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548
DAVID T.
BAZELON
The net result of the fifty-year negotia tions will be a
Line-a
ger·
rymandered Line drawn around the globe. In places it will be stark
and absolute, elsewhere it will subtly waver and flicker. There will
be
jockeying for influence and position, then negotiating sessions, occasion·
al firing, more deal·talk-and out of all this finally a Line drawn
wherever one needs to be drawn, and drawn with as much definition
as may be needed.
What else could this coming negotiation come to? Whether or not
the raw areas of the world are necessarily a power vacuum, they cer·
tainly are such as long as the Communists are expanding aggressively.
It would be silly to think that we can "negotiate" about their ceasing
to be imperialist, about their becoming "good" nations. That is preach.
ing or dictating, not negotiating. America, even all the West, has
the
power only to negotiate, and to create favored positions from which
and about which to negotiate--we do not have the power to dictate.
And we cannot fight. Neither can they.
What does it mean to compete, and what is the comparative nature
of the competitors? Apparently one of the nice things about this great
new competition is that, like charity, it begins at home. The question,
How good are you?
seems to
be
the big bomb in the new non.military
war for the world. This
could
become the most worthwhile form of
warfare ever devised.
Both countries are equally committed to industrial production
a~
a way of life. From this one complex of fact, profound similarities fol·
low. When two such industrial organizations compete, even profounder
similarities are due to develop as the competition continues. There
are
not that many different ways to make steel or generate electricity. When
a steel mill is built in India, the Indians must adapt themselves to
steel-making. The other way around, you simply get inefficient steel·
making, which is a waste of time.
If
we have a superior steel mill, the
Russians will copy it; if they develop a superior rocket design or
means of propulsion, we will have to imitate them.
There are, however, significant social differences in the organiza.
tion of production. When men go into a steel mill, they are not free
to treat it like an amusement park; but they do not all h ave to wear
exactly the same clothing or think exactly the same thoughts. They must
be so organized socially as to be capable of producing steel efficiently.
That's all. (Unless they produce so much so easily that they are then
free to concentrate on nonsense like paper-pos ition, as in America today.)
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