Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2848

Typed page over name of John Chamberlain, 840 N. Brookvale Rd, Cheshire, Connecticut, of his review of CMA (with considerable input from Heath, judging from the wording), and a quite different typed draft (whether earlier or later) heavily corrected in pencil by Chamberlain.

No date

We live in a “competitive system.” Such has been the superficial indictment of capitalism over the years. But in a deeper sense, as Spencer Heath brings out in his remarkable Citadel, Market and Altar (Science of Society Foundation, Baltimore 27, $6), capitalism is in reality the mutual co-operation that leads to ever more abundant life and length of days. In this mutuality of service, where there is no coercion (as by tariff, subsidy or other “squeeze”), all are served and none but the feckless can fail. To this author, the market is the great social pool of services and goods from which each receives according to his contribution — so far as no fraud or violence (by govern­ment or otherwise) is interposed. It is the Golden Rule in action, each serving, when he sells, in the same manner that he would be served when he buys.

 But there is remarkably much more: With great particularity and backed by histor­ical authority, Mr. Heath shows how this vital free enterprise in the field of private services is capable of vast extension into the whole public domain — so far as land and site owners in self-protection and in pursuit of worthy gain shall consolidate their properties in local regions and supply the inhabitants with general public services in the form of location advantages on the basis of payment according to value received.

 Drawn from the “natural” sciences, the author’s unique “energy concept of popula­tion” affords a surprisingly simple mathematical basis for his social analysis into the three categories represented in the strikingly symbolic title that this unusual volume bears. The adult society, says he, will have its citadel for security against violence, its market for all life-serving and life-advancing services and goods, and the altar for the periodic renewal of its spirit, all cultural advance. When the cit­adel adequately protects, and the altar sufficiently inspires, then will the market most richly nourish and serve. So far as any one of these fails all suffer, and men revert towards the kind of life that Thomas Hobbes called “mean, nasty and short”.

 This fine book weaves the cosmic order of the physicist, the free capitalist order among Western men, and the Christian Golden Ethic for an ever more abundant life, these three, into a “seamless web” of reassurance for the future of mankind. All in all, it shows with lucid clarity how real social-ization (the author’s hyphen) blooms in the citadel-protected market under the altar-fostered inspiration of the Golden Rule — beauty rooted in the soil of practicality and flowering in the free sunlight of the Spirit — a far cry indeed from the so-called “socialization” (no hyphen) that re­sults when coercive government forces its brutal brand of collectivism on the lives

of men.

— John Chamberlain

 

 

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We live in a “competitive system.” Such has been the chief indictment of capitalism over the years. But in a deeper sense, as Spencer Heath brings out in his remarkable Citadel, Market and Altar (Science of Society Foundation, Baltimore 27, $6), capitalism is not competitive at all.

 Mr. Heath speaks of the market as constituting a great pool which is continually being emptied and renewed as man transforms his environment by creative activity. The security of possessions and property are necessary, if energies are to go into creative channels; lacking security of ownership, man wastes himself in destructive practices which take from the pool without contributing to it. An enlightened people, understanding the processes by which they live, will abjure such anti-social practices as “coercion and slavery, tribute and taxation, government regulation and war” because they all tend to deplete the pool. In a truly intelligent society men will “go to market” in the spirit of the Golden Rule, knowing that by giving the best they may receive the best. Depending as he does on long-term contracts, the seller will first of all beware of himself, lest he cheat his own future (along with his client) by offering shoddy work for the “fast buck.” Shoddy workmanship may sell itself once; it will hardly sell itself twice over.

 The great value of this book is that it weaves the cosmic order of the modern physicists, the capitalist order of Western man, and the traditional order of the Christian church into a “seamless web.” But there is more to Mr. Heath’s book than ”philosophizing;” there is also a very realistic description of ways and means whereby the “mutuality of the services” can be extended and increased. The author wastes no time in denouncing. Taking his cue from the Chinese doctor who collected his fees for keeping his clients well and paid forfeit to them when they became sick, Mr. Heath prescribes a regimen for health, not an analysis of illness. As society is constituted at present, governments (and the large urban municipalities in particular) try (with most indifferent results) to provide many services. Looking about him at the waste and decay which seem to be intricately bound up with the “city hall” everywhere, this writer proposes that landlords pool their titles and take over the administration of such services as the provision of parks and parking space, garbage disposal, the cleaning of the streets, and police protection. What is now wasted in the “overhead” of tax collection and the support of political machines would redound to the private administrator as profit and to the tenant as service that is distinctly worth having.

 The true community, says Mr. Heath, is built on the “citadel” (for protection against marauders), on the “market” (for the creation and exchange of life-enhancing goods and services), and on the “altar” (for the periodic renewal of its spirit). It is when the “citadel” invades the “market,” or when the “altar” denies it, that the life-denying and life-destroying practices seep in. Then human existence, to adapt Hobbes’s phrase, becomes “nasty, brutish and short,” not the benign multiplication of creative moments that result when the individual life-unit can count on a long life span. Mr.  Heath’s “energy concept of population” depends for its unimpeded functioning on a true relationship between the three categories of his striking title.

 All in all, this is a book which shows how beauty may flower from practicality as social-ization (to spell the word with Mr. Heath’s hyphen) flows from the citadel-protected marketplace under the altar-fostered inspiration of the Golden Rule. A far cry indeed from the brute socialization (no hyphen) that results when collectivism is forced by government (the “citadel”) upon men.

John Chamberlain