Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2650

Penned letter from John Cutler, Copeland Homestead, Hillsboro, Virginia

July 13, 1957

 

 

Dear Spencer:

It is a source of great pride to me to be the possessor of a copy of “Citadel, Market and Altar” inscribed by the author, and my thanks are overdue. I plead that I wanted to familiarize myself at least to some extent with its content — supplementing your rewarding verbal expositions — before writing you.

 As with your conversation on the subject, your written words are provocative of thought. Thus “provoked,” I venture to pose a couple of questions which, with others, one may hope will be further clarified in a sequel to your book — ?

 In the furnishing of public services by the community owners, will not a bureaucracy develop, in the actual process of such furnishing, that may become as stultifying as the present political bureaucracy?

 As public proprietorship becomes available to all (page 136), will there be enough individuals to perform services? As distribution (rather than production), world-wide, is the problem to be solved with respect to agricultural products in our day, will there not be a serious problem of distribution with respect to activities in your contemplated society?

 Finally, what of the transition? How shall society set its course toward your horizon? And what are the pragmatic chances of progress in that direction?

 Again, my most heartfelt thanks to you, in which Ellen joins me.

Most sincerely,

(signed) John Cutler