The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
Noyes says that the most fundamental change that has occurred during
the war has been the world-wide assertion of public control of
industry by the government. Perkins says that centralization is the
order of the day, and that the government now properly takes on many
functions that once belonged to the states, and that this process of
centralization naturally extends to international relations. Smith
speaks of the growing interdependence of government and industry which
will especially give security to investment in productive enterprises.
Hesse says that there must be national team work in all industries,
and that in a democracy everything that autocracy can accomplish must
be repeated, but upon a basis of voluntary cooeperation. In France it
has been proposed by Alfassa that there shall be established a
department of national economy, to bring about a closer cooeperation
than there has been in the past among private interests, and to
centralize industry. Wehle thinks that in America, even before the
war, industrial concentration was leading to political concentration
and that the states were losing their relative political importance.
The grappling of states individually with large industrial problems is
now, he says, at an end. Dillon has expressed the view that England
ought to adopt industrial compulsion. Clementel, the French minister
of commerce, thinks France ought to substitute for liberty without
restraint in the industrial field, liberty organized and restricted.
There can be no doubt that the world is thoroughly awake to the need
of more effectual cooeperation in industry, and it is natural that the
first thoughts should turn to government control as the simplest and
readiest method of securing it. When we examine these suggestions
about the cooerdination and centralization of industries it becomes
evident that most writers have been strongly influenced by Germany's
remarkable success, both in peace and war, under the system of
governmental control of industries. The manner in which the German
government turned all the country into one great industrial plant has
appealed to the imagination, and many writers see in centralization
under the control of government the means of curing most of the evils
of industrialism. There are many proposals, all the way from the plan
to introduce cabinet ministers with limited power to have oversight
over industry to the total abolishment of the capitalistic system and
all the rights of property. Many of course, while still believing in
concentration and cooeperation, cling to the system of private and
individual ownership, and believe that the best results will be
obtained in the end without any radical change in the relations
between government and industry, and without resorting to any
socialistic reform.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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