The question of the way in which an organization for collective security ought to deal with aggression, if and when it occurs, has been a matter of heated discussion ever since the founding of the League of Nations. To recall some of the ideas that were set forth theoretically in those endless controversies on the fundamentals of collective security may help us to appreciate and understand the problems which we have confronted in the recent practice of the United Nations and which no doubt will plague us in the future as well.
"Scarce Money," that is, rising interest rates and more stringent credit conditions, is being held responsible for the current decline of residential building in this country, and for the impossibility of developing public construction projects to the desired extent, especially roads and school buildings. Also the investment projects of small business appear to be discriminated against, at a time when larger concerns are able to increase their investment activities.
Modern science gives us the freedom to study the specific, but it deprives us of the ability to see life in its entirety. Human life is not compartmentalized. In dividing it into units we miss much that is significant. In Chinese culture we can discern a unity of spirit to which we find no parallel in Western culture. Chinese art, literature, philosophy, and religion are not confined each to its own circle of ideas, but are closely associated with one another.
It seems to me that Wilson's statement to his advisers on the ship as he proceeded to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 precisely expresses the pragmatic attitude. The Covenant of the League of Nations, he said, should be 'worked out in a general form...relying on experience to guide subsequent action.' And in regard to the Conference itself he asked the experts to 'Tell me what is right and I will fight for it; give me a guaranteed position.' The genuineness of this position of Wilson's will, I think, be disclosed by examining carefully the evolution of his attitude toward the League of Nations.
By Socialism I mean the historical movement of protest against economic disorder and social injustice in capitalism. A discussion of its role in the United States divides logically into two parts: in the first place, why there was not, and is not, in this country socialism in its typical form; and secondly, what then has become of the movement of protest, on the one hand, and of capitalism, on the other hand.
Review of book by Maurice S. Friedman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1955. x & 310 pp.
Review of book by Fred Cottrell. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1955. xix & 330 pp.
Review of book by Karl Mannheim. New York: Oxford University Press. 1956. ix & 253 pp.