Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2176

Random dictation to Spencer MacCallum at Roadsend Gardens, Elkridge, Maryland during conversation about promotion of Citadel, Market & Altar

March 23, 1958

 

 

 

/Step Right Up, Gentlemen!/

 

     Political democracy historically has always broken down. There must be a reason for this. The reason is that it won’t work. In this respect it is a non-functional model for social organization. It is like the mock-up for a newly designed airplane. It has the general form and appearance, but it is non-functional to say the least, and dysfunctional in the long run. That is to say, political democracy does not bring about the results and conditions for which it is described any more than the mock-up of the airplane carries passengers and freight. However, we must not say that political democracy has no value, any more than we shall say that the mock-up model of the airplane has no value. In both cases the non-functional model is a very proper and perhaps necessary step towards the realization of the real thing.

 

     Now in the case of the airplane, we know what the real thing is. It is very minutely and comprehensively described on the plans and specifications of the engineers, both as to structure and how it shall perform. But when it comes to the political mock-up for real democracy, there has not appeared as yet any comprehensive plans and specifications for the real thing—how it shall be structured and how it shall perform. That is, no such plans and specifications have appeared until of late.

 

     The world has been waiting and looking forward for centuries towards the ideal of a free and democratic institution that really would work. Now with the publication of CITADEL, MARKET AND ALTAR, has come the discovery by a qualified engineer experienced in many fields, of a truly working free democracy implicit in our market economy, and implemented by the activities of free enterprise.

 

     This democracy of the market is one in which everybody votes in proportion to the property and services as to which he relinquishes his separate jurisdiction and accepts the democratic verdict of the market as to how he shall be recompensed for the goods and services which he supplies. Under this truly functioning democracy which all persons instinctively obey (so far as political power does not step in) has blessed the modern man with all the enormous wealth and welfare that has been achieved in modern times.

 

     The only trouble with this truly functioning democracy is that it has not as yet sufficiently developed for its technique to be carried into the supplying of the common and public services in which all must participate, as well as those that can be individually and separately enjoyed.

 

     The democracy of the market is not a planned democracy. It never was. It has been a silent growth, and it has grown in proportion to the services it has performed. It was not built like a political democracy by any kind of conscious compact, nor was it built by any prescribed plans and specifications like the mock-up model of an airplane. It is a phenomenon of nature, and as such has been long suspect as to its beneficence to mankind. However, in recent years, a great deal has been learned about its structure and its mode of operation and how, despite the crushing burdens imposed by govern­ments, it has fed, clothed and otherwise blessed mankind. So we do have, in retrospect, some description of the structure and operations, although there never was any such thing as a plan.

 

     Now the only trouble with the market democracy is its immaturity. It has not extended itself into those common and public services without which men cannot live in civilized communi­ties. The splendid feature of CITADEL, MARKET AND ALTAR is that the author has not only described the structure and operation of the market economy with respect to things that are not common and public, but he has gone on, and laid down a description of this same market economy growing and developing into the public field, and thereby making political administra- tion as piracy and robbery—apart from government—have come to be on sea and land. Seeing how the market is on its way towards extending its juris­diction and creating, in place of the debits and devastations of government at present, unimaginable wealth.

 

     The author of this volume has laid down in advance what will be seen in retrospect as nature’s plans and specifications for nature’s true democracy when the organization and processes of the market have been extended into the public realm.

 

     This may seem Utopian, and so it is. Yet the organization and principles described are so patently practical that it has received the commendation of many sound and serious as well as eminently learned men.

 

     Step right up, gentlemen! Only a few copies left.