Book Reviews and Notices : Marx: His Time and Ours. By RUDOLF SCHLESINGER. (New York: Augustus M. Kelley. 1950. Pp. xi, 440. $4.50.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591295100400127
• Date: 01 March 1951
• Author: Alfred Diamant
• Published date: 01 March 1951
• Subject Matter: Articles

147
to all conservative tradition, he finds himself in the midst of many diffi~
culties. In American political theory, he finds, these difficulties are solved
most effectively in The Federalist which he appraises as a skillful appli-
cation of conservatism to revolution. In later times he finds that out-
standing apostles of conservatism are the eminent economist, J. B. Clark;
and in the field of philosophy, Paul Elmer More, in whose essays he
finds the nonpareil of his particular field.
Theories of change are, of course, vital to a penetrating analysis of
this topic as are the relative roles of conservation and mutation. Con-
servation and radicalism are eminently intertwined with basic elements in
human change in general and in the political area particularly. This
applies also to the types of change, whether by revolution or constitutional
alteration, by tradition or by conscious legislative action, or by custom.
Some time ago this reviewer suggested that an agency for the consideration
of basic change, &dquo;A Council of Conservation,&dquo; be set up in appropriate
form with the cooperation of public and private authorities. Physics, bio-
chemistry, psychology, medicine and education are bursting with possibili-
ties of social variation which sometimes stagger the imagination of the
most starry eyed. (See this reviewer’s Systern.atic Politics, chap. vii, &dquo;Sta,
bility and Change in Government.&dquo;)
Another important aspect of conservatism lies in the fact that no
one personality or group or movement is entirely conservative or the
opposite. The same individual may be radical in one aspect and highly
reactionary in another. Likewise, a political party contains right and left
elements of marked importance.
Obviously, it would be unreasonable to expect that in a volume
of seventy,four pages, any writer could analyze and synthesize all the
problems of conservatism and its conflicting variations or opposites. We
must admire the courage of Professor Wilson in...