Our Vanishing Civil Liberties (Classic Reprint) - Hardcover

O. John Rogge

9780666296412: Our Vanishing Civil Liberties (Classic Reprint)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0666296413 ISBN 13: 9780666296412

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2018

Excerpt from Our Vanishing Civil Liberties

The present crisis in civil liberties is a continuation of the never-ending struggle that the people of America have always had to wage against forces that inevitably seek to ossify our institutions and repress efforts at change or ad justment. But it would be a mistake to dismiss the current crisis as an exact replica of previous experience. There are important new elements in the situation today - factors which make the maintenance of our tradition more diffi cult than ever but which at the same time open new avenues of hope.

Most important of these changes is the relationship of government to our economic system. The tradition of civil liberties in America developed and expanded in connec tion with economic and political doctrines of laissez-faire. The theory was that private individuals and business em terprises should be free to make their own decisions on important economic matters, reserving to government the lesser task of preserving internal order, protecting against external dangers and occasionally supplying needed assist ance. Now we are face to face, in common with all other industrialized nations, with the crucial issue of securing effective control over our economic system through gov ernmental measures. Laissez-faire is no longer possible. The only alternatives open to us are control through democratic processes or dictation on authoritarian terms. Either we must work out methods by which the mass of citizens can participate intelligently and effectively in the making of basic decisions, or we must yield that task to authoritarian devices operating from the top down.

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