From Michael Polanyi (14 May 1960)

…

Thanks for the notes you sent me. I was glad to be reminded of the paradox that in the 18th century great thinkers rejoined in the providential transformation of self love into ‘social’ (Pope). It was a token of their moral coldness. I made this very point in my Gunning Lectures in Edinburgh, namely that Smith’s rejoicing in the invisible hand was turned by the flood of moral dynamism into Marx’s denunciation of alienation.

I have mailed you an account of our Colloques de Reinfelden by Aron, {Keunan}, Oppenheimer “et autres”, myself being included in the latter group. It contains a sketch of my Theory of Conscious Production based on a sound record and translated into French. It suggests that we had better make a home in alienation, which might be simply the fact of polycentricity which condemns the members of a highly differentiated social body to concentrate on fragmentary task, devoid of explicit public concern and lacking a clear articulation of brotherhood. We may of course rather perish nobly. Perhaps we ought to. Que sais-je ?

Text Informations

KPA: 57/07, 9