Spencer Heath Archive

Item 3164

Typed tentative letter by Heath, never sent, to Upton Close concerning his newsletter, Closer Up (No.16, August 16, 1954), enclosed in the Originals envelope 

September 1954

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Close:                       Sept., 1954

 

I have read your Newsletter of August 16, 1954 in which you very justly deplore the current policies of both our recent democratic and the present Republican administrations. I do not think the evils which you complain of are peculiar to any one kind of people, certainly not to Democrats instead of Republicans or vice-versa, and I am sure this can be ex­tended to an indefinite variety of political and pressure organizations including blood-bonded and religious-bonded groups.

Granting that practically everything you say is true, let me in all candor and sincerity ask what you would have the general public do by way of correcting these evils. The evil power you complain of is exercised now by persons who have succeeded in getting political power into their hands. Having obtained this power, then, as you see it and in the main so do I, they proceed to use it in ways that you and I deplore. Let us suppose now that a miraculous revulsion of public feeling should come about, perhaps largely through your activities, what guarantee have we that an entirely new body of persons taking the place of those now in power would not use that power in substantially similar ways? Has it ever happened otherwise in history? Once the popu­lace have thrown out one set of rulers and installed another, have these reformers ever turned out any better than their predecessors in power? Have political promises to the people ever been kept? I think not.

Freedom for mankind is not to be achieved by changing masters. No form of slavery can bestow freedom, for as Lord Acton so notably wrote, “Power always tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Emancipation of mankind from tyranny and misrule has never come from anything but the evolution of new kinds of relationships among men. The political relationship is primitive, coercive and destructive and must be outgrown. There is another relation­ship evolving in the affairs of men that is called contractual — the only relationship in which several parties are equally free. They are equally free to contract and thus mutually serve only so far as general custom permits each to have equal authority over his person and over his acknowledged properties, whether great or small, equal or unequal. This process of contract, sometimes called the Golden-Rule relation­ship, has in modern times given us an economic system whose productivity has raised the standard of living far beyond anything ever dreamed in ancient times. Up to the present time, however, it has not been employed in the production or distribution of public or community services. Until it is better understood and its methods employed in the public field, there can be no alternative but political authority and, with it, the evils of which you so justly complain.

Every enterprise that produces and creates, operates under the proprietary authority of its owners. This means that its owners must exercise their authority through con­tract instead of through coercion. Contracts can be made and performed only by those who own the subject matter of the contract. Nature has linked indissolubly freedom of contract with the ownership of property. And it is only because our community affairs are not operated by authority of the com­munity owners that the administration of community property continues to be relegated to the coercive, political authority.

That a city or state could be operated by its owners much as a hotel or other consolidated property is operated must seem a miracle to you. Let me assure you that, on the contrary, it is eminently practical and practicable and has already evolved to a considerable degree.

If you would be interested in understanding the construc­tive, non-political pattern in which society does and must necessarily evolve, we would be very happy to supply you with matter for your consideration along that purely instructive line.

Please do not think that we are opposed to your oppo­sition to evil; only that we must learn how to build more importantly than how to oppose.

Sincerely yours,