Concentration of Economic Power and Protection of Freedom of Expression
| Published date | 01 July 1955 |
| Date | 01 July 1955 |
| Author | Adolf A. Berle |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625530000105 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
20
Concentration
of
Economic
Power
and
Protection
of
Freedom
of
Expression
By
ADOLF
A.
BERLE,
JR.
PROTECTION
of
personality
is
rightly
a
major
concern
of
mid-
twentieth-century
America.
There
are
problems
emerging
which
require
the
utmost
thought
and
attention.
The
problem
is,
of
course,
essentially
philosophical.
Unhappily
America
of
1955
apparently
cannot
discuss
phi-
losophy
save
with
groans
of
agony
and
prophecies
of
decline.
The
writer
can-
not
qualify
as
entrant
in
the
debate
in
the
usual
manner.
I
do
not
see
that
our
civilization
is
about
to
dissolve
or
that
our
structure
has
lost
meaning.
If
I
cannot
go
along
with
the
glossy-print,
clich6
optimism
of
the
public-relations
trade,
neither
can
I
join
the
Jeremiahs.
Our
philosophers
have
treated
us
to
a
fancy
line
of
gloom.
They
are
fre-
quently
epic
in
their
sadness.
Mr.
Arnold
Toynbee,
in
a
massive
Study
of
f
History,
catastrophizes
in
several
vol-
umes.
Mr.
Walter
Lippmann
in
a
re-
cently
published
best
seller,
The
Public
Philosophy,
spends
seven
chapters
ex-
pounding
&dquo;the
decline
of
the
West.&dquo;
The
late
Russell
Davenport
in
a
book
The
Dignity
of
Man,
financed
by
the
Ford
Foundation
and
scheduled
for
ap-
pearance
this
month,
discusses
the
col-
lapse
of
the
American
ideal
for
want
of
philosophy.
An
excellent
poet,
Chard
Powers
Smith,
recently
published
a
book
entitled
The
Yankees
and
God,
tracing
four
separate
and
distinct
declines
of
America,
in
each
case
drawing
his
moral
from
the
weakening
of
the
New
Eng-
land Puritan
ideal.
There
are
others.
The
drama
of
their
assorted
catastro-
phies
is
epic.
As
the
Golden
Dustman
in
Dickens’
Our
Mutual
Friend
ob-
served
of
his
tutor,
&dquo;Professionally
they
decline
and
fall,
and
as
a
friend
they
relapse
into
poetry.&dquo;
(Apparently
any-
body
can
decline
and
fall
these
days.
All
you
need
is
a
good
witch-hazel
fork
with
which
to
stroll
through
American
history
to
discover
the
exact
point
at
which
a
decline
sets
in.
Being
appar-
ently
the
open
season
for
decline
points,
you
can
pick
your
own.)
The
odd
fact
is
that
our
observers
choose
to
regard
as
beginnings
of
de-
cline
those
areas
in
which
personality
was,
not
most
restrained,
but
most
free.
Toynbee
fixes
a
decline
point
of
the
Roman
Empire
in
the
Antonine
Age,
when
Stoic
philosophy
brought
toler-
ance
to
perhaps
the
highest
point
in
ancient
history.
Lippmann
is
more
spe-
cific :
his
precise
reason
for
asserting
decline
is
that
the
aggregate
of
indi-
viduals
we
call
mass
public
opinion
has
come
to
make
politicians
and
governors
into
transmitting
agents
of
a
kind
of
neo-Jacobin
mob
action.
One
gathers
Russell
Davenport
had
somewhat
the
same
fear.
In
each
case
the
point
ap-
pears
to
be
that
as
personality
is
pro-
tected
in
its
free
expression,
a
common
basis
of
action
ceases
to
exist.
There
is
no
agreed
set
of
philosophical
premises.
So
Western
governments
cannot
act
with
decision;
Western
intellectual
life
goes nowhere.
Meanwhile
outside
forces
not
bothered
with
personality
and
hav-
ing
a
system
that
imposes
a
single
set
of
premises
plow
straight
ahead.
So
democracy
welters
in
impotent
inaction
while
totalitarians,
Nazi
or
Communist,
take
Rhinelands,
Koreas,
and
Indo-
chinas.
Against
this
background
we
have
to
tackle
today’s
problem.
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