Page:Neurath O. (1942) International Planning for Freedom.pdf/19

440 purpose, much more frequently seem to reduce civil liberty and the enjoyment of freedom than organizations based on the preparedness to provide immediate happiness. Merchants are sometimes better guardians of freedom than enthusiasts having the State as their highest ideal. We should not forget that toleration and freedom in the Netherlands were mainly created by merchant patricians, who - in spite of their own religious zeal - did not want ruling churchmen and civil servants of the Hapsburgs who would persecute heretics.

During the war of 1914 some people thought that it was the war to end war. But at that time no far-reaching change of the international 'societal' pattern was even under discussion. The League of Nations was not a body that could create and ensure new relations. After the first World War the old game of 'boom' and 'slump' continued. Now just such serious dis- cussions are going on in circles really interested in some drastic changes. Almost all groups have fears and hopes of some kind.

Let me stress this point again: It is not a matter of course, as many people think, that a social engineer should test the efficiency of freedom by its business efficiency; he can test, as it were, a social order and its institutions (e.g. international planning) by its ability to produce food, shelter, education, health, and - in addition to other things within a nation and within a world commonwealth - Freedom.

1942, Bibl. Nr. 258 - Ed. Quotation from Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Huttens ietzte Tage: "- - ieh bin kein ausgekliigelt Bueh, Ieh bin ein Mensch mit seinem Widersprueh." - Ed.