the sort of excessive nationalism which we have seen in 

 the past. 



Communism, by its complete denial of individual 

 freedom, is without doubt a very serious obstacle to the 

 use of Man's scientific abilities to solve his world prob- 

 lems. For science is based on complete freedom of work 

 and discussion by and between all scientists, and the open 

 publication of all research results. This is in accordance 

 with the fundamental aim of science — ^to discover the 

 factual, objective, truth in all things, irrespective of indi- 

 vidual subjective opinions. Thus the attitude of communism 

 towards individual freedom cannot be tolerated by any 

 true scientist, or in fact by any clear-thinking human being. 



Socialism is certainly a hindrance to scientific appli- 

 cation for several reasons. Firstly, the idea of a govern- 

 ment taking control of important parts of its nation's 

 economy, like railways, which is based on the view that 

 these are better run by government than privately, is 

 false: once the competition normally present between com- 

 panies providing the same service is eliminated, their is 

 no incentive for individuals in the service to give their 

 best efforts to it. Secondly, the socialistic concept of en- 

 forcing the cooperation in governmental programmes of 

 individuals with special abilities, against the wishes of these 

 individuals, is completely unjustified: socialist govern- 

 ments should recognize that specially-skilled individuals 

 are entitled to give their services to whomsoever they 

 themselves consider advisable, and to receive the maxi- 

 mum reward for doing so. Thirdly, in their provision of 

 social security for all, financed by compulsory contri- 

 butions from every working person in the nation, socialist 

 governments remove the stimulus otherwise present to 

 encourage people to save for themselves: this is psycho- 

 logically unsound. 



85 



