Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2049

Review of Heath’s Citadel, Market & Altar by the Rev. C. John Westhof, Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Edmond, Oklahoma, published in Christian Economics, Vol.10, No. 1, January 7, 1958

 

 

 

 

CITADEL, MARKET AND ALTAR. By Spencer Heath, Science of Society Foundation, Baltimore 27, Md., 1957. 259 pp. $6.00.

 

The objectivity of a scientist, the appraisal of a businessman, the spirit of a mystical saint, the language of a poet — these are the elements which make this book an experience in reading. Above them all, however, is the breath-taking vision of this modern explorer in the realm of social organization.

 

None of these elements appear by accident. They are the flowering of the author’s spirit. For Spencer Heath is scientist, businessman, mystic, saint and poet. A successful inventor who supplied most of the airplane propellers used in World War I, Heath retired to devote his time to the avocation of horticulture. This led to research into the natural sciences. From this has come his study of human relationships.

 

Energy Concept

 

Spencer Heath believes in the future of society which he regards as the crowning achievement of man. A few years ago this reviewer heard a physicist predict that in time man would measure social energy just as physical energy is now measured. The thought was greeted with a good deal of doubt in his mind. Now comes Heath with a dynamic “energy concept of population.” The thesis is that the society in which individuals live long has more energy potential to devote to progress than the society in which lives are short. This thesis is buttressed with a portfolio of facts and arguments which should prove reassuring to the Western world.

 

The author believes — and convincingly demonstrates — that only a free society can increase the life span and allow the standard of life to rise. He is a firm believer in the free-contractual system for the exchange of goods and services. He describes the democracy of the market as fundamental, and says of it, “This is democracy based on mutual service in mutual freedom — the right to serve in order to be served — the right of voluntary exchange.”

 

Three Fundamentals

 

Citadel, Market and Altar takes its name from the three fundamentals of the social organism, the functions of which are  coercion, cooperation and consecration. The first is exercised by government, the second by the market, and the third in the areas of the arts and religion. As one reads this portion of the book he is reminded of the Master’s words to seek first the  Kingdom of Heaven.

 

Several chapters are devoted to a study of land and property management. Spencer Heath believes that private ownership of land is vital to freedom. This thesis has never been attacked, but still we witness the phenomenon of the constant whittling away of man’s right to ownership. Heath shows how this erosion of property rights leads to “land communism without which no totalitarian power can be final or complete.” This section of the book needs to be read and reread by every thinking person — and by some who have never stopped to think.

 

Old World Ways

 

Heath traces the rise of American prosperity in the century of freedom and mourns the departure from it in the present age. “But the twentieth century reintroduced the Old World ways. Government came to be worshipped more than feared and confined, and constitutional barriers went down. Government began absorbing all liberty and property and is now itself so looked to for welfare and freedom that insecurity, uncertainty and anxiety widely prevail.

 

This is a tremendous book, difficult to read in many spots, but doubly rewarding to the  reader. It is mentally invigorating and spiritually stimulating. In this world with Sputnik jarring the nerves of free men, it is refreshing to remember the billions of stars God put in the heavens, and to remember that the universe is on the side of the society which will study His laws, His spirit, and venture forth in the freedom He designed for mankind.

_______________________