From Abraham Rotstein (29 May 1956)
Text in English to type
Dear Professor Polanyi,
Thank you for letting me see your letter to M.P. of Feb 23/56, of which I am returning 2 copies to you. It hits a superb note. I would only remark that the Orwell calumny of the 1945 - 55 period may have gained plausibility against the backdrop of Auschwitz and Maidanek. One only begins to see how trying and dangerous a period it really was as the darkness is dispelled.
I have been thinking about this question of relativizing the economy. […]
As far as industrialism is concerned, it appears to me that we shall be riding the same horse - only now we shall be in the saddle - and steer in the direction we wish to go. But it still a strange beast, when one thinks about its sudden emergence after 6000 years of recorded history. It is a [104] special case of coping with the economic problem, yet its unusual significance is disturbingly elusive.
I am led back to your views of culture as a boundary process, and the independence from nature's pressure as realm of freedom. (Weekend II, May 5, p. 8) It seems to me that here is where industrialism takes its meaning - in the possibilities of freedom it creates, and this would link it to the central ethos of our civilization.
It seems to me, also, that one day, 'possibly as an exercise in the Sociology of Knowledge- we shall have to take up the questio of however did the notion of scarcity get so massively and irrevocably entrenched in our consciousness that no one could be pried from the position? Is there some relation here to our equally irrevocable commitment to industrialism? (The very impulse to produce massive quantities of goods and services with industrial technology seems to go along with their being regarded as "scarce means".) And how did the obverse of scarcity, gain - a notion so patently unchristian - ever manage to get universal acceptance and acquiescence and elbow aside an array of theological doctrines so that the profane won a place for itself at the table of the sacred?
And now you must excuse me for I realize that once again my letter has become a harvest of speculations.
[105] And now to Ilona … […]
Of our personal news, I am now back at the summer session of our college teaching Labor Economics in the evenings, and now with one of the lecturers leaving suddenly, I am preparing at short notice to take over the course in the History of Economic Thought - so that it makes for a busy summer. […]
I hope that all is going well with Ford and with both books and that you are enjoying this rare June weather and you garden.
Best regards,
Abe
P.S. Next weekend is a threeday weekend and I shall see about getting "The Reality of Society" into some presentable shape.