From Abraham Rotstein (10 July 1956)

Dear Professor Polanyi,

I continue to be preoccupied with the meaning of industrialism, for its very uniqueness requires a deeper understanding of its mainsprings and its significance before we may determine its place in society.

[…] I think your discussion of the formation of the Western mind through successive revelations, is a massive brilliant and religious conception. Is seems then, that the keystones of our consciousness each relate to a unique revelation.

Further, the major values of our institutions would derive from these revelations.

[…]

Perhaps more has been revealed to us than knowledge of death from the story of the Fall of Man - I think this vision of abundance derives from the legend of man's original state - the Garden of Eden. We have not resigned ourselves to its loss - we have engaged in a fierce, irresistible, ruthless, and sometimes mad drive to recapture the vision on earth.

You have talked about a compulsive, eschatological element in Christianity, with Jesus believing that the end of the world was imminent. (Notes on Feb. 25/26 p. 5) I wonder whether both Jewish Messianic eschatology (sometimes cited as the impulse for "progress" of our society) and the Christian [114] notion of the Kingdom of Heaven aren't partial images of the lost Garden of Eden, even allowing for significant differences in oral visions. Interestingly enough, non of the three have economies. (Adam is only a curator).

The Fall of Man has given us the revelation of abundance as well as the notion that the present state of the economy is a curse - the substantive content of man's atonement: