Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2740

Review of Citadel, Market and Altar published in The Social Studies Vol. XLIX, No.4 (April 1958), pp. 158-160, over the name of Wayne C. Rohrer

 

 

The author portrays in exceedingly general terms an “outline of Socionomy” which he terms “The New Natural Science of Society.” This treatise concerns the inter-relations, actual or potential, among government (citadel), business (market), and religion (altar). Actually altar includes more than religion in that it is an all-encompassing social structure embracing the elements of intellectuality, creativity, spirituality, recreation and others. He exhorts us to accept as the absolute good a way of life best represented in pre-Norman England; to leave government functions to the social structure of the market and to restrict the government’s functions to maintaining intra- and extra-community order. The altar will provide a means whereby men will exercise their excess of energy, obtained by diminishing government’s role in our lives and concurrently increasing efficiency by business methods, to creative and spiritual purposes. Socionomy, “this new child of the altar,” will open new vistas in its application and would help obtain “The Utopian Dream.”

 

 The author chose to ignore modern researches and comments which relate to the social structures he deals with. In the reviewer’s opinion, his treatise would have benefitted if he had used national census reports to assist him in presenting objective evidence and in the development of his ideas. His ignorance of social scientists’ contributions concerning the social relevance of reciprocity among men, the social aspects of exchange (e.g., Malinowski’s classic portrayal of the kula ring), the social (non-economic) role of property (e.g., the property-destroying potlatch among the Northwest Coast peoples), land as a social and prestige good (in some farming areas) limits the effectiveness of his book. Inasmuch as property, exchange and reciprocity hold cardinal positions in this work these ideas would have received support, obtained clarification and distinction or been modified by use of some standard references.

 

 Altar would provide the norms of living and establish the climate wherein men would serve one another. His comments on land use indicate, to this sociologist-reviewer, a perhaps independent arrival at the idea of vertical integration which currently may be witnessed in American agriculture.

 

 The author indicates that this exposition of his system does not include specific recommendations for application. It would be at the point of implementing this system that probable unintended and unexpected strains would appear; strains which his system does not account for or allude to. One may obtain rather clear expressions of doubt concerning applications of these ideas in the Foreword written by John Chamberlain. In the reviewer’s judgment Citadel, Market and Altar does not include testable, verifiable socionomic propositions which would be required for a new scientific discipline.

 

Wayne C. Rohrer

University of  Maryland

College Park, Maryland