Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2376

Letter to Heath at 11 Waverly Place, New York City 3, from Louis H. Solomon, 200 Fifth Avenue, New York City

July 9, 1954

 

Dear Mr. Heath:

 

 In going over your notes on the organization of real estate, it is important that you keep in mind the problem created by collective action, replacing, controlling and coercing the freedom of the individual.

 

 I am not convinced a controlled growth is necessarily, and in all instances, an advantage over a free growth.

 

 The Topsy you refer to may not have the polish, but she may have qualities of character that would be lost generally in a controlled growth.

 

 In my experiences with organizations, I have found that the collective action which strips the individual of free movement may have many compensations, but decline is inescapable. The savings in costs of production, distribution, etc. etc. are valuable in the early stages of the organization’s growth, but as time goes on the loss of the pressures upon the individual) imposed by the competitive struggle, result in decline. The first gains are achieved, but the end result is not good.

 

 Thus far, in my experience I have found no substitute for the struggles, the drive, the ambitions of the individual.

 

 I am reluctant to admit this serious limitation upon coercive collective action, but I do believe that the elimination or suppression of the freedom of the individual is an irreplaceable loss; that the concept of collective action which coerces and suppresses the freedom of the individual is a delightful contemplation as an ideal, but dangerous and damaging in practice.

 

Very truly yours,

LHS:gb                  /s/ Louis H. Solomon