Spencer Heath Archive

Item 3175

Typed transcription by Spencer MacCallum from conversation with Heath at Winchester VA

June 27, 1955

There is one economic situation of most benefit of all parties including society, and that is an active market with active turn-over.  Any property that can be only occa­sionally or at rare intervals leased or sold is property of least social utility because least available as the subject matter of contract, and thereby least available as an instru­ment of service by men for men. Anything that impairs its saleability interferes with the flow of services between man and man and prevents the growth of such services upon which the advance of civilization depends.

It is only through the services that men exchange with one another that civilization is maintained, and through the increase of these services that new values are created and civilization is advanced.

Such ideas are too big and too important to be enter­tained by persons whose chief interest and activity is with ordinary and routine transactions. De Tocqueville attributes the lack of philosophy and general ideas in America to the equality of condition which enables so many people to exer­cise their ambitions through small and particular transac­tions. This, in his view, has caused Americans to become shrewd in small and particular transactions while remaining obtuse as to their wide and general significance.