Challenges to democracy /
edited by Edward Reed
- New York Frederick A. Praeger 1964
- 245 p.
Although the world is changing rapidly, we seldom pause to con sider whether our ideas have kept pace with the changes. For we tend to forget that the ideas upon which our American form of government is founded-as Robert M. Hutchins reminds us in his illuminating introduction to this volume-were the product of eighteenth-century thinking at its best. But unless those ideas are continually re-examined and re-evaluated, we may find it increas ingly difficult to maintain the inner strength of mind and spirit so essential to the survival and endurance of American democracy.
Constant reinterpretation and re-evaluation has been the role of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. In celebration of the tenth anniversary of The Fund for the Republic, the Center assembled in a two-day convocation the distinguished contributors to this volume. Their bold and highly original essays probe, ana lyze, and reassess the workings of our democratic institutions, and many of them are followed by sharp and provocative "com menis" by other outstanding commentators on the American scene. Following Gunnar Myrdal's stimulating analysis of the role of
government in the economy, Lewis Mumford and Gerard Piel dis cuss the relationship between technology and democracy. Senators Joseph S. Clark and J. W. Fulbright join two eminent Europeans, Pierre Mendes-France and Viscount Hailsham, in offering their views on whether government by the people is possible. Adolf A. Berle, Jr., and Walter Reuther examine the concentrations of power in large corporations and unions. Newton N. Minow and Lord Francis-Williams debate the responsibilities and opportunities of the mass media, and Lord James of Rusholme analyzes modern education. Adlai E. Stevenson concludes with an assessment of the world-wide prospects for democracy in the years to come.