THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REPUBLIC

The purpose of Professor Berle's book is to describe the American political and economic system as it presently operates, and it is addressed to the educated layman and student. He reminds us that economics and politics are insolubly united. He examines some of the changes occurring in the basic concepts and institutions of American economic life. Current economic organizational and social facts are reducing many 19th century concepts to fragments. There is nothing very new here but it is all good, especially the author's discussion of the American passive-property system as it has emerged out of the American industrial system. In the second part, Professor Berle outlines the salient features of the current organization of the American economic republic. He describes the evolution of the political state and its accommodation to and use of nonstatist institutions, of which the American corporation and labor union are the two most important examples. The great achievement of our current system is that it modified the older institutions while retaining as much as possible of their nominal form. It maintained the institution of private property and a modified market economy. Nor, and more importantly, has America ever deserted its primary premise of a free society designed to permit free men to realize themselves. This is an interesting, stimulating analysis and it is mercifully free from the jargon that so often disfigures this type of work. Highly recommended for its particular market.