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Lippmann

Drift and Mastery

published 1914

Published: 
1/1/1914
author: 
Walter Lippmann

Introduction

Publication: 
Drift and Mastery
Published: 
1/1/1914

In the early months of 1914 widespread unemployment gave the anarchists in New York City an unusual opportunity for agitation. The newspapers and the police became hysterical, men were clubbed and arrested on the slightest provocation, meetings were dispersed. The issue was shifted, of course, from unemployment to the elementary rights of free speech and assemblage.

The Themes of Muckraking

Publication: 
Drift and Mastery
Published: 
1/1/1914

There is in America today a distinct prejudice in favor of those who make the accusations. Thus if you announced that John D. Rockefeller was going to vote the Republican ticket it would be regarded at once as a triumph for the Democrats. Something has happened to our notions of success:

New Incentives

Publication: 
Drift and Mastery
Published: 
1/1/1914

We say in conversation: 'Oh, no, he's not a business man, - he has a profession.’ That sounds like an invidious distinction, and no doubt there is a good deal of caste and snobbery in the sentiment. But that isn't all there is.

The Magic of Property

Publication: 
Drift and Mastery
Published: 
1/1/1914

The ordinary editorial writer is a strong believer in what he calls the sanctity of private property. But as far as highly organized business is concerned he is a pilgrim to an empty shrine. The trust movement is doing what no conspirator or revolutionist could ever do: it is sucking the life out of private property.

Caveat Emptor

Publication: 
Drift and Mastery
Published: 
1/1/1914

I am sure that few consumers feel any of that sense of power which economists say is theirs. No doubt when Mr. Morgan was buying antiques there came to him a real sense that he commanded the market. But the ordinary man with a small income to spend is much more like a person who becomes attached to an energetic bulldog, and leaves the spectators wondering which is the mover and which the moved. He is the theoretical master of that dog ...

A Key to the Labor Movement

Publication: 
Drift and Mastery
Published: 
1/1/1914

When employers talk about the freedom of labor, it may be that some of them are really worried over the hostility of most unions to exceptional rewards for exceptional workers. But in the main that isn't what worries them. They are worried about their own freedom, not the freedom of wage-earners. They dislike the union because it challenges their supremacy.

The Funds of Progress

Publication: 
Drift and Mastery
Published: 
1/1/1914

By this time, I imagine, the reader will be wondering how these modern ambitions are to be financed. For at the core of all the spiritual demands of the labor movement there is a perfectly frank desire for more wealth. The consumer attempting to pull down prices and jack up quality is making the same demand from another angle. And all through society there runs an increasing agitation for better cities, for a more attractive countryside, for enlarged schools, for health campaigns, for a thousand elements of civilization which cost money and pay in happiness. Where is this money to come from? It must come, says the radical, out of unearned wealth.

A Nation of Villagers

Publication: 
Drift and Mastery
Published: 
1/1/1914

It has been said that no trust could have been created without breaking the law. Neither could astronomy in the time of Galileo. If you build up foolish laws and insist that invention is a crime, well? then it is a crime. That is undeniably true, but not very interesting. Of course, you can't possibly treat the trusts as crimes. First of all, nobody knows what the trust laws mean.

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