Reason and faith in modern society

In this book Dr Heimann analyses the two great forces of the modern world-Capitalist Democracy on the one hand, Marxian Communism on the other-whose conflict threatens the world with destruction. He shows how those opposing systems
are in fact equal-and equally distorted-out- growths of the rational idealism of the eighteenth century Enlightenment; how unchecked capitalism, with its stress on the freedom of the individual to work for himself, inevitably leads to the exploitation
of the many by the few; how Marxism, with its concentration on equality for all, must result in freedom for none. The answer, he suggests, is a third course which he calls Democratic Socialism, more than a mere synthesis of liberalism and
Marxism, and firmly based in the world's cultural- religious heritage.
Dr Eduard Heimann was born in Germany and educated at Heidelberg but is now a citizen of the United States. He is lecturer in Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary.