Review of the Book

Sociocratic Escapades
by Francis Neilson

Joseph Dana Miller

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, January-February, 1935]

Who was it said political economy was a dull subject? He must have been blind to the screaming fun that is hidden away in what is taught as political economy. Is there anything really quite as funny as Malthus and the Malthusian theory, a curious caricature of the Creator at the hands of a preacher of Christianity? Or anything quite as subtly humorous as the Wage Fund theory in which it is assumed that labor, which produces all wealth and therefore its own wages, is dependent upon a mythical sum which nobody has ever seen set aside in some mysterious way to keep the workers employed. Due to its obvious absurdity this theory has not the strength it once had, though it bobs up every now and then.

Is there anything quite as amusingly ridiculous as the economic doctors at Washington busy with their fantastic devices. Some day a new Gilbert and Sullivan will embody them in some comic opera and the people of 1950 will laugh their heads off, but will say that of course it is grossly exaggerated. It seems unkind and perhaps a little disrespectful to picture the Chief Executive who gave away billions of other people's money as the Lord Bountiful of a spending campaign in which dollars are made to figure as pennies.

Man is an "amoozin' cuss," as Artemus Ward called him, and he is never quite as amusing as when he is reconstructing the economic edifice and piecing together the sorry patchwork of his substitute planning for the plan of nature. Marx, Tugwell, Richberg, Harry Hopkins, and the late General Johnson in his character of Coney Island barker for the administration all are supremely amusing playboys amid the eternal verities they do not understand.

Because Francis Neilson is keenly alive to all this he has made a sparkling book. He sees all the funny spectacles provided and he just canters through them in a spirit of positive enjoyment in the havoc he is wreaking. He is having a good time and he shares it with his readers. If there is any stupid pretender who escapes his sharpened spear it is because he is too insignificant to be noted.

There are keen thrusts at Richberg, Lippman, Norman Thomas, all in surpassingly good humor. There is a whimsical defense of gambling and gamblers which has much underlying truth. And his defense of the American business man who has been abused, lampooned and blackguarded is a spirited and admirable rebuke to the direct charges and covert insinuations emanating from Washington.

There are searching criticisms of the opinions of Justice Brandeis, Holmes and Cardoza, and in these Mr. Neilson shows how shaky and unfixed are the foundations of their democracy, how very questionable are their definitions and their attempts to arrive at conclusions which will leave our institutions invulnerable to attack. He does not spare them, and to Justice Cardoza, who says: "Men are saying today that property, like all social institutions, has a social function to fill," he applies the quick rejoinder: "Property is not a social institution. The mere fact of saying it is a social institution does not make it so."

The lance carried by Francis Neilson is not always pointed in sheer enjoyment of the mischief he is making for the real enemies of a true social order. He is not solely concerned in showing up the curious and often comical misconceptions. We would not have our readers think there is not a very serious undertone to this remarkable book. Francis Neilson is very much perturbed about the future of the nation and the world. He surveys conditions with a sorrow that informs what the reader may sense at times as levity. But beneath it all is a profound seriousness which the judicious reader will discern. We append a few extracts which will give a taste of what is in store for those who will procure the book, and read it from cover to cover, which we trust will be all who read this very inadequate review.

It is sad to think of the inteligentsia of the Sociocratic Party meeting in Chicago and never dreaming what they were in for. Little did they dream once Roosevelt had accepted the nomination that they were on their way to bury the Democratic Party in a nonsectarian cemetery, the only successful collectivist undertaking [Page 41].

Poor labor, your devoted leaders in the Unions and the Houses of Legislature throughout the land know little what bills are piling up all over the country that you will have to foot. One of your true friends told you years ago what would happen, but you were too preoccupied with nominal wages and shorter hours to give thought to his warnings. He told you that poverty advanced with progress, and so it does [Page 37].

One can acquire a reputation nowadays as a rhetorician by making a speech in which nothing of importance has been said. We have had oceans of them ever since NRA set to work. Our great propagandists, in and out of government, must live in Mason jars. The air never gets at them [Page 78].

For clarity of statement and beauty of prose where will you find in our sociologists, social service people, and relief dispensers anything that can be compared with a work by Eddington, or Jeans, or Herrick, or Sir. William Bragg? These people write prose as poets do. When one turns to the New Dealers' works, the planners' books, and reads their sentences, crepitant Latinisims, and all the hocus pocus verbality that covers up a host of literary deficiencies, he wonders how university faculties can persist in encouraging the departments through which these authors pass [Page 98].

One reason why our president is concerned about our natural resources is that at one time in this country there were opportunities given to our simple and primitive folk to build homes. But now "the frontier has disappeared." Of course it has. Government stood by and watched it disappear [Page 115].

The man who gave to mankind a set of principles which would lay a sure foundation on which to build a future from the injustices, antagonisms and distinction of class and race that afflict the world today was Henry George. But so far mankind in several countries of which I have had experience, shows little or no inclination to benefit from his work. Yet everybody seems to know something about Henry George. His name appears in editorials, presidents of universities refer to him, statesmen in various countries have caught millions of votes by using his name. At one time in England he was the most popular and unpopular man in this world [Page 120].

Here we see that the essential step in doing something for humanity is to remove injustice. And Henry George has shown simply and clearly what steps are to be taken to carry out this fundamental reform.

Is it a panacea? I do not know. Suppose the reform is carried out; is there any hope that man will then be happy? I do not know. For happiness, it seems to me, is a question of personal concern quite as much as religion. But this I do know, that there is no other way of setting man on the road to happiness. There is no other way [Pages 124-5].

I knew some one connected with this administration would say, "Our new structure is a part and fulfillment of the old. All that we do seeks to fulfill the historic traditions of the American people." The little grocer who gave a loaf of bread with two quarts of milk he sold to a customer was convicted and fined. I presume that that was according to the historic traditions of the American people. [Pages 140-1].

Mr. Roosevelt has my profound sympathy. It seems to me that he is rather new at the game. His speeches seem to indicate that much. He seems to be surrounded by a crowd of people who have the most extraordinary ideas about humankind. There is not one who has delivered a speech or written a book who seems to be conscious for a moment that the working classes are composed of human beings. They seem to picture them as a lot of surpliced choir boys marching down the aisle to service. They never picture the choir boys with the surplices off, before or after the service [Page 173].

Perhaps Mr. Thomas (Norman Thomas) will have an opportunity some day of making a study of the question what is and what is not property. And when he starts about it, he will find that the law of property arises out of the law of social justice. Socialists from the beginning found the law of property the greatest obstacle in their way. So they determined that they would abrogate that law and at one fell swoop, a genius among them decided that there was no such thing as justice and, in abandoning justice, they abandoned economic fundamentals and ethics of which they are the basis. To what extraordinary shifts are men pushed when reason is thrown to the winds! [Page 246]