WEBVTT NOTE 15. Philosophical Interpretations of History 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.600 Part 4. 2 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:11.480 The Course of History Chapter 15. 3 00:00:11.480 --> 00:00:17.360 Philosophical Interpretations of History 1. 4 00:00:17.360 --> 00:00:23.760 Philosophies of History and Philosophical Interpretations of History 5 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:29.320 The attempts to provide a philosophical interpretation of history must not be confused with any of 6 00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:32.560 and the various schemes of philosophy of history. 7 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:37.000 They do not aim at the discovery of the end toward which the process of human history 8 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:38.760 is tending. 9 00:00:38.760 --> 00:00:43.080 They try to bring into relief factors that play a momentous part in determining the course 10 00:00:43.080 --> 00:00:45.400 of historical events. 11 00:00:45.400 --> 00:00:50.480 They deal with the ends individuals and groups of individuals are aiming at, but they abstain 12 00:00:50.480 --> 00:00:55.840 from any opinion about the end and the meaning of the historical process as a whole or about 13 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:59.280 a preordained destiny of mankind. 14 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:03.800 They rely not upon intuition, but upon a study of history. 15 00:01:03.800 --> 00:01:08.320 They try to demonstrate the correctness of their interpretation by referring to historical 16 00:01:08.320 --> 00:01:09.960 facts. 17 00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:14.740 In this sense, they can be called discursive and scientific. 18 00:01:14.740 --> 00:01:18.920 It is useless to enter into a discussion about the merits and demerits of a definite brand 19 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:21.060 of philosophy of history. 20 00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:26.780 A philosophy of history has to be accepted as a whole or rejected as a whole. 21 00:01:26.780 --> 00:01:32.740 No logical arguments and no reference to facts can be advanced either for or against a philosophy 22 00:01:32.740 --> 00:01:34.220 of history. 23 00:01:34.220 --> 00:01:36.820 There is no question of reasoning about it. 24 00:01:36.820 --> 00:01:41.060 What matters is solely belief or disbelief. 25 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:46.660 It is possible that in a few years the entire earth will be subject to socialism. 26 00:01:46.660 --> 00:01:53.580 If this occurs, it will by no means confirm the Marxian variety of philosophy of history. 27 00:01:53.580 --> 00:01:58.740 Capitalism will not be the outcome of a law operating independently of the will of men 28 00:01:58.740 --> 00:02:02.300 with the inexorability of a law of nature. 29 00:02:02.300 --> 00:02:07.760 It will be precisely the outcome of the ideas that got into the heads of men of the conviction 30 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:13.900 shared by the majority that socialism will be more beneficial to them than capitalism. 31 00:02:13.900 --> 00:02:19.180 A philosophical interpretation of history can be misused for political propaganda. 32 00:02:19.180 --> 00:02:24.940 However, it is easy to separate the scientific core of the doctrine from its political adaptation 33 00:02:24.940 --> 00:02:27.940 and modification. 34 00:02:27.940 --> 00:02:30.540 2. 35 00:02:30.540 --> 00:02:35.500 Environmentalism Environmentalism is the doctrine that explains 36 00:02:35.500 --> 00:02:40.680 historical changes as produced by the environment in which people are living. 37 00:02:40.680 --> 00:02:46.380 There are two varieties of this doctrine, the doctrine of physical or geographical environmentalism 38 00:02:46.380 --> 00:02:51.020 and the Doctrine of Social or Cultural Environmentalism. 39 00:02:51.020 --> 00:02:55.580 The former doctrine asserts that the essential features of a people's civilization are brought 40 00:02:55.580 --> 00:02:58.500 about by geographical factors. 41 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:03.960 The physical, geographical, and climatic conditions and the flora and fauna of a region determine 42 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:07.220 the thoughts and the actions of its inhabitants. 43 00:03:07.220 --> 00:03:12.980 In the most radical formulation of their thesis, anthropo-geographical authors are eager to 44 00:03:12.980 --> 00:03:18.580 to trace back all differences between races, nations, and civilizations to the operation 45 00:03:18.580 --> 00:03:21.340 of man's natural environment. 46 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:27.140 The inherent misconception of this interpretation is that it looks upon geography as an active 47 00:03:27.140 --> 00:03:30.420 and upon human action as a passive factor. 48 00:03:30.420 --> 00:03:35.400 However, the geographical environment is only one of the components of the situation in 49 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:38.100 which man is placed by his birth. 50 00:03:38.100 --> 00:03:44.100 makes him feel uneasy and causes him to employ his reason and his bodily forces to get rid 51 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:47.220 of this uneasiness as best he may. 52 00:03:47.220 --> 00:03:54.380 Geography, nature, provides on the one hand a provocation to act and on the other hand 53 00:03:54.380 --> 00:03:59.980 both means that can be utilized in acting and insurmountable limits imposed upon the 54 00:03:59.980 --> 00:04:02.380 human striving for betterment. 55 00:04:02.380 --> 00:04:06.540 It provides a stimulus but not the response. 56 00:04:06.540 --> 00:04:11.180 Industry sets a task, but man has to solve it. 57 00:04:11.180 --> 00:04:16.380 Man lives in a definite geographical environment and is forced to adjust his action to the 58 00:04:16.380 --> 00:04:19.140 conditions of this environment. 59 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:23.700 But the way in which he adjusts himself, the methods of his social, technological, and 60 00:04:23.700 --> 00:04:29.300 moral adaptation, are not determined by the external physical factors. 61 00:04:29.300 --> 00:04:34.480 The North American continent produced neither the civilization of the Indian Aborigines 62 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:38.560 Nor that of the Americans of European extraction. 63 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:43.360 Human action is conscious reaction to the stimulus offered by the conditions under which 64 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:45.160 man lives. 65 00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:49.320 As some of the components of the situation in which he lives and is called upon to act 66 00:04:49.320 --> 00:04:56.340 vary in different parts of the globe, there are also geographical differences in civilization. 67 00:04:56.340 --> 00:05:02.000 The wooden shoes of the Dutch fishermen would not be useful to the mountaineers of Switzerland. 68 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:13.600 The doctrine of social and cultural environmentalism merely stresses the fact that there is, necessarily, 69 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:16.680 continuity in human civilization. 70 00:05:16.680 --> 00:05:22.000 The rising generation does not create a new civilization from the grass roots. 71 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:28.240 It enters into the social and cultural milieu that the preceding generations have created. 72 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:33.220 The individual is born at a definite date in history into a definite situation determined 73 00:05:33.220 --> 00:05:39.780 by geography, history, social institutions, mores, and ideologies. 74 00:05:39.780 --> 00:05:44.200 He has daily to face the alteration in the structure of this traditional surrounding 75 00:05:44.200 --> 00:05:47.240 affected by the actions of his contemporaries. 76 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:50.000 He does not simply live in the world. 77 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.000 He lives in a circumscribed spot. 78 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:58.560 He is both furthered and hampered in his acting by all that is peculiar to this spot, but 79 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:01.320 he is not determined by it. 80 00:06:01.320 --> 00:06:06.800 The truth contained in environmentalism is the cognition that every individual lives 81 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:13.000 at a definite epoch in a definite geographical space and acts under the conditions determined 82 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:14.960 by this environment. 83 00:06:14.960 --> 00:06:20.040 The environment determines the situation, but not the response. 84 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:25.160 To the same situation, different modes of reacting are thinkable and feasible. 85 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:30.080 Which one the actors choose depends on their individuality. 86 00:06:30.080 --> 00:06:32.360 3. 87 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:37.020 The Egalitarian's Interpretation of History 88 00:06:37.020 --> 00:06:41.240 Most biologists maintain that there is but one species of man. 89 00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:46.560 The fact that all people can interbreed and produce fertile offspring is taken as evidence 90 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:49.400 of the zoological unity of mankind. 91 00:06:49.400 --> 00:06:55.120 Yet, within the species Homo sapiens, there are numerous variations which make it imperative 92 00:06:55.120 --> 00:06:58.840 to distinguish subspecies or races. 93 00:06:58.840 --> 00:07:03.320 There are considerable bodily differences between the members of various races. 94 00:07:03.320 --> 00:07:08.640 There are also remarkable, although less momentous, differences between members of the same race, 95 00:07:08.640 --> 00:07:16.880 subrace, tribe, or family, even between brothers and sisters, even between non-identical twins. 96 00:07:16.880 --> 00:07:22.960 Every individual is already at birth different bodily from all other specimens, is characterized 97 00:07:22.960 --> 00:07:25.980 by individual traits of his own. 98 00:07:25.980 --> 00:07:31.040 But no matter how great these differences may be, they do not affect the logical structure 99 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:33.040 of the human mind. 100 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:37.760 There is not the slightest evidence for the thesis developed by various schools of thought 101 00:07:37.760 --> 00:07:43.280 that the logic and thinking of different races are categorically different. 102 00:07:43.280 --> 00:07:48.560 The scientific treatment of the inborn differences between individuals and their biological and 103 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:56.080 physiological inheritance has been grossly muddled and twisted by political prepossessions. 104 00:07:56.080 --> 00:08:01.000 Behavioristic psychology maintains that all differences in mental traits among men are 105 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:04.040 caused by environmental factors. 106 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:08.720 It denies all influence a bodily build upon mental activities. 107 00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:14.280 It holds that equalizing the outer conditions of human life and education could wipe out 108 00:08:14.280 --> 00:08:19.380 all cultural differences between individuals, whatever their racial or family affiliation 109 00:08:19.380 --> 00:08:27.240 might be. Observation contradicts these assertions. It shows that there is a degree of correlation 110 00:08:27.240 --> 00:08:33.320 between bodily structure and mental traits. An individual inherits from his parents and 111 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:38.680 Indirectly from his parents' ancestors, not only the specific biological characteristics 112 00:08:38.680 --> 00:08:45.240 of his body, but also a constitution of mental powers that circumscribes the potentialities 113 00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:49.520 of his mental achievements and his personality. 114 00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:54.440 Some people are endowed with an innate ability for definite kinds of activities while others 115 00:08:54.440 --> 00:08:59.740 lack this gift entirely or possess it only to a lesser degree. 116 00:08:59.740 --> 00:09:04.940 The behavioristic doctrine was used to support the program of socialism of the egalitarian 117 00:09:04.940 --> 00:09:07.620 variety. 118 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:12.980 Egalitarian socialism attacks the classical liberal principle of equality before the law. 119 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:18.020 In its opinion, the inequalities of income and wealth existing in the market economy 120 00:09:18.020 --> 00:09:23.660 are in their origin and their social significance not different from those existing in a status 121 00:09:23.660 --> 00:09:25.300 society. 122 00:09:25.300 --> 00:09:31.500 They are the outcome of usurpations and expropriations and the resulting exploitation of the masses 123 00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:34.860 brought about by arbitrary violence. 124 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:39.620 The beneficiaries of this violence form a dominating class as the instrument of which 125 00:09:39.620 --> 00:09:43.420 the state forcibly holds down the exploited. 126 00:09:43.420 --> 00:09:48.860 What distinguishes the capitalist from the common man is the fact that he has joined 127 00:09:48.860 --> 00:09:52.260 the gang of the unscrupulous exploiters. 128 00:09:52.260 --> 00:09:57.060 The only quality required in an entrepreneur is villainy. 129 00:09:57.060 --> 00:10:02.900 His business, says Lenin, is accounting and the control of production and distribution, 130 00:10:02.900 --> 00:10:09.260 and these things have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost till they have become the extraordinarily 131 00:10:09.260 --> 00:10:15.460 simple operations of watching, recording and issuing receipts within the reach of anybody 132 00:10:15.460 --> 00:10:19.940 who can read and write and knows the first four rules of arithmetic. 133 00:10:19.940 --> 00:10:27.680 Thus, the property privileges of the capitalists are no less superfluous and therefore parasitic 134 00:10:27.680 --> 00:10:32.460 than the status privileges of the aristocratic landowners were on the eve of the Industrial 135 00:10:32.460 --> 00:10:34.460 Revolution. 136 00:10:34.460 --> 00:10:39.700 In establishing asperious equality before the law and preserving the most iniquitous of 137 00:10:39.700 --> 00:10:46.340 all privileges, private property, the bourgeoisie has duped the unsuspecting people and robbed 138 00:10:46.340 --> 00:10:49.580 them of the fruits of the revolution. 139 00:10:49.580 --> 00:10:54.700 This doctrine, already dimly present in the writings of some earlier authors and popularized 140 00:10:54.700 --> 00:11:01.340 by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and by Babif, was transformed in the Marxian class struggle doctrine 141 00:11:01.340 --> 00:11:05.700 into an interpretation of the whole process of human history from the point of view of 142 00:11:05.700 --> 00:11:07.380 usurpation. 143 00:11:07.380 --> 00:11:12.620 In the context of the Marxian philosophy of history, the emergence of status and class 144 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:17.500 distinctions was a necessary and historically inevitable result of the evolution of the 145 00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:20.320 The State of the Material Productive Forces 146 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:25.980 The members of the dominating castes and classes were not individually responsible for the acts 147 00:11:25.980 --> 00:11:28.500 of oppression and exploitation. 148 00:11:28.500 --> 00:11:32.820 They were not morally inferior to those they held in subservience. 149 00:11:32.820 --> 00:11:38.540 They were simply the men inscrutable destiny singled out to perform a socially, economically, 150 00:11:38.540 --> 00:11:41.660 and historically necessary task. 151 00:11:41.660 --> 00:11:45.940 As the state of the material productive forces determined each individual's role in the 152 00:11:45.940 --> 00:11:48.780 Consummation of the Historical Process. 153 00:11:48.780 --> 00:11:52.940 It was their part to carry out all they accomplished. 154 00:11:52.940 --> 00:11:57.740 But quite a different description of the March of Human Affairs is provided by those writings 155 00:11:57.740 --> 00:12:03.060 in which marks and angles deal with historical problems or with political issues of their 156 00:12:03.060 --> 00:12:05.100 own time. 157 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:09.900 There they unreservedly espouse the popular doctrine of the inherent moral corruption 158 00:12:09.900 --> 00:12:12.780 of the exploiters. 159 00:12:12.780 --> 00:12:18.180 Human history appears as a process of progressive moral corruption that started when the blissful 160 00:12:18.180 --> 00:12:25.340 conditions of primeval village communities were disrupted by the greed of selfish individuals. 161 00:12:25.340 --> 00:12:30.700 Private ownership of land is the original sin which, step by step, brought about all 162 00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:34.380 the disasters that have plagued mankind. 163 00:12:34.380 --> 00:12:40.660 What elevates an exploiter above the level of his fellow men is merely villainy. 164 00:12:40.660 --> 00:12:47.580 In the three volumes of Das Kapital, unscrupulousness is the only quality alluded to as required 165 00:12:47.580 --> 00:12:49.640 in an exploiter. 166 00:12:49.640 --> 00:12:54.680 The improvement of technology and the accumulation of wealth that Marx considered prerequisite 167 00:12:54.680 --> 00:13:00.320 for the realization of socialism are described as a result of the spontaneous evolution of 168 00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:03.660 the mythical material productive forces. 169 00:13:03.660 --> 00:13:07.920 The capitalists do not get any credit for these achievements. 170 00:13:07.920 --> 00:13:12.640 All that these villains do is to expropriate those who should by rights have the fruits 171 00:13:12.640 --> 00:13:16.360 of the operation of the material productive forces. 172 00:13:16.360 --> 00:13:20.140 They appropriate to themselves surplus value. 173 00:13:20.140 --> 00:13:25.580 They are merely parasites and mankind can do without them. 174 00:13:25.580 --> 00:13:30.540 This interpretation of history from the egalitarian point of view is the official philosophy of 175 00:13:30.540 --> 00:13:32.140 our age. 176 00:13:32.140 --> 00:13:37.700 It assumes that an automatic process of historical evolution tends to improve technological 177 00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:14.660 of the Actions of Men, a scientifically established fact which cannot be affected by men and by 178 00:14:14.660 --> 00:14:16.180 the social system. 179 00:14:16.180 --> 00:14:22.940 Hence, no harm can result from institutions such as the contemporary tax legislation which 180 00:14:22.940 --> 00:14:28.700 aim at ultimately wiping out the inequalities of income and wealth. 181 00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:34.580 The egalitarian doctrine is manifestly contrary to all the facts established by biology and 182 00:14:34.580 --> 00:14:36.220 by History. 183 00:14:36.220 --> 00:14:41.720 Only fanatical partisans of this theory can contend that what distinguishes the genius 184 00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:46.740 from the dullard is entirely the effect of postnatal influences. 185 00:14:46.740 --> 00:14:52.260 The presumption that civilization, progress, and improvement emanate from the operation 186 00:14:52.260 --> 00:14:58.580 of some mythical factor, in the Marxian philosophy, the material productive forces, shaping the 187 00:14:58.580 --> 00:15:03.960 minds of men in such a way that certain ideas are successively produced contemporaneously 188 00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:10.120 in them is an absurd fable. There has been a lot of empty talk about the non-existence 189 00:15:10.120 --> 00:15:15.680 of differences among men, but there has never been an attempt to organize society according 190 00:15:15.680 --> 00:15:21.640 to the egalitarian principle. The author of an egalitarian tract and the leader of an 191 00:15:21.640 --> 00:15:29.140 egalitarian party by their very activity contradict the principle to which they pay lip service. 192 00:15:29.140 --> 00:15:35.000 The historical role played by the egalitarian creed was to disguise the most abject forms 193 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.540 of despotic oppression. 194 00:15:37.540 --> 00:15:43.900 In Soviet Russia, egalitarianism is proclaimed as one of the main dogmas of the official 195 00:15:43.900 --> 00:15:45.060 creed. 196 00:15:45.060 --> 00:15:50.920 But Lenin was deified after his death and Stalin was worshipped in life as no ruler 197 00:15:50.920 --> 00:15:55.460 has been since the days of the declining Roman Empire. 198 00:15:55.460 --> 00:16:01.260 The egalitarian fables do not explain the course of past history, they are out of place in 199 00:16:01.260 --> 00:16:08.540 an analysis of economic problems and useless in planning future political action. 200 00:16:08.540 --> 00:16:11.040 4. 201 00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:15.020 The Racial Interpretation of History 202 00:16:15.020 --> 00:16:22.020 It is a historical fact that the civilizations developed by various races are different. 203 00:16:22.020 --> 00:16:26.560 In earlier ages, it was possible to establish this truth without attempting to distinguish 204 00:16:26.560 --> 00:16:30.320 between higher and lower civilizations. 205 00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:37.580 Each race, one could contend, develops a culture that conforms to its wishes, wants, and ideals. 206 00:16:37.580 --> 00:16:42.420 The character of a race finds its adequate expression in its achievements. 207 00:16:42.420 --> 00:16:48.060 A race may imitate accomplishments and institutions developed by other races, but it does not 208 00:16:48.060 --> 00:16:53.860 Long to abandon its own cultural pattern entirely and to substitute an imported alien system 209 00:16:53.860 --> 00:16:55.460 for it. 210 00:16:55.460 --> 00:17:01.420 If about 2000 years ago, the Greco-Romans and the Chinese had learned about each other's 211 00:17:01.420 --> 00:17:06.740 civilizations, neither race would have admitted the superiority of the other civilization. 212 00:17:06.740 --> 00:17:09.580 But it is different in our age. 213 00:17:09.580 --> 00:17:13.540 The non-caucasians may hate and despise the white man. 214 00:17:13.540 --> 00:17:19.580 They may plot his destruction and take pleasure in extravagant praise of their own civilizations, 215 00:17:19.580 --> 00:17:25.540 but they yearn for the tangible achievements of the West for its science, technology, therapeutics, 216 00:17:25.540 --> 00:17:30.140 its methods of administration, and of industrial management. 217 00:17:30.140 --> 00:17:34.480 Many of their spokesmen declare that they want only to imitate the material culture 218 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:40.060 of the West, and to do even that only so far as it does not conflict with their indigenous 219 00:17:40.060 --> 00:17:49.860 They fail to see that the adoption of what they disparagingly call the merely material 220 00:17:49.860 --> 00:17:55.420 achievements of the West is incompatible with preserving their traditional rights and taboos 221 00:17:55.420 --> 00:17:58.360 and their customary style of life. 222 00:17:58.360 --> 00:18:03.620 They indulge in the illusion that their peoples could borrow the technology of the West and 223 00:18:03.620 --> 00:18:09.700 attain a higher material standard of living without having first in a Kulturkampf divested 224 00:18:09.700 --> 00:18:15.440 and the Morays handed down from their ancestors. 225 00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:20.840 They are confirmed in this era by the socialist doctrine, which also fails to recognize that 226 00:18:20.840 --> 00:18:25.560 the material and technological achievements of the West were brought about by the philosophies 227 00:18:25.560 --> 00:18:32.260 of rationalism, individualism and utilitarianism, and are bound to disappear if the collectivist 228 00:18:32.260 --> 00:18:37.840 and totalitarian tenets substitute socialism for capitalism. 229 00:18:37.840 --> 00:18:43.540 Whatever people may say about Western civilization, the fact remains that all peoples look with 230 00:18:43.540 --> 00:18:51.160 envy upon its achievements, want to reproduce them, and thereby implicitly admit its superiority. 231 00:18:51.160 --> 00:18:55.760 It is this state of affairs that has generated the modern doctrine of race differences and 232 00:18:55.760 --> 00:18:59.500 its political offshoot, racism. 233 00:18:59.500 --> 00:19:03.700 The doctrine of race differences maintains that some races have succeeded better than 234 00:19:03.700 --> 00:19:08.300 and others in the pursuit of those aims that are common to all men. 235 00:19:08.300 --> 00:19:12.660 All men want to resist the operation of the factors detrimental to the preservation of 236 00:19:12.660 --> 00:19:16.340 their lives, their health, and their well-being. 237 00:19:16.340 --> 00:19:21.780 It cannot be denied that modern western capitalism has succeeded best in these endeavors. 238 00:19:21.780 --> 00:19:25.860 It has increased the average length of life and raised the average standard of living 239 00:19:25.860 --> 00:19:28.380 unprecedentedly. 240 00:19:28.380 --> 00:19:33.700 It has made accessible to the common man those higher human accomplishments, philosophy, 241 00:19:33.700 --> 00:19:40.120 science, art, which in the past were everywhere, and today, outside the countries of Western 242 00:19:40.120 --> 00:19:45.500 capitalism still are accessible only to a small minority. 243 00:19:45.500 --> 00:19:50.220 Grumblers may blame Western civilizations for its materialism and may assert that it 244 00:19:50.220 --> 00:19:55.740 gratified nobody but a small class of rugged exploiters, but their laments cannot wipe 245 00:19:55.740 --> 00:19:57.940 out the facts. 246 00:19:57.940 --> 00:20:02.620 Millions of mothers have been made happier by the drop in infant mortality, famines have 247 00:20:02.620 --> 00:20:08.100 disappeared and epidemics have been curbed, the average man lives in more satisfactory 248 00:20:08.100 --> 00:20:13.440 conditions than his ancestors or his fellows in the non-capitalistic countries, and one 249 00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:19.220 must not dismiss as merely materialistic a civilization which makes it possible for practically 250 00:20:19.220 --> 00:20:26.620 everybody to enjoy a Beethoven symphony performed by an orchestra conducted by an eminent master. 251 00:20:26.620 --> 00:20:30.700 The thesis that some races have been more successful than others in their efforts to 252 00:20:30.700 --> 00:20:37.120 develop a civilization is unassailable as a statement about historical experience. 253 00:20:37.120 --> 00:20:41.920 As a resume of what has happened in the past, it is quite correct to assert that modern 254 00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:45.300 civilization is the white man's achievement. 255 00:20:45.300 --> 00:20:51.740 However, the establishment of this fact justifies neither the white man's racial self-conceit 256 00:20:51.740 --> 00:20:55.300 nor the political doctrines of racism. 257 00:20:55.300 --> 00:21:00.260 Many people take pride in the fact that their ancestors or their relatives have performed 258 00:21:00.260 --> 00:21:02.040 great things. 259 00:21:02.040 --> 00:21:08.180 It gives some men a special satisfaction to know that they belong to a family, clan, nation, 260 00:21:08.180 --> 00:21:12.140 or race that has distinguished itself in the past. 261 00:21:12.140 --> 00:21:17.540 But this innocuous vanity easily turns into scorn of those who do not belong to the same 262 00:21:17.540 --> 00:21:23.260 distinguished group and into attempts to humiliate and to insult them. 263 00:21:23.260 --> 00:21:28.340 The diplomats, soldiers, bureaucrats, and businessmen of the Western nations, who in 264 00:21:28.340 --> 00:21:33.700 their contacts with the colored races have displayed overbearing effrontery, had no claim 265 00:21:33.700 --> 00:21:37.900 at all to boast of the deeds of Western civilization. 266 00:21:37.900 --> 00:21:42.780 They were not the makers of this culture which they compromised by their behavior. 267 00:21:42.780 --> 00:21:48.020 Their insolence, which found its expression in such signs as entrance forbidden to dogs 268 00:21:48.020 --> 00:21:53.940 Studies and Natives has poisoned the relations between the races for ages to come. 269 00:21:53.940 --> 00:22:00.360 But we do not have to deal with these sad facts in an analysis of racial doctrines. 270 00:22:00.360 --> 00:22:05.420 Historical experience warrants the statement that in the past the efforts of some subdivisions 271 00:22:05.420 --> 00:22:10.860 of the Caucasian race to develop a civilization have eclipsed those of the members of other 272 00:22:10.860 --> 00:22:11.940 races. 273 00:22:11.940 --> 00:22:15.060 It does not warrant any statement about the future. 274 00:22:15.060 --> 00:22:19.840 It does not permit us to assume that this superiority of the white stock will persist 275 00:22:19.840 --> 00:22:21.780 in the future. 276 00:22:21.780 --> 00:22:26.280 Nothing can be predicted from historical experience, with a likelihood that it can be compared 277 00:22:26.280 --> 00:22:31.340 with the probability of predictions made in the natural sciences on the basis of facts 278 00:22:31.340 --> 00:22:35.140 established by laboratory experiments. 279 00:22:35.140 --> 00:22:41.060 In 1760, a historian would have been right in declaring that Western civilization was 280 00:22:41.060 --> 00:22:45.860 was mainly an achievement of the Latins and the British and that the Germans had contributed 281 00:22:45.860 --> 00:22:47.540 little to it. 282 00:22:47.540 --> 00:22:53.400 It was permissible at that time to maintain that German science, art, literature, philosophy, 283 00:22:53.400 --> 00:22:58.240 and technology were insignificant compared to the accomplishments of the members of some 284 00:22:58.240 --> 00:22:59.900 other nations. 285 00:22:59.900 --> 00:23:04.180 One could fairly contend that those Germans who had distinguished themselves in these 286 00:23:04.180 --> 00:23:09.420 fields, foremost among them the astronomers Copernicus and Kepler and the philosopher 287 00:23:09.420 --> 00:23:15.780 for Leibniz could succeed only because they had fully absorbed what non-Germans had contributed, 288 00:23:15.780 --> 00:23:20.300 that intellectually they did not belong to Germany, that for a long time they had no 289 00:23:20.300 --> 00:23:25.460 German followers, and that those who first appreciated their doctrines were predominantly 290 00:23:25.460 --> 00:23:27.860 non-German. 291 00:23:27.860 --> 00:23:32.580 But if somebody had inferred from these facts that the Germans are culturally inferior and 292 00:23:32.580 --> 00:23:37.180 would rank in the future far below the French and the British, his conclusion would have 293 00:23:37.180 --> 00:23:49.180 A prediction about the future behavior of those races which today are considered culturally backward could only be made by biological science. 294 00:23:49.180 --> 00:24:01.180 If biology were to discover some anatomical characteristics of the members of the non-caucasian races which necessarily curb their mental faculties, one could venture such a prediction. 295 00:24:01.180 --> 00:24:05.180 But so far, biology has not discovered any such characteristics. 296 00:24:05.180 --> 00:24:11.180 It is not the task of this essay to deal with the biological issues of the racial doctrine. 297 00:24:11.180 --> 00:24:18.180 It must therefore abstain from analysis of the controversial problems of racial purity and miscegenation. 298 00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:23.180 Nor is it our task to investigate the merits of the political program of racism. 299 00:24:23.180 --> 00:24:27.180 This is for praxeology and economics. 300 00:24:27.180 --> 00:24:34.180 All that can be said about racial issues on the ground of historical experience boils down to two statements. 301 00:24:34.180 --> 00:24:40.940 First, the prevailing differences between the various biological strains of men are reflected 302 00:24:40.940 --> 00:24:44.700 in the civilizatory achievements of the group members. 303 00:24:44.700 --> 00:24:49.940 Second, in our age, the main achievements in civilization of some subdivisions of the 304 00:24:49.940 --> 00:24:55.660 white Caucasian race are viewed by the immense majority of the members of all other races 305 00:24:55.660 --> 00:25:00.460 as more desirable than characteristic features of the civilization produced by the members 306 00:25:00.460 --> 00:25:11.600 The Secularism of Western Civilization 307 00:25:11.600 --> 00:25:17.340 An almost universally accepted interpretation of modern civilization distinguishes between 308 00:25:17.340 --> 00:25:20.840 the spiritual and material aspects. 309 00:25:20.840 --> 00:25:26.440 The distinction is suspect as it originated not from a dispassionate observation of facts 310 00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:28.760 but from resentment. 311 00:25:28.760 --> 00:25:34.080 Every race, nation, or linguistic group boasts of its members' achievements in spiritual 312 00:25:34.080 --> 00:25:38.680 matters even while admitting its backwardness in material matters. 313 00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:43.960 It is assumed that there is little connection between the two aspects of civilization, that 314 00:25:43.960 --> 00:25:50.560 the spiritual is more sublime, deserving, and praiseworthy than the merely material, 315 00:25:50.560 --> 00:25:55.600 and that preoccupation with material improvement prevents a people from bestowing sufficient 316 00:25:55.600 --> 00:25:58.960 and Attention on Spiritual Matters. 317 00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:03.600 Such were, in the 19th century, the ideas of the leaders of the Eastern peoples who 318 00:26:03.600 --> 00:26:08.620 were eager to reproduce in their own countries the achievements of the West. 319 00:26:08.620 --> 00:26:14.000 The study of Western civilization made them subconsciously despise the institutions and 320 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:18.960 ideologies of their native countries and left them feeling inferior. 321 00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:23.520 They reestablished their mental equilibrium by means of the doctrine that depreciated 322 00:26:23.520 --> 00:26:27.440 Western Civilization as merely materialistic. 323 00:26:27.440 --> 00:26:33.240 The Romanians or Turks who longed for railroads and factories to be built by Western capital 324 00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:38.420 consoled themselves by exalting the spiritual culture of their own nations. 325 00:26:38.420 --> 00:26:43.300 The Hindus and the Chinese were of course on firmer ground when referring to the literature 326 00:26:43.300 --> 00:26:45.600 and art of their ancestors. 327 00:26:45.600 --> 00:26:49.840 But it seems not to have occurred to them that many hundreds of years separated them 328 00:26:49.840 --> 00:26:54.560 from the generations that had excelled in philosophy and poetry, and that in the age 329 00:26:54.560 --> 00:27:00.740 of these famous ancestors, their nations were, if not ahead of, certainly not second in material 330 00:27:00.740 --> 00:27:04.260 civilization to any of their contemporaries. 331 00:27:04.260 --> 00:27:10.000 In recent decades, the doctrine that belittles modern Western civilization as merely materialistic 332 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:15.900 has been almost universally endorsed by the nations which brought about this civilization. 333 00:27:15.900 --> 00:27:20.700 It comforts Europeans when they compare the economic prosperity of the United States with 334 00:27:20.700 --> 00:27:23.820 present-day conditions in their own countries. 335 00:27:23.820 --> 00:27:28.740 It serves the American socialists as a leading argument in their endeavor to depict American 336 00:27:28.740 --> 00:27:32.180 capitalism as a curse of mankind. 337 00:27:32.180 --> 00:27:37.580 Reluctantly forced to admit that capitalism pours a horn of plenty upon people, and that 338 00:27:37.580 --> 00:27:42.980 the Marxian prediction of the masses' progressive impoverishment has been spectacularly disproved 339 00:27:42.980 --> 00:27:44.420 by the facts. 340 00:27:44.420 --> 00:27:50.140 They try to salvage their detraction of capitalism by describing contemporary civilization as 341 00:27:50.140 --> 00:27:54.100 merely materialistic and sham. 342 00:27:54.100 --> 00:27:58.140 Bitter attacks upon modern civilization are launched by writers who think that they are 343 00:27:58.140 --> 00:28:00.660 pleading the cause of religion. 344 00:28:00.660 --> 00:28:03.700 They reprimand our age for its secularism. 345 00:28:03.700 --> 00:28:08.160 They bemoan the passing of a way of life in which they would have us believe people were 346 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:13.400 were not preoccupied with the pursuit of earthly ambitions, but were first of all concerned 347 00:28:13.400 --> 00:28:16.920 about the strict observance of their religious duties. 348 00:28:16.920 --> 00:28:22.800 They ascribe all evils to the spread of skepticism and agnosticism and passionately advocate 349 00:28:22.800 --> 00:28:27.060 a return to the orthodoxy of ages gone by. 350 00:28:27.060 --> 00:28:33.440 It is hard to find a doctrine which distorts history more radically than this anti-secularism. 351 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:38.680 There have always been devout men, pure in heart and dedicated to a pious life, but the 352 00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:43.780 religiousness of these sincere believers had nothing in common with the established system 353 00:28:43.780 --> 00:28:45.560 of devotion. 354 00:28:45.560 --> 00:28:50.460 It is a myth that the political and social institutions of the ages preceding modern 355 00:28:50.460 --> 00:28:57.440 individualistic philosophy and modern capitalism were imbued with a genuine Christian spirit. 356 00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:02.080 The teachings of the Gospels did not determine the official attitude of the governments toward 357 00:29:02.080 --> 00:29:09.040 World Religion, it was, on the contrary, this worldly concerns of the secular rulers, absolute 358 00:29:09.040 --> 00:29:15.480 kings and aristocratic oligarchies, but occasionally also revolting peasants and urban mobs, that 359 00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:21.240 transformed religion into an instrument of profane political ambitions. 360 00:29:21.240 --> 00:29:25.320 Nothing could be less compatible with true religion than the ruthless persecution of 361 00:29:25.320 --> 00:29:29.760 dissenters and the horrors of religious crusades and wars. 362 00:29:29.760 --> 00:29:34.960 No historian ever denied that very little of the Spirit of Christ was to be found in 363 00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:40.520 the churches of the 16th century which were criticized by the theologians of the Reformation 364 00:29:40.520 --> 00:29:46.960 and in those of the 18th century which the philosophers of the Enlightenment attacked. 365 00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:52.960 The ideology of individualism and utilitarianism which inaugurated modern capitalism brought 366 00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:56.760 freedom also to the religious longings of man. 367 00:29:56.760 --> 00:30:03.280 It shattered the pretension of those in power to impose their own creed upon their subjects. 368 00:30:03.280 --> 00:30:09.560 Religion is no longer the observance of articles enforced by constables and executioners. 369 00:30:09.560 --> 00:30:16.680 It is what a man, guided by his conscience, spontaneously espouses as his own faith. 370 00:30:16.680 --> 00:30:20.480 Modern Western civilization is this worldly. 371 00:30:20.480 --> 00:30:26.240 But it was precisely its secularism, its religious indifference, that gave reign to the renaissance 372 00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:49.640 6. 373 00:30:49.640 --> 00:30:55.120 The Rejection of Capitalism by Anti-Secularism 374 00:30:55.120 --> 00:31:00.880 The hostility displayed by the champions of anti-secularism to modern ways of life manifests 375 00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:05.920 itself in the condemnation of capitalism as an unjust system. 376 00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:10.740 In the opinion of the socialists as well as of the interventionists, the market economy 377 00:31:10.740 --> 00:31:15.960 impedes the full utilization of the achievements of technology and thus checks the evolution 378 00:31:15.960 --> 00:31:21.880 of production and restricts the quantity of goods produced and available for consumption. 379 00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:27.000 In earlier days, these critics of capitalism did not deny that an equal distribution of 380 00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:31.360 the social product among all would hardly bring about a noticeable improvement in the 381 00:31:31.360 --> 00:31:34.880 material conditions of the immense majority of people. 382 00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:39.400 In their plans, equal distribution played a subordinate role. 383 00:31:39.400 --> 00:31:44.880 Prosperity and abundance for all, which they promised was, as they thought, to be expected 384 00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:49.200 from the freeing of the productive forces from the fetters allegedly imposed upon them 385 00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:52.240 by the Selfishness of the Capitalists. 386 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:57.220 The purpose of the reforms they suggested was to replace capitalism by a more efficient 387 00:31:57.220 --> 00:32:03.200 system of production and thereby to inaugurate an age of riches for all. 388 00:32:03.200 --> 00:32:08.160 Now that economic analysis has exposed the illusions and fallacies in the socialists 389 00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:13.900 and interventionists' condemnation of capitalism, they try to salvage their programs by resorting 390 00:32:13.900 --> 00:32:15.520 to another method. 391 00:32:15.520 --> 00:32:21.440 The Marxians have developed the doctrine of the inevitability of socialism and the interventionists, 392 00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:26.640 following in their wake, speak of the irreversibility of the trend toward more and more government 393 00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:29.640 interference with economic affairs. 394 00:32:29.640 --> 00:32:34.880 It is obvious that these makeshifts are designed merely to cover their intellectual defeat 395 00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:39.640 and to divert the public's attention from the disastrous consequences of the socialist 396 00:32:39.640 --> 00:32:43.000 and interventionist policies. 397 00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:48.560 Other motives prompt those who advocate socialism and interventionism for moral and religious 398 00:32:48.560 --> 00:32:49.860 reasons. 399 00:32:49.860 --> 00:32:55.240 They consider it supererogatory to examine the economic problems involved, and they try 400 00:32:55.240 --> 00:32:59.880 to shift the discussion of pros and cons of the market economy from the field of economic 401 00:32:59.880 --> 00:33:03.920 analysis to what they call a higher sphere. 402 00:33:03.920 --> 00:33:09.760 They reject capitalism as an unfair system and advocate either socialism or interventionism 403 00:33:09.760 --> 00:33:15.560 As being in accord with their moral or religious principles, it is vile, they say, to look 404 00:33:15.560 --> 00:33:20.880 upon human affairs from the point of view of productivity, profits, and a materialistic 405 00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:26.280 concern about wealth and a plentiful supply of material goods. 406 00:33:26.280 --> 00:33:30.840 Man ought to strive after justice, not wealth. 407 00:33:30.840 --> 00:33:35.920 This mode of argumentation would be consistent if it were openly to ascribe inherent moral 408 00:33:35.920 --> 00:33:40.800 Capital Value to Poverty and to condemn altogether any effort to raise the standard of living 409 00:33:40.800 --> 00:33:44.320 above the level of mere subsistence. 410 00:33:44.320 --> 00:33:49.560 Science could not object to such a judgment of value, since judgments of value are ultimate 411 00:33:49.560 --> 00:33:52.760 choices on the part of the individual who utters them. 412 00:33:52.760 --> 00:33:57.920 However, those rejecting capitalism from a moral and religious point of view do not prefer 413 00:33:57.920 --> 00:34:00.440 penury to well-being. 414 00:34:00.440 --> 00:34:05.840 On the contrary, they tell their flock they want to improve man's material well-being. 415 00:34:05.840 --> 00:34:10.540 They see it as capitalism's chief weakness that it does not provide the masses with that 416 00:34:10.540 --> 00:34:17.480 degree of well-being which, as they believe, socialism or interventionism could provide. 417 00:34:17.480 --> 00:34:22.620 Their condemnation of capitalism and their recommendation of social reforms imply the 418 00:34:22.620 --> 00:34:28.160 thesis that socialism or interventionism will raise, not lower, the standard of living of 419 00:34:28.160 --> 00:34:29.520 the common man. 420 00:34:29.520 --> 00:34:34.780 Thus, these critics of capitalism endorse altogether the teachings of the socialists 421 00:34:34.780 --> 00:34:39.460 Socialists and Interventionists without bothering to scrutinize what the economists have brought 422 00:34:39.460 --> 00:34:41.940 forward to discredit them. 423 00:34:41.940 --> 00:34:46.900 The only fault they find with the tenets of the Marxian Socialists and the secular parties 424 00:34:46.900 --> 00:34:52.140 of interventionism is their commitment to atheism or secularism. 425 00:34:52.140 --> 00:34:57.860 It is obvious that the question whether material well-being is best served by capitalism, socialism, 426 00:34:57.860 --> 00:35:02.620 or interventionism can be decided only by careful analysis of the operation of each 427 00:35:02.620 --> 00:35:04.580 of these systems. 428 00:35:04.580 --> 00:35:07.460 This is what economics is accomplishing. 429 00:35:07.460 --> 00:35:12.260 There is no point in dealing with these issues without taking full account of all that economics 430 00:35:12.260 --> 00:35:14.380 has to say about them. 431 00:35:14.380 --> 00:35:19.340 It is justifiable if ethics and religion tell people that they ought to make better use 432 00:35:19.340 --> 00:35:22.620 of the well-being that capitalism brings them. 433 00:35:22.620 --> 00:35:27.340 If they try to induce the faithful to substitute better ways of spending for the objectionable 434 00:35:27.340 --> 00:35:32.800 habits of feasting, drinking, and gambling, if they condemn lying and cheating and praise 435 00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:38.640 is the moral values implied in purity of family relations and in charity to those in need, 436 00:35:38.640 --> 00:35:43.700 but it is irresponsible to condemn one social system and to recommend its replacement by 437 00:35:43.700 --> 00:35:49.940 another system without having fully investigated the economic consequences of each. 438 00:35:49.940 --> 00:35:54.540 There is nothing in any ethical doctrine or in the teachings of any of the creeds based 439 00:35:54.540 --> 00:35:59.820 on the Ten Commandments that could justify the condemnation of an economic system which 440 00:35:59.820 --> 00:36:04.860 which has multiplied the population and provides the masses in the capitalistic countries with 441 00:36:04.860 --> 00:36:08.940 the highest standard of living ever attained in history. 442 00:36:08.940 --> 00:36:13.680 From the religious point of view, too, the drop in infant mortality, the prolongation 443 00:36:13.680 --> 00:36:19.220 of the average length of life, the successful fight against plagues and disease, the disappearance 444 00:36:19.220 --> 00:36:25.300 of famines, illiteracy, and superstition tell in favor of capitalism. 445 00:36:25.300 --> 00:36:29.860 The churches are right to lament the destitution of the masses in the economically backward 446 00:36:29.860 --> 00:36:34.680 countries, but they are badly mistaken when they assume that anything can wipe out the 447 00:36:34.680 --> 00:36:40.180 poverty of these wretched people but unconditional adoption of the system of profit-seeking big 448 00:36:40.180 --> 00:36:46.300 business that is mass production for the satisfaction of the needs of the many. 449 00:36:46.300 --> 00:36:51.300 A conscientious moralist or churchman would not consider meddling in controversies concerning 450 00:36:51.300 --> 00:37:21.300 The Theory of Money and Credit 451 00:37:21.300 --> 00:37:24.900 materialistic concern for a comfortable life. 452 00:37:24.900 --> 00:37:29.860 They recommend some policies, reject others, and do not bother about the effects that must 453 00:37:29.860 --> 00:37:33.260 result from the adoption of their suggestions. 454 00:37:33.260 --> 00:37:39.740 This neglect of the effects of policies, whether rejected or recommended, is absurd. 455 00:37:39.740 --> 00:37:44.580 For the moralists and the Christian proponents of anti-capitalism do not concern themselves 456 00:37:44.580 --> 00:37:48.780 with the economic organization of society from sheer caprice. 457 00:37:48.780 --> 00:37:54.680 They seek reform of existing conditions because they want to bring about definite effects. 458 00:37:54.680 --> 00:38:00.140 What they call the injustice of capitalism is the alleged fact that it causes widespread 459 00:38:00.140 --> 00:38:02.600 poverty and destitution. 460 00:38:02.600 --> 00:38:08.740 They advocate reforms which, as they expect, will wipe out poverty and destitution. 461 00:38:08.740 --> 00:38:13.000 They are therefore, from the point of view of their own valuations and the ends they 462 00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:18.120 themselves are eager to attain, inconsistent in referring merely to something which they 463 00:38:18.120 --> 00:38:22.920 They call the higher standard of justice and morality and ignoring the economic analysis 464 00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:27.240 of both capitalism and the anti-capitalistic policies. 465 00:38:27.240 --> 00:38:34.000 Their terming capitalism unjust and anti-capitalistic measures just is quite arbitrary since it 466 00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:39.080 has no relation to the effect of each of these sets of economic policies. 467 00:38:39.080 --> 00:38:44.000 The truth is that those fighting capitalism as a system contrary to the principles of 468 00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:49.780 of Morals and Religion have uncritically and lightheartedly adopted all the economic teachings 469 00:38:49.780 --> 00:38:52.660 of the socialists and communists. 470 00:38:52.660 --> 00:38:59.020 Like the Marxians, they ascribe all ills, economic crises, unemployment, poverty, crime, 471 00:38:59.020 --> 00:39:04.020 and many other evils, to the operation of capitalism and everything that is satisfactory 472 00:39:04.020 --> 00:39:09.340 – the higher standard of living in the capitalistic countries, the progress of technology, the 473 00:39:09.340 --> 00:39:16.100 to the drop in mortality rates and so on, to the operation of government and of the labor unions. 474 00:39:16.100 --> 00:39:24.100 They have unwittingly espoused all the tenets of Marxism minus its, merely incidental, atheism. 475 00:39:24.100 --> 00:39:29.100 This surrender of philosophical ethics and of religion to the anti-capitalistic teachings 476 00:39:29.100 --> 00:39:34.180 is the greatest triumph of socialist and interventionist propaganda. 477 00:39:34.180 --> 00:39:39.280 It is bound to degrade philosophical ethics and religion to mere auxiliaries of the forces 478 00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:49.040 In calling capitalism unjust and declaring that its abolition will establish justice, 479 00:39:49.040 --> 00:39:53.640 moralists and churchmen render a priceless service to the cause of the socialists and 480 00:39:53.640 --> 00:39:59.360 interventionists and relieve them of their greatest embarrassment, the impossibility 481 00:39:59.360 --> 00:40:05.240 of refuting the economists' criticism of their plans by discursive reasoning. 482 00:40:05.240 --> 00:40:10.640 It must be reiterated that no reasoning founded on the principles of philosophical ethics 483 00:40:10.640 --> 00:40:16.840 or of the Christian creed can reject as fundamentally unjust an economic system that succeeds in 484 00:40:16.840 --> 00:40:22.720 improving the material conditions of all people and assign the epithet just to a system that 485 00:40:22.720 --> 00:40:26.240 tends to spread poverty and starvation. 486 00:40:26.240 --> 00:40:31.960 The evaluation of any economic system must be made by careful analysis of its effects 487 00:40:31.960 --> 00:40:37.760 Based upon the welfare of people, not by an appeal to an arbitrary concept of justice, 488 00:40:37.760 --> 00:40:40.920 which neglects to take these effects into full account.