Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2472

Letter to Heath from Edmund A. Opitz, The Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York

November 1, 1956

Dear Mr. Heath:

I have read your latest pamphlet with the same interest as the earlier ones. It whets my appetite for your book, for which I hope we will not have to wait too much longer.  How do your present publication plans shape up?

We must have a mutual friend who sent you the copy of The Interpreter with my “Politics or Education?” (I cringe at the misspelling of both Buncombe and Mencken! It was not so on my copy.) I am enclosing a carbon copy of a piece I did some time ago, which has a paragraph on page 8 criticizing the social contract theory. It seems to me that the idea of freely contracting within the framework of society — which, as I read Sir Henry Maine, is what is behind his phrase about progressing from status to contract — is utterly different from the social contract ideology of Rousseau and some others. I have come to feel more and more that a great deal of the error in social thought hinges around the mis­understanding of the issues in this area. I think your book might do something to help clarify these issues.

 I am pleased that you might be able to attend the Spiritual Mobilization conference in Chicago. I hope the plans work out for you, and I will look forward to the possibility of seeing you there.

 With every good wish,

Yours sincerely

/s/ Edmund A. Opitz

Enclosure