BOOKS
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tags from timid reviewers not yet quite sure how the land lies. Then, a
week or two after the reviews, a barrage from the heavy guns, still con-
tinuing. Into the news columns, in the issues of
Editor and Publisher,
ancient editors of the
Times
and modern experts testify to Lundberg's
"inaccuracies." The economists begin to prove that he does not under-
stand the intricacies of interlocking directorates, that his method for
calculating the size of fortunes is against all the canons. The Duponts
have already brought suit for libel.
There is no mystery to this difference in welcome. Arnold's book,
in spite of
his tweedy avowals of a very revolutionary point of view
indeed, is simply a fancy coating for things as they are, with a bitter
and genuinely reactionary kernel. Lundberg's book,
in spite of
the mild
and naive reformism of his occasional positive suggestions, is an array of
explosive facts which, if they should penetrate the consciousness of the
masses, are capable of shattering the fabric of things as they are.
I do not mean that
The Folklore oj Capitalism
is an altogether
worthless book. It successfully popularizes a number of ideas which,
though not new, remain important; and it adds fresh insights and ap-
plications. Professor! Arnold's central thesis is sufficiently familiar: All
social organizations develop a complicated folklore or mythology. The
logical content of this mythology is always subordinate to the ability of
its key symbols to excite attitudes of loyalty. As conditions change, the
relevance of older mythologies to contemporary social forces and prob-
lems becomes increasingly distant, until they act more and more heavily
as brakes upon the institutional adjustments required for the solution
of current problems. Finally, when new social organizations win dominant
place, the new mythologies propagated by these new organizations take
the place of the old in the popular mind.
Proceeding from this thesis, Arnold analyzes what he claims to be
the reigning mythology in this country: a mythology in which business
men are gods, the government Satan, and governmental "interference"
the first of the Capital Sins. He does his best job on "The Ritual of Cor-
porate Reorganization-in which is explained the doctrine of vicarious
atonement through which the debts of an industrial organization are
forgiven." We may in general thank him for reminding us once again
and so emphatically that no political doctrine can ever make its way
into men's minds without the warming gift of a satisfying symbolism.
It seems unkind to be harsh about this book, whose good-natured
quips are so uniformly directed against Tories and the other goblins in
Professor Arnold's own mythology. However, consider:
In enthusiasm for his thesis, Arnold in actuality attacks scientific
method in general. For example: "Thirty years ago medical men were
still fighting for principle ....
Today ... medicine has been taken over
by men of skill rather than men of principle ....
There is little left in
medicine for thinking men to debate." As if there were any science what-
ever apart from "principle"-i.e.,
generalities, laws!
Above all does Arnold make fun of principles in politics-prin-
