INTERNATIONAL PLANNING FOR FREEDOM[*]
Perhaps we are on the eve of what some time will be called the 'Planning Revolution', comparable with the 'Industrial Revolution'. Planning is becoming almost universal: planning as a war measure, planning as economists' anti-slump medicine, planning as a pleasure for architects and planning as a characteristic of the new pattern of our society.
The men responsible for the war effort, irrespective of their political opinions, found the traditional market insufficient in dealing with the war and therefore they organized a comprehensive control of production and consumption not only on a national but also on an international scale.
Many ask why should this pattern of organisation be of use for war and not for peace too? In war, social engineers estimate the efficiency of the whole organization with regard to the successes of the fighting forces, the endurance of the civilians and a final victory. In peace time, we have no common goal as clear as this. One could ask to what extent comprehensive planning would improve the standard of living, a goal of which not only the Atlantic Charter but also other declarations speak explicitly.
Some people think that we should be in a position to compare the different possible changes of our life in such a future society, based on planning, with, as it were, a comprehensive standard, composed of the standards which may be elaborated by the experts in the single fields.
We shall see that arguing in terms of the one best standard can hardly be maintained, and in addition, that one cannot compute the various standards elaborated by various experts: technicians stress the importance of technical efficiency as a matter of course, whereas industrial engineers are interested in the assembling of machines and workers, and in the increase of the efficiency of labour; biologists and physicians sometimes propose certain standards of health, architects standards for buildings. But the computation of all these results is not sufficient because the elements in question are interrelated with one another, and also what remains is not covered by this computation at all, e.g. the "glorious privilege of being independent".
Personal independence and rigid order, voluntary cooperation and superimposed regulations, democracy and one-party system must not only be regarded as 'measures' in accordance with which the standard of living may rise or fall, but also as elements of this standard of living, perhaps competing with technical efficiency.
Social engineers may realize that and much more, e.g., that all homely comfort relates to certain traditional customs and environments and that joy sometimes might depend solely on the fact that something should not be changed according to certain technical and architectural standards. How much 'discomfort' is liked because it is 'ours'. And yet other people like changes and adventure.
That sets a particular goal for social engineers, to find out to what extent new institutions and measures of a planning programme are, as it were, efficient in producing Happiness.
1. Pursit of Happiness
The American Declaration of Independence speaks of 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness' as of 'inalienable rights'. I do not know how we may interpret the expression 'inalienable rights' in an empiricist way, but the question why certain institutions are suitable to make men happier is one for empiricism.
Slavery was not abolished by the publication of the declaration and it is not even normal to investigate scientifically to what extent the American constitution pursued happiness more than other constitutions. This lack may be explained by the fact that scientific analysis concentrates more on testing results which may be counted by 'money reckoning' or at least by household bookkeeping than in describing food and shelter together with friendship and freedom as items of 'happiness conditions'. I see no reason why we should make any distinction between the different kinds of pleasure and pain, they all go to form man's whole happiness.
The problems arising from this kind of questioning are more or less the same at all levels of research, whether we analyze international or local 'happiness conditions'. Let us shortly discuss some of the problems and assume we are interested in the 'efficiency' of the management in two factories of the same type and size. The output of the one is greater per man-hour than that of the other, but it might happen that the one factory uses more technicians and skilled workers than the other. We cannot express the working hours of a technician or skilled worker as multiples of the working hours of unskilled workers. We know that in our times the former get higher wages, but that does not settle the question whether these higher wages are proportional to something that all these working hours have in common, or not. In a competitive society the difference depends essentially upon the market but in a society based on planning the difference is a conventional one; it could e.g. be decided by the community that the more pleasant the work the lower the wages should be, to equalize 'happiness conditions'.
Let us assume the types of workmen employed are identical, but in the former factory there are more accidents per man-hour, than in the latter. Even people who think they can solve the former difficulty will admit that they have no measure for comparing the plus of accidents with the plus of steel production.
And if the number of accidents were the same, the question would still remain, whether in the former factory, the workmen are being more bullied and have to bear more unpleasant piece work than in the latter. The traditional 'money reckoning' and its derivates do not account in the balance sheets for accidents nor for bullying. The figures of the accidents perhaps appear in the country's statistical abstracts, the figures of being bullied do not appear at all.
What can be done by social engineers? They are in a position to draw a picture of the various features of both factories. The one factory may present a long row of steel, a long row of accidents, dark grey might represent much bullying, and so on; the second 'silhouette' might perhaps be composed of a shorter row of steel, a shorter row of accidents and a lighter grey may indicate less bullying. In a similar way we may depict 'happiness conditions' of various professions including food, shelter, working hours, accidents, bullying, civil liberty, and many more. We see at a glance that e.g. the usual standard-of-living research, though very useful, does not tell the whole story of human happiness in which social engineers are interested.
These 'silhouettes' of 'happiness conditions' are of particular use when we want to compare the efficiency in happiness of the social patterns o various countries, since often a change in man's food and shelter is of less importance than a change in his state of being bullied or humiliated by certain institutions - man does not live by bread alone.
I see no reason, why we should distinguish what, in this context, is often called 'economic' and 'non-economic' items. We should drop these terms together with the discussions based on them, and also terms such as 'cost', 'capital' etc., in our comprehensive research on 'happiness conditions'. It is not sufficient to introduce expressions such as 'real capital' because in the 'reckoning in kind', as explained here, we do not find even counterparts to these terms of the traditional 'money reckoning'.
We shall find more difficulties in comparing 'happiness conditions'of two countries than in comparing 'happiness conditions' in the same country at different times or the 'happiness condition' resulting from two or more plans under discussion. We have no unit for measuring the various items and for thus computing them and forming one characterising number. No 'value reckoning' helps us here and moreover 'mathematical economics' would lead us astray.
It was a century ago in England that some unhappiness created by industrial revolution was described by public investigators; representatives of all groups were interested in these studies (very differently interpreted), even people who were not prepared to make any personal sacrifice for a reduction of these pains. Perhaps our era will investigate both happiness and unhappiness which will prove to be related to planning.
The Industrial Revolution found its theorists in economists and sociologists of the 18th century; many of them predicted increasing political freedom and the increasing productive capacity of all industries - the tenor of their writing sometimes recalled, as it were, Aristotle's saying that neither the architects would need servants, nor the masters slaves, if the shuttle wove of itself. But they did not anticipate the increasing pauperization in the period to come, nor the (just then) increasing working hours (which were shortened again much later) nor the periodic bankruptcies and unemployment, nor all the intentional restrictions put upon production. In the daily discussions of planning, this situation is often insufficiently put into the account, and the salvage problem is being much analyzed with regard to the future time of peace; but our pre-war peacetime trouble was how to put the unemployed, the unused natural resources and machines, to work, how to avoid the intentional destruction of cattle, vegetables, coffee, milk, oil, etc., and how to make possible the erection of settlements, hospitals and schools, when workmen, wood and clay waited to be used.
When these pains and sorrows increased, more and more social engineers made our profit system with its competition responsible for them. But just the most comprehensive critics, e.g., Marx and Engels, concentrated on a detailed analysis of capitalist society, the decline of which they predicted together with the arrival of a society of the people based on planning; but they avoided a comprehensive analysis of such a future and opposed their 'scientific socialism' to what they called 'unscientific utopianism', treating the analysis of the patterns of imagined societies of the future like the making of projects (Cabet and others); thus they blocked the path to a broader development of social engineering.
Other groups of social scientists were no longer inclined to make such comparative studies of possible social orders by creating a kind of 'scientific utopianism'; Pareto, e.g., regarded the recurrence of 'economic crises' as nothing but a "particular case of the great law of rhythm that prevails in all social phenomena." Only a few authors of the 19th century, such as Popper-Lynkeus, dealt seriously with the problems of a 'planned economy', but even they did not analyze the whole field of happiness, and restricted themselves to the analysis of the planning of certain principal elements of our production. The Russians, whose leaders had based their political actions on a critical analysis of capitalist society with its wars and rebellions, started their building of a new society without any comprehensive theory of planning. Therefore we have to build up this part of social engineering in a period in which many groups of people want to make immediate decisions in matters of planning.
Such decisions are based in the end on common-sense arguments, since we cannot find index numbers of 'happiness conditions' for scientific comparison. But the decisions are different when made without comprehensive knowledge, or when made after hearing all the experts. 'Brain trusts' of first-class scientists will therefore play an essential, nay fundamental, role by bringing forth whole teams of possible well-analyzed patterns from which, finally, one will be selected by the nation or by regional groups after much discussion and many changes.
In what is called the 'technocratic' movement and in similar movements there often exists a tendency, as it were, scientifically to find the one best solution with its 'optimum happiness', with its 'optimum population', with its 'optimum health', with its 'optimum working week', with its 'optimum productivity' or something else of this kind. From this argument sometimes arises the tendency to ask for a particular authority which should be exercised by technicians and other experts in selecting 'big plans'.
Such decisions of experts would be, in principle, of the same type as common-sense decisions. I think it would even disturb the scientific habit of experts, if they were asked to make decisions and not only to prepare arrays of possible solutions.
Let us take an uncontroversial example. Assume the scientists tell the English people that their fireplaces waste calories - of course they do so enormously. But the fireplaces as an element of our environment are not 'happiness-neutral' as it were, as is e.g., the cable shaft below the surface of the street. The fireplaces are related to homely comfort and to many customs of our private life. How to compute these and other items of 'happiness conditions' would be the subject of discussions and finally of decisions based on common sense and influenced by the scientists' information.
That is one of the reasons why planning in a democracy will presumably be based on far reaching but simple information and education. That fits well into the whole pattern of democracy, in which each group has to expect opposition and discussion and therefore needs a certain amount of data for arguing. That is perhaps one of the reasons why, on an average, propaganda in democratic countries is much more educational and informative than the propaganda in one-party countries, where the government is in a position to suppress unwelcome knowledge altogether.
But a social engineer will regard this educational element of a cooperative habit not only as a measure within the pattern of planning, but also as a 'happiness condition' as far as the joy of self-government and freedom is concerned.
2. PRODUCTION OF FREEDOM
Bread may be produced in a relatively short time, when stores of it have been destroyed. Even destroyed cattle may be replaced after a couple of years, whereas it needs a long time to afforest vast areas and thus to change the climate - and in how short a time a forest and a certain climate may be destroyed! Perhaps civil liberty is of a similar character.
Modern civil liberty and toleration have been built up in the Netherlands, in England and in the U.S.A. through centuries and spread from there into other countries; it is likely that masses in these nations enjoy this atmosphere just as they like their fireplaces or certain traditional habits, and therefore dislike civil wars more than other nations. In Tsarist Russia the atmosphere of suppression was disliked by so many people that a ruthless civil war did not seem too bad. People in despair often think of dismembering the traditional order, anticipating that the new society would in any case be happier than the traditional one. Others who are not in despair but only discontented are not much interested in the simple doctrine that the amputation of a leg in any case removes all discomfort from a painful corn. They would incline to compare 'happiness conditions' when the situation changes without civil war and 'happiness conditions' when the situation changes with civil war. Social engineering takes the 'happiness conditions' of all transition periods into account. It is difficult to transfer despair into a country where such despair plays no great role, in spite of strong and manifold tensions. But it is difficult, too, to transfer the habit of toleration and civil liberty into a country in which not much of this habit has existed up to the present.
Assume the victorious Allies should be interested in a democratization of Germany. There may be different ways to succeed in doing so; one of them might perhaps involve the using of all the nuclei of self-government, toleration and freedom which are to be found as old traditions there, all the nuclei of freer education and other elements like these. It is obvious that such a practical problem would need careful scientific investigations. There are many elements in the German pattern which support e.g. obedience to any governmental command and nationalist over-statements. As early as the 18th century Adam Smith stressed the unique habit of obedience in the Prussian army and its political importance. A mere collection of such 'pros' and 'cons' is insufficient, because we also need investigations of the chance that a habit of an organized nation may be changed.
Let us consider, without analyzing them theoretically, four examples of the persistence of 'social atmospheres'. About 40 percent of the Russian rulers have been killed in one way or another during the last 350 years, but, before 1600, none of the Muscovite princes was killed. What a trast to Brandenburg-Prussia, where not even one ruler has been killed during the last six centuries. Somebody may be inclined to say that in Prussia more people than in other countries obey the authorities, to such an extent that not even a small group of plotters has a sufficient chance to do anything successfully against the ruler, whereas the Russians became accustomed to rulers being killed; therefore if somebody, sometimes a competitor, wanted to kill a Tsar he was certain to find helpers, often even civil servants, officers and soldiers who supported him. In France the atmosphere looks mostly unstable; three kings, many leaders of the revolution and two presidents have been killed. But in England the story runs differently: up to the middle of the 17th century some royal persons were killed, then the period of the civil wars, rebellions and revolutions gradually ended, and what is usually called 'modern democracy' was formed, continuing along with some features of a developing constitution. One can hardly relate this atmosphere to a certain typical English preparedness to obey. The English and also the Russian transformations teach us that we should not over-estimate the doubtlessly existing relative endurance of such habits of a social pattern.
Should we want to enter into research, we will need some items which might be used as characteristics, e.g. the 'freedom' of a democratic country might be described by the fact that each member is permitted to have more than one loyalty, e.g. to his family, to his local community, to his profession, to his political party, to his church, to his lodge, to an international movement and to his country. One expects, in a democratic country, that a citizen knows how to handle these various loyalties and to assemble them in one way or another; and thus, in general, suspicion and spying do not belong to a democratic atmosphere. In such an atmosphere, the civil servants have sometimes to be tolerant of strange whimsicalities of the citizens, as also citizens towards other citizens. More than that, in such an atmosphere the mode of being tolerant towards a multiplicity of attitudes within one's own behavior sometimes develops. "I am not a wittily constructed work of fiction; I am a human being and full of contradiction."[1]
In a dictatorial one-party state, irrespective of how it may be organized in detail, there is a strong tendency for one, and only one, loyalty to 'devour' all the others, and various loyalties are not permitted to grow up side by side; that would be regarded as a kind of high treason. There are many local authorities (one of our loyalties belongs to them) who may not be very efficient, from the business point of view, but perhaps they do something by their very existence for the preservation of civil liberty, stubbornly fighting against central forces which invariably have a certain tendency to reduce freedom for it is much simpler to rule by command than by compromise and agreement.
If people like to act in 'accordance with their personal conscience' on 'intra-national' and 'inter-national' matters and want to have a social organisation which allows them to do so, then they must accept as part of the bargain that magistrates and other office-holders at different places may sometimes have divergent opinions and take divergent decisions, an inequality which can hardly be totally removed as long as one likes 'his own conscience'.
Some muddle thus seems to be unavoidable in a society of free men and within a democratic world commonwealth. People who like freedom and see these relations, will not give bad names to a muddle without analyzing whether this muddle is perhaps related to civil liberty or not; Plato disliked democracy, the kind of state in which there is the greatest variety of human nature and together with it - as he stressed - much disorder and muddle. On the other hand, social engineers should not overlook that often social institutions of old tradition, praised as pillars of civil liberty, do nothing but hamper both freedom and desired changes in our social order.
Perhaps in the long run just a more-than-one-party organization with its muddle will be more efficient even in terms of technical efficiency. On an average, a more or less stable democratic organization seems to present an extremely high degree of resistance. In a one-party system, an essential part of all administrative energy is consumed by fighting against deviations. In a well-established democracy, men antagonistic to certain decisions of the community are mostly well known by the public, the society is adapted to them and often puts them into less important posts for some time, using them again when the situation has changed. People in such an organization are able to act much more 'in harmony with their own conscience' - their higher resistance is, as it were, paid by the muddle.
Acting 'in harmony with their own conscience' is an element of happiness, but that does not imply that people who are acting 'in harmony with their own conscience' are socially simpler to handle than others who are prepared to do things 'against their conscience'. The social body which takes care of the security of society will sometimes fight the 'conscientious' persons more than others who may be prepared to change their attitude for pay. Remember what a hard aggressor was a completely 'convinced' Assassin, obeying the commands of the Old Man of the Mountains.
Taking all arguments into account, we may discuss freedom as a pattern of habits and behavior, characterized by a certain multiplicity and disparity of actions, and ask how a society, a single state or a world commonwealth, may 'produce' this pattern of Freedom.
3. International Planning In The Making
Before the first World War, one could, by many analogies, make it likely that the anticipated World War would lead the governments, by trial and error, to comprehensive planning of a 'war economy', as a presumable forerunner of world-wide planning in the future.
It was a matter of course for the general staffs before the first World War to have a good knowledge of former strategic experience ('antiquarian method') and a good training in constructing alternative war plans ('scientific utopianism'), but there was no group occupied with social engineering which had an analogous knowledge of all the experience in 'war economy' and some training in this field. Planning was gradually introduced during the first World War.
After great wars 'economic crises', particularly in victorious states, were usual. Joseph Lowe and others had very carefully described the difficulties from which Great Britain suffered after the Napoleonic war. Nevertheless these and other experiences did not make people prepare any specific plans for avoiding 'economic collapses' after the first World War - on the contrary, not only the directors of factories, bankers and shareholders but also the masses, who resented rationing, wanted the destruction of all war organizations based on planning. Only in the Soviet Union did planning become the characteristic feature of the new pattern of society. We know the gigantic commercial depressions between the two World Wars in the other countries, to which depressions the rise of Fascism is related.
'Planning for war' is now a triviality - to speak of 'Planning for Peace' seems to have become a new fashion. But what will happen after the second world war? Will an order be re-established which is ruled by profit with its mass unemployment and its intentional restriction of production? The Atlantic Charter does not stress the point of planning, but recognises the importance of 'social security' as an international problem, and many people are now busily discussing this matter seriously.
In the various countries different things will happen - there are many intermediate steps between a give-and-take policy and an open civil war. It is perhaps symptomatic that there are countries in which churchmen also now talk of some planning.
As 'war economy' teaches us, even a rather fragmentary planning is sufficient to overcome unemployment and the intentional destruction of goods. Many understand now that by a simple continuation of this war pattern, amenities of life, schools and hospitals, settlements and libraries could be procured; instead of producing war materials, one would improve the standard of living. We know that the fragmentary character of war planning in the western countries, with all the concern for post-war competition, has not up to the present fully utilized all reservoirs of society - here is not the place to discuss this highly-complicated problem.
What 'societas societatum' might be expected after this war? (I suggest the 'neutral' expression 'societas societatum' because it avoids the terminological anticipation of any determined solution.) Discussions start with questions of the future formal regulations ('legal apparatus', etc), constitutions, etc., and do not put into the foreground the essential problem that 'societal' patterns will determine the 'inter-national' and 'intra-national' relations, production and distribution of goods throughout the world.
Some people predict a kind of state called 'Europe' with a parliament composed of representatives of the continental nations outside the Soviet Union. There are people who try to create a 'Socialist Europe' as a peaceful member of the ' societas societatum' . Others imagine many states such as existed before the second World War, counter-balancing Italy and Germany or the parts of Germany which will perhaps form separate states. These and other possibilities might be fruitfully discussed, but we could as social engineers also think of new types of patterns just as technical engineers discuss machines which do not exist up to the present. I suggest we start from scratch in discussing international relations, and do so on the 'societal' pattern of mankind without using the traditional split into 'international law', 'international politics', 'world trade', 'history', etc. Let us regard - thus continuing the Utilitarian approach-the whole fabric of international human relation as producing human happiness and unhappiness.
Our traditional states are essentially based on military and police authority which cover the same area as the health authority, the administration of taxes and customs, and the administration of justice. (Also some people abroad depend upon these authorities.) It can hardly be expected that these powerful beasts will be 'domesticated'. Why could new types of organizations not arise? We know from the Middle Ages how 'overlapping' authorities can work. There could be international organizations, which would be responsible for the administration of the main natural resources, e.g. an organization dealing with iron, others with coffee, rubber or foodstuffs which could act as members of an international planning board - such organizations could be in action before a world commonwealth would be organized. Irrespective of the organization of production and distribution in single countries, such international centers presumably would fundamentally reduce many tensions.
Let us take an example. Should traditional trade continue after the war, the Balkan states and Argentina would depend upon Germany in one way or another, but if there were an international center 'pooling' all kinds of foodstuffs, the Balkan states and Argentina, whatever their inner structure might then be, would deliver their surplus in foodstuffs to this center, which for its part would supply Germany and other countries with foodstuffs from the world stores. In this way a relation between Germany and the world center would be created. We may call this the 'internationalization' of supply, which, as we see it, could be organized without very much changing the inner structure of states. A centralized system in the respective countries of export and import would be sufficient for this purpose. It is not likely that after this war the victorious Allies will allow even a reformed Germany to be in a position to dispose of German steel production. Any kind of 'internationalization' would help in solving this problem. It is manifest that many groups will try to influence the activities of these centers dealing with supply - the trade unions and cooperatives will be interested in these problems, as will all other groups which are concerned with production and distribution. Just when the colonial territories are getting more freedom, an international control, e.g., of rubber production, seems hardly to be avoidable, if any reconstruction of international relations is seriously intended. Should, e.g., the Malays get 'common ownership' of the rubber plantations? It would mean that they could receive rent for permitting other people to work in the plantations for international purposes. They would hardly be distinguishable from private shareholders, who own rubber plantations and get their rent.
This example shows us that 'common ownership' in itself is no medicine at all; what it can perform depends essentially upon the pattern in which= such a 'common ownership' works. Without a kind of major international planning it could happen that a great number of local bodies (called 'states') would fight one another on the world market as monopolists did before the war, and these states would presumably destroy coffee, or cattle, or vegetables, or reduce the production of rubber or copper, as happened before.
The big rivers with their banks could be 'internationalized' but to a wider extent than, e.g., the Rhine after the first World War. Such a new Rhine authority's territory would perhaps be overlapped by authorities dealing with all matters which depend upon language (Dutch, French and German). The railroad authority may overlap all those together; that church organizations should overlap is more in accordance with tradition. Some projects dealing with such solutions have been put forward before, but it would be useful to re-test them from a 'societal' point of view.
By their existence alone these 'overlapping' institutions would reduce the possibilities of creating powerful new military bodies, because the whole pattern would help to change the loyalties and later on to loosen the ties between citizens and a particular militaristic organization. As far as such a pattern rules vast parts of our 'societas societatum' a kind of substitute for the internationalism of the 'money order' would be created. Until now, e.g., rubber production depended upon shareholders of various countries and partly upon governments. Territorial planning does not help to rebuild this important part of international relations as a substitute for the relations created by the 'money order'.
The reduction of social tensions presumably will depend essentially upon international planning and not only upon national planning, particularly as far as countries depend upon import. Regional planning supports not only technical efficiency but also revives self-government, where such a self-government was traditional. One would be mistaken in thinking that far-reaching regional planning is a condition for national planning or for far-reaching international planning. The war teaches us the lesson of how much can be achieved by relatively comprehensive national planning and relatively weak regional planning. All these planning patterns are of great importance but we should regard them as relatively independent of one another, though supporting one another. Particular research is needed for analyzing their relationship.
Within a 'societas societatum' based on planning, therefore, very different patterns of organization may exist side by side. A voiding the traditional classifications, which are not systematically made, we may begin with all combinations of three characteristics (profit directs production, profit a source of income, more-than-one party) and their opposites.
We could take into account still more qualities and have to bear in mind that all these qualities can occur in different degrees and varieties. In this way we get eight types:
(1) Profit directs production; profit is a source of income for shareholders and, of course, for owners of factories, etc.; more-than-one-party system - Great Britain, U.S.A. and many other states about 1900 represent this type.
(2) Profit has the same position as in (1) but there is an absolute regime, e.g. Tsarism about 1900.
Both types are not suitable for being fitted into patterns of international planning. The following six types are suitable for such a pattern, as far as they are not aggressive in their national tendencies. We have to bear in mind that not only international trade and problems of 'investment' lead to tensions.
(3) The position of profit as the ruling element is shaken; but shareholders get their income from profits; stock exchange continues; there is a more-than-one-party system. This is the position now in war time in the U.S.A. and Great Britain, where war planning rules production and distribution. Labour here plays a certain role; trade unions take care of their members. (4) The Nazi organization has features similar to those of the war organization of the Western democracies, but the ruling party has used the opportunity to build up a 'pyramidal' structure of authorities, destroying all self-government, all trade unions, suppressing lodges and other citizens' organizations; this leads to an 'orchestration' as we see in democratic countries. Production is not based on profit but on decisions made by authorities. Shareholders and other owners of factories and banks receive their revenue.
(5) An organization in which profit is not used as the directing index (or perhaps relatively seldom) and in which nobody gets an income as shareholder, is the Soviet Union with a one-party system. Neither trade unions, cooperatives, nor similar bodies have an independent existence. No citizens' organizations are in a position to compete with the, as it were, omnipotent state.
(6) A variety of (5), perhaps partly realized in the Soviet Union, as far as 'profit reckoning' in the balance sheets is used for judging the efficiency of a factory. Even then the role of profit is further reduced, because the central planning authority is always in a position to cover the deficit by new investment.
(7) More-than-one-party organization without profit as directing agent, without profit as source of income - usually called 'Democratic Socialism': up to the present such an organization is only a programme. Provided are: bodies with self-government, as e.g. trade unions, which take care of the workmen's happiness, sometimes in opposition to bodies which take care of production; other interests are secured by other bodies, such as cooperatives.
(8) Some people think that a variety of (7) may be regarded as a useful possibility, based on profit as a bookkeeping figure, which may be used for certain decisions; this variety is without shareholder's profits.
We should analyze the respective behaviour ofthese types and of many sub-types. Experience has taught us, e.g., the lesson that the governments of more-than-one-party states (e.g., U.S.A. and Great Britain) have no particular inclination to go to war (here it does not matter to what other facts we may relate this attitude). In these states there will perhaps be a great number of people who, in harmony with their tradition, are interested in a post-war world commonwealth, in which war would be avoided as during the two centuries of the pax Romana. Wishful thinking is no argument, but sometimes a scientific stimulus.
Nations who had gained a certain freedom for themselves often became the oppressors of others, and their governments had no great objections to alliances with governments which suppressed many of their citizens and were far from being democratic. Therefore, we cannot expect that peace movements alone will be in a position to end war before far-reaching changes in the 'societas societatum' have been achieved. Who will be prepared to initiate such changes?
The governments of the victorious Allies will perhaps be greatly interested in avoiding a repetition of Germany's, Italy's, and Japan's dangerous aggressions and therefore incline to reduce a possible aggressiveness of these states. 'Democratization' seems to be one of the suitable measures together with international planning. But that does not imply that these measures will be applied. Versailles did not lead to any creative reconstruction of Europe. Will the second World War become a source of personal freedom?
At first sight, a world state seems to be unlikely. We may rather expect that the principle 'cuius regio, euis religio' - translated into 'secularity' - will rule. But all oppressions which may remain would be softened if all people had the right to migrate and if a way were found to enable them to immigrate into at least certain territories. After the abolishment of unemployment, such a possibility is not very remote.
In an organized 'societas societatum' - long before a world-commonwealth is founded - something like a world citizenship would presumably arise, even if no international passport were to be created. In the last decades, millions of people abandoned their homelands, Armenians and Assyrians, Jews and Greeks, Turks and members of other nationalities. They had either to becomes citizens of their host countries or to remain without protection - the Nansen passport helped only a relatively small number of people. This world citizenship would loosen the old ties in Europe where the problem will be particularly acute and support the rise of comprehensive democratization as an element of peace. Proposals such as those of a world police force are useful because they point in this direction: the states will perhaps remain but not omnipotent as they have been so far. Some of the organizations of the Middle Ages survived but without their military power. We know the gradual decrease in power that occurred. We could imagine the possibility that world citizens could form their own groups wherever they were, even in their homelands, if they wanted to do so, as people today may form religious communities of whatever kind, national and international. All these possibilities are imagined in a world without intentional restriction of production, thus in a world in which manpower will be wanted.
Certain states may not permit emigration for any reason whatsoever, but laws prohibiting immigration will presumably be mitigated. In the traditional order, workers with lower standard of living immediately endangered the standard of workers with higher standard of living. When they were prevented from migrating (e.g. by the immigration law of the U.S.A), new inner tension arose (e.g. in Italy). These and similar difficulties are to be expected in a society in which up to the present mostly the principle ruled: 'sauve qui peut' and the devil take the hindmost, and in which the defeated so often had to listen to wise words such as 'survival of the fittest', when 'poor' persons with talent were pushed aside by 'rich' nonentities.
We stressed the point that comprehensive planning is not necessarily connected with a change in private property; if in a society based on planning, there remained 'rich' and 'poor', they would hold their position not owing to the impersonal automatism of the market, but by, as it were, public decrees. Certain tensions, related to 'economic crises' would be avoided by means of planning, but the old tension between the 'rich' and the 'poor' would remain. There are already voices coming from Conservative quarters, which suggest at least a radical reduction of the margin between 'high' and 'low' standards of living.
Let us even imagine that all states were organized on a socialist basis - then again tension would arise between the 'Have' and 'Have-not' nations in analogy to the tension between 'rich' and 'poor' in the same society. We should not leave unmentioned the point that, within a socialist society, very grave conflicts between groups may be imagined. We may think that the way in which these conflicts will be solved will perhaps depend upon the traditions of the respective nations.
Since no scientific measures exist which enable us to determine the scaling of 'wages' in relation to the different types of work, collisions must be expected - though there will not be two fronts, but dozens of fronts and overlapping conflicts if there are democratic institutions. Some serious tensions are always possible as is well known in the present, not to speak of new types of difficulties which may arise.
These and other possibilities may be imagined, when we want to discuss the 'history of the future'. The 'history of the future' does not tell us of the one future because we know only few of the important historical elements and have more than one useful hypothesis. Cautious scientists might tell us of a 'plurifuture', as it were. If we - because our imagination is limited - present only a 'uni-future', then we should stress the point, that we speak of only one of many possibilities. We are not much better off when we write the 'history of the past' if we wanted to 'deduce' statements about the 16th century solely from our statements about the 15th century by means of some hypotheses.
What a complicated situation there will be after this war! The whole atmosphere presumably will be less peaceful than after the first World War. It is to be expected that in some parts of Europe the conquerors will be removed by revolts. Many strange alliances in such a civil war and the coming of new types of organization may be anticipated. And there will be 'revenge' and 'punishment' in accordance with human tradition. Here we are concerned with the analysis of more permanent features of the future.
Some of the states may then continue, within a 'societal' pattern, based on planning - they would be organized in such a way that they would fit into the new pattern. In other states, democratic socialism may become the basis of the constitution; others may be of the Soviet type. There are now some one-party states, e.g. in Latin America, which presumably will remain as they are (adapted only to international planning) unless a much stronger revolution takes place than this World War seems to imply. In spite of all the cruelties and devastations so far, this world war does not seem to be shaking the structure of our whole society in its fundaments. The Western traditions seem to be stable, indeed very fixed.
Many movers of, and objectors to, planning think that a new world of planning requires perhaps the sacrifice of a whole generation, particularly the sacrifice of personal freedom. It seems likely that such an attitude often endangers freedom and civil liberty for decades. Therefore, it seems to be in our practical interest to study as carefully as possible the problem of 'Planning for Freedom'. Social organizations which were based on the preparedness to sacrifice the happiness of human beings for whatever purpose, much more frequently seem to reduce civil liberty and the enjoyment of freedom than organizations based on the preparedness to provide immediate happiness. Merchants are sometimes better guardians of freedom than enthusiasts having the State as their highest ideal. We should not forget that toleration and freedom in the Netherlands were mainly created by merchant patricians, who - in spite of their own religious zeal - did not want ruling churchmen and civil servants of the Hapsburgs who would persecute heretics.
During the war of 1914 some people thought that it was the war to end war. But at that time no far-reaching change of the international 'societal' pattern was even under discussion. The League of Nations was not a body that could create and ensure new relations. After the first World War the old game of 'boom' and 'slump' continued. Now just such serious dis- cussions are going on in circles really interested in some drastic changes. Almost all groups have fears and hopes of some kind.
Let me stress this point again: It is not a matter of course, as many people think, that a social engineer should test the efficiency of freedom by its business efficiency; he can test, as it were, a social order and its institutions (e.g. international planning) by its ability to produce food, shelter, education, health, and - in addition to other things within a nation and within a world commonwealth - Freedom.
REFFERENCES
1942, Bibl. Nr. 258 - Ed.
Quotation from Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Huttens ietzte Tage: "- - ieh bin kein ausgekliigelt Bueh, Ieh bin ein Mensch mit seinem Widersprueh." - Ed.