PATTERNS FOR LIVING TOGETHER 123 



are both better animals and better men than others. And in any 

 form of social organization, or in any way of life that does not 

 by force prevent it, the better men will tend on the average to 

 get the greater and better rewards for their efforts. This was 

 just as true in the hunting stage of culture as it is today in 

 industrial Detroit. An inevitable consequence is the development 

 of economic inequalities. The innately abler individuals do 

 better than just get their livings. They accumulate wealth. 

 There is nothing in this inherently baneful or anti-social. It is 

 not more sinister for men so to behave than it is for squirrels. 

 In fact it is just a normal biological process for both, an effort 

 to make continued survival more certain. 



But in the course of its development there has gradually, and 

 as to its successive stages almost imperceptibly, been added to the 

 political philosophy of democracy a new element that demands 

 "a close economic equality on the ground that the benefits a 

 man can obtain from the social process are, at least approximately 

 and in general, a function of his power of effective demand, 

 which in turn depends on the property he owns," to use Laski's 

 phraseology. It is held that the theory of democracy must 

 necessarily be hostile to everything in the nature of privilege 

 growing out of economic differences between individuals, and 

 that liberty must be contingent upon, and constrained within, 

 a framework of economic equality. The logical mischief inherent 

 in this doctrine is evident as soon as it is stated. Any sort of 

 constraint is essentially repugnant to the concepts of liberty and 

 freedom. Procrustes building uniform beds to fit only the 

 economically short or medium-statured, and sawing off the feet 

 of the economically long-legged to make them conform to the 

 beds, is still engaged in an inhumane as well as unbiological 

 pursuit. If biology and history have any validity at all it is 

 certain that this technique will never achieve an enduring solu- 

 tion of the problem of living together. Whether the scheme be 

 labelled communism or democracy, or whether it be operated 

 by dictatorship or through a majority of popular votes, it in- 

 herently lacks survival value, simply because all men are not 



