Reich, Charles A.

English

Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository

THE YALE LAW JOURNAL
coercion of any sort, our range of free choice is extended beyond a single, ex-
clusive pattern. American voluntarism, whatever its sources, becomes the back-
ground for commitment.
"How is your wife?" asked a man. "As compared to what?" answered the
other. Compared to the available legal studies, Religious Perspectives in
American Culture is but average, both opinionated and expensive. It is
opinionated-as compared to such studies as Religion in America (Meridian
Press), the paperback featuring a multi-author, many-points-of-view approach
at its very best. It is expensive vis-A-vis the four pamphlets of the Center for
the Study of Democratic Institutions which combine balanced, fresh presen-
tations with the unbeatable allure of free copies. This is not to say that the
essays in the book under review are inferior to those in other publications;
they are not. The trouble is that the editors stand their case on one foot only.
With such subjective presentation of true problems, the impact of the materials
is lessened and "parts" fail to add to an objective "whole." It is this error in
judgment that at times makes one feel that we are sadly impaled on a steer's
horns of a dilemma with lots of bull in between.
EPHrRAIM MARGOLINt
THE PROMISED LAND OF SCIENCE
TowARD A REASONABLE SOCIETY: THE VALUES OF INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZA-
TION. By C. E. Ayres.' Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961. Pp. 301.
$4.75.
APATHY and lack of purpose deeply trouble mid-century Americans. Life
constantly gets "better," but seemingly ever less satisfying. Today's youth,
despairing of finding meaningful careers, talk of seeking in marriage, in leisure
activities, and in their personal lives a sense of purpose which society does not
provide. In the glittering world that science has built, they have somehow lost
the way.
In Toward A Reasonable Society, C. E. Ayres attempts to set us on the path
once more. Mr. Ayres, a distinguished economist, contends that values and
purpose can indeed be found in an industrial-technological civilization, and
that values so derived are far more meaningful than the much mourned lost
faiths of prior ages. His book provides an important opportunity to assess the
promise of the scientific way of life.
True values, Mr. Ayres begins, derive from (and only from) the "life
process of mankind." In the activity of knowing-and-doing we learn what is
best for us, whether the question is which mushrooms can be eaten, or what
kind of government we need for the next fifty years. Values are operational
IWest Coast Staff Counsel, American Jewish Congress; Member of the California
and Israel Bars.
1. Professor of Economics, University of Texas.
[Vol. 72:207
REVIEWS
in nature. It is a great mistake, Mr. Ayres says, to accept the common belief
that science is "value-free." By telling us what works, science and technology
are in fact the source of all values.
Mr. Ayres recognizes that most people, including most scientists, believe
that values and ideas of right and wrong can only derive from "higher"
sources-from religion, from the spirit, or from an ethos handed down through
the culture. But after an elaborate discussion he discounts such sources as
frequently mere superstition, fantasy, and unreason. Nor does he consider
feelings a more reliable source of values. Since feelings are conditioned, they
are derivative and particular feelings are not inevitable. People would be better
off without some of their "bogus" fears and ecstasies, so that they might find
more "genuine" emotions in circumstances justified by reason.
Today's moral agnosticism, Mr. Ayres argues, is in part due to the
persistence of unreason with respect to values. We have stubbornly refused to
recognize scientific truth as the source of values, and, in consequence, have
dissociated truth and value. This he calls the moral crisis of our times.
The major values of industrial civilization, Mr. Ayres says, are those things
that demonstrably contribute most to human life: freedom, equality, security,
abundance, and excellence. Freedom, for example, "is a sine qua non of the
further development of science and technology and so of all the values that
flow from them." Abundance of food promotes health and well-being, and
abundance of art and music enhances our faculties. Real values, he says, are all
interdependent, and, because they arise out of human experience, are universal
goals toward which all of mankind, in every society, has been striving.
Mr. Ayres believes that industrial civilization makes possible the highest
realization of the true, universal values. Such a civilization provides the great-
est freedom in choosing one's work, in deciding what to buy, in movement,
communication, and opportunity for intellectual development. Such a society,
he says, offers both abundance and excellence; it promises the best life that
man has ever known.
Man can find purpose, Mr. Ayres concludes, in dedicating himself to ad-
vancement of the true values. In working for abundance, security or excel-
lence, he is working for a cause beyond himself-the cause of the life process of
mankind. He need not look to the irrational-to the "fancies of our ancestors"
-to find faith. In selfless dedication to a way of life that offers progress
toward the real values, Mr. Ayres says, men can know both purpose and hope.
The thesis just described is set forth in a book that is not, perhaps, great
literature. It proceeds resolutely toward its goal with none of the graceful and
unforgettable embellishments of'a Walton Hamilton or the penetratingly ironic
asides of a Veblen. It leans to absolutes; it speaks over and over again of
truth and falsity, insisting that we distinguish "true knowledge" from "false
knowledge," "true values" from "false values," and "error" from "the good."
Sometimes it valiantly battles straw men, or trounces overdrawn dichotomies,
and sometimes it celebrates its victories in platitudes. Occasionally its unrelent-
1962]
THE YALE LAW JOURNAL
ing optimism is wearing. But despite these literary shortcomings, the book is
important. It sets forth explicitly the prospectus of a scientific civilization, and
focuses attention upon far-reaching questions concerning the role of science in
society.
To understand the significance of Mr. Ayres' book, some perspective is
needed. Mr. Ayres belongs to a tradition of economists who were in revolt
against laissez-faire, the philosophy of economic individualism, and individual
morality. These economists were radicals who fought for a rational, planned
society, and helped to bring about the great reforms of the New Deal. This book
is in some ways an outgrowth of that battle.
But although the debate between the free enterprisers and the scientific
planners goes on, Mr. Ayres' tradition is "radical" no longer; it is really
today's mainstream, or it will be soon. Meanwhile we hear the beginnings of
a new debate. In this debate, both sides accept the notion that values derive
from human experience, and both sides accept the general idea of a society
rationally organized on the basis of this experience. The debate concerns two
major issues. First, can the political and economic machinery necessary to
operate a scientific society really be made to work? Second, are the goals
which thus far have been set by science really responsive to the basic needs of
man? It is because of its contribution to this new debate that Toward a Rea-
sonable Society is most significant.
Mr. Ayres has no doubts that a scientific society can work. He finds ample
proof even in those instances of modern life that are most criticized. Gadgets
are not deplorable, but the means of living in comfort without being waited
on by servants. They promote equality, a prime value. Television comedians
may be vulgar, he says, but they are not necessarily killing the habit of read-
ing; those who watch them probably never used to read anything more taxing
than baseball scores, and children, of course, never used to read anything.
Mass produced goods are more excellent than the hand-made goods of pre-
vious generations: "The probability is strong that most craftsmen were
bunglers whose pride in their work, if any, was indeed fatuous." If the in-
dustrial worker lacks a sense of achievement, it is simply because he fails to
appreciate the significance of his part in the total effort, but "alert managers"
are becoming more aware than ever before of the emotional needs of their em-
ployees, and Mr. Ayres believes that "the operation of large-scale assemblies
does not of itself inhibit natural human feelings. . . ." "Even the hazard of
war," he says, "is being progressively reduced by the same sort of efficient
organization that has been the decisive factor in reducing the hazard of dis-
ease."
Nor has Mr. Ayres any doubts concerning the means by which progress is
to be continued. He is in favor of "organized intelligence"; of social and
political planning and regulation which firmly undertakes to define and ad-
vance the public interest.
It would be a mistake to view Mr. Ayres as a mere Babbitt of the
(Vol. Y2:207
REVIEWS
planned economy. As he recognizes, there is much that is wrong with modern
society. He believes, however, that current complaints could be answered by
more thoughtful, wiser planning. Present inadequacies do not by themselves
prove a case against the rational society.
But the inadequacies unaccountably seem to persist and even increase. "Mod-
erm" organization breeds a strangling growth of forms, procedure and bureauc-
racy which would have been familiar to Gogol. "Rational" agencies are ob-
served to favor special interests or to use their power for illegitimate purposes.
"Science" ordains that a new school in Maryland be planned without windows
to avoid distracting the children from their studies, because nobody was able to
calculate the value of clouds and sun and sky. Can it be that bureaucracy gets
ever more rigid and incapable of responding to changing information and
needs? Is centralized power a natural haven for private interests and an ir-
resistable temptation to misuse? Are the massive, complex organizations that
technological planning requires just too cumbersome, too monolithic, to manage
the tentativity and the delicate adaptation to new scientific findings that suc-
cessful planning requires? Is defining the "public good" really a task within the
realm of the possible or is it an infinitely complicated, perhaps superhuman
undertaking?
Mr. Ayres never comes to grips with the underlying problem of whether-
and how-a rational society, so appealing in theory, can be operated successful-
ly by human beings. He spends all of his time on the theoretical desirability of
such a society, almost none on how it is to be achieved. And he seems pain-
fully naive about the tremendous practical difficulties. He vastly under-
estimates the problem of translating ever incomplete scientific knowledge into
appropriate social action, and he vastly overestimates the capabilities and high-
mindedness of the politicians, timeservers, corruptionists, and selfseekers who
may well run the rational state.
The limitations of Mr. Ayres' analysis are illustrated by his discussion of the
likelihood of war. Dismissing the fact that science has made the destruction of
mankind easy enough to be accomplished by an overexcited lieutenant colonel
(after all, he says, "It is also possible that the earth might encounter an
asteroid with results even more disastrous... ."), Mr. Ayres contends that
the danger is decreasing. This is because the causes of antagonism are de-
clining. Super-national'organization is growing, governments are concerned
more and more with facts and less and less with power and glory, life is getting
more rational, and the world understands more fully than ever before "that
war is incompatible with the industrial way of life."
Unhappily, there is reason to fear that the very "effective organization"
upon which Mr. Ayres counts so heavily may be the cause of ultimate destruc-
tion. If anything stands out in recent history, it is the increasing inability of
American industrial and political organization to adapt to new world forces, to
let in new ideas, to evolve new modes of thinking. On the contrary, the
scientific-military-industrial organization is so insulated from outside influ-
19621
THE YALE LAW JOURNAL
ences, so powered by its own momentum, so bent on self-perpetuation and ag-
grandizement, that it seems to be hurtling toward pointless war.
Much of Mr. Ayres' book, then, consists of generalities that are not adequate
to cope with the grim problems that beset us, nor calculated to give much
practical guidance to those who have lost the way. Even if we accept his
philosophy, his book is, in this respect, only a preface.
But the core of Mr. Ayres' book is values. And therefore it raises a question
more profound than the workability of a scientific civilization: even if we
could make it work, can we accept its goals?
Mr. Ayres lists the goals of an industrial society as freedom, equality, secur-
ity, abundance, and excellence. Life is meant to be a great feast of these values:
Mr. Ayres offers "abundance" and "the progressive multiplication of all
good things," and he describes the ultimate good as "bringing home the bacon."
But if this is indeed what life is all about, why do some of his guests look
green and sated?
Is it possible that the feast promised by industrial civilization-a feast of
goods, of travel, of art, of intellectual development, of leisure--can yet leave
an aching emptiness within? Is it conceivable that this "universal goal of man-
kind" is not the way to contentment?
The banquet, moreover, is not without its price. For although one of the
listed values is "freedom," it is not precisely the kind of freedom which the
founders of this country cherished.
Mr. Ayres rejects as "primitive" the notion of freedom as simply the ab-
sence of coercion. Nor is it, he says, an aspect of individualism. Freedom is
positive, not negative, and it exists only as part of a social process. The
more goods society produces, the greater man's "freedom" to buy them; the
more roads and automobiles, the greater his "freedom" to move, the more
occupations, the greater his "freedom" to choose his vocation. Freedom is
"virtually synonymous with the fullness of life"; "In a very real sense the
freedom we have achieved is in direct proportion to our wealth." "Freedom is
not an ultimate, or a primary assumption. It is an aspect and a condition of
technological process."
Mr. Ayres is perfectly right when he says that the ready availability of
goods, services, books, and knowledge is a necessary condition if men are to be
free with respect to these things. The illiterate serf is not free to read, nor the
poverty-stricken worker free to move. But there is great difficulty, which Mr.
Ayres does not discuss, in giving effect both to this affirmative type of freedom
and to the older tradition of freedom as well.
In the reasonable, planned society men must learn to live within a giant
cage of regulation. This is implicit in all that Mr. Ayres says, and it does not
trouble him. Traffic officers may multiply, but they are merely to move traffic
"with maximum expeditiousness." Income tax regulations may be onerous,
but they are a fair, equal device "to organize the assessment of taxes on the
basis of the facts." The government makes health regulations, but people
[Vol. 72:207
REVIEWS
do not submit because they are forced to do so. "To an amazing extent the
whole community cooperates voluntarily. .. " he says (perhaps Mr. Ayres is
not aware of the Baltimore householder who protested all the way to the
Supreme Court against the authority of health inspectors to enter a house
without a warrant, or the New York tattoo artists who were summarily de-
prived of their livelihood by a Board of Health order prohibiting tattooing).
Even sex must be regulated so that it does not "interrupt, confuse, and nullify
all the other organized activities by which we live."
In short, it seems clear that there is in the concept of a reasonable society
some notion of the "common good" or "public interest" which people must
accept because it is "true." Room for experiment and disagreement are to
be preserved, but only because some of science's findings may turn out to be
in error, and dissident opinion right. But to declare, with John Stuart Mill,
that even if we could know that the dissident opinion is mistaken its sup-
pression would still be evil is, in Ayres' word, "nonsense." We know what
is good for us, Mr. Ayres says. The scientific civilization, however kindly it
may regard dissent, is apparently seeking "truth" in an absolute, universal
sense. At bottom it seems to rest upon orthodoxy, not skepticism, and this
orthodoxy must to some extent be enforced upon those whose beliefs are
deemed to be mistaken. If tattooing is found to be dangerous to health, it may,
according to current views, be prohibited. People are not free to disregard what
science finds is good for them. That is the price of a reasonable society.
Before we decide to pay this price, it might be well to ask whether science
really does know what is good for us. It can plan great modem apartment
buildings, but does it really know what settings are "best" for people to live
within? It can build safe turnpikes, but does it really know what is lost when
motorists exchange the variety of the countryside for endless miles of aseptic
monotony? It knows on the basis of college admissions tests which young
men have high reading comprehension, but does it know anything about who
we need to lead us?
Today we live in a world which, if it is not quite Mr. Ayres' reasonable
society, nevertheless does in truth take more and more of its values from the
information science supplies. If the findings of scientists are to be given so
much weight in deciding how society operates, scientists surely have a
responsibility to see how their findings are interpreted, understood, and used.
To release facts and take no responsibility for what happens as a consequence
is a strange morality, one which no doctor or lawyer would follow--especially
in the many cases where only scientists are qualified to interpret the facts. Even
more important, it is plainly the responsibility of science to recognize its own
limitations; to remind us all of how little it knows; to oppose action that is
taken on the basis of incomplete data and insufficient understanding; to reject
any orthodoxy established in the name of science.
Science knows least of all about the sources of human happiness. Because of
this, science should be the first to warn against the uncritical drive toward a
1962]
222 THE YALE LAW JOURNAL (Vol. 72:207
scientific civilization-a society with values based wholly on what is scienti-
fically known or knowable. For the basic questions concerning the proper goals
of civilization simply do not yet have answers. Do we really want an abundance
of everything, or is the search better than the finding? Do we really want to
possess knowledge, or would it be better for men always to follow it "like a
sinking star?" Do we really want a "reasonable society" if, as it seems, we
must forego all that has the power to touch drab life with magic-a magic
which reason can never know?
Mr. Ayres has, in his own words, taken us to "the threshold of a new civili-
zation"-a world that lives only by reason and science. And Mr. Ayres does,
not want us to hesitate: "the task is now what it has always been throughout
the ages: that of pressing on." How shall one explain to him, and to the
countless followers of science who march with him, that there are some who
would not choose to dwell in the promised land?
CHARLEs A. Rricut
tAssociate Professor of Law, Yale Law Scbool.


Ayres: Toward a Reasonable Society: The Values of Industrial Civilization

https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8973&amp;context=ylj

Ayres: Toward a Reasonable Society: The Values of Industrial Civilization

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository