol untary methods joined to political power. The flight from reality is in the mind; in the real world the results of actions follow from the methods used. + T he next article in this series will concern tiThe Flight from Economics."