Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/145

“planning” of productive activities, it safeguards the conditions of personal enjoyment and progress from the tyranny of bureaucrats or dictators. How far, how fast, and in what precise directions State Socialism with its control of key industries and its policy of “social services” shall go, will vary in each nation with the structure of its economic system, its natural and human resources, and its traditional psychology. It may well be the case that in some countries, owing to racial unity, slightness of class differences, and habits of co-operation, the sense of “fraternity” is stronger than that of individual liberty and inspires citizens to work consciously for the common good. In other countries, where class differences are strong and individual striving for personal gains and power is dominant, the domain of Socialism and State planning will be more limited and the distribution according to “needs” will be restricted in accordance with the current sentiment of “humanity.” But everywhere to an increasing extent the art of economics will go more closely hand in hand with the art of politics and both will be animated more largely by a sense of the public good, whether that “good” be visualized in terms of community welfare and security, or wholly in terms of individual liberty and welfare. And with this closer conscious nexus of economic and political arts must come a corresponding nexus of their theories, as sciences. Though specialists will continue to pursue in graphs and tables the measurable facts of