Political Economy in the Modern State by Harold A. InnisReview by: B. S. KeirsteadThe Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d'Economique etde Science politique, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Nov., 1947), pp. 600-603Published by: Wiley on behalf of Canadian Economics AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/138075 .

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REVIEWS OF BOOKS

Political Economy in the Modern State. By HAROLD A. INNIS. Toronto: Ryerson Press. 1946. Pp. xx, 270. ($4.00)

ANY book by Harold Innis is a significant event in Canadian scholarship, even if, as in the present case, the book consists of essays that have previously been published, either in the journals, or in other forms. Dr. Innis justifies the present republication on the grounds that some of the essays that compose the present volume were out of print or otherwise difficult to come by, and that book publication is a more convenient form for the use of students, for whom the book "is intended as a guide and as a warning."

I must confess to being puzzled by this cryptic statement of intention, as, indeed, by much in the book itself. That the book is a warning against much that is evil in our present civilization and trends in university education is clear enough. As a guide, however, Dr. Innis is not interested in the obvious. The average student will not find most of these essays easy to read, or easy to comprehend as a guide, in any sense, through the difficulties of systematic course studies, as laid down in University curricula. The essays are a guide, rather, for the exceptional student, anxious to pursue the sometimes obscure progress of a brilliant and original mind in the difficult task of breaking new ground and reaching new approximations of fresh truths. The essays tell us a good deal about Dr. Innis, rather less about "political economy in the modern state." This is, however, important knowledge, for Dr. Innis is grappling repeatedly in these essays with the basic intellectual problems of our era, and he is teaching, by example rather than by precept, the attitudes of mind and the techniques of objective inquiry which will be essential to any solution of these problems. The essays, then, are a guide to Dr. Innis's intellectual processes, and in that sense, will be welcomed by the sensitive and imaginative student.

Dr. Innis's programme of inquiry into the staple industries of Canada has led him now to the history of the newsprint paper industry. As always, he is working slowly, turning aside to make himself master of all related questions as he procedes with his research. Many of these presently published papers are by-products, so to speak, of his current study. He views the developments and the technical innovations in paper-making and newsprint use as the causes of changes in the method and manner of the social communication of ideas. At times, he seems to be formulating a philosophy of history more rigorously deterministic than that of Marx and Engels. The decadence of the English stage in the first half of the nineteenth century is attributed to "monopolistic restrictions" and to the growth of periodicals able to attract authors who might otherwise have written for the stage. "The impact of technological advance on the press" became evident in the kinds of "story" published, the sort of readership sought, the dlevelopment of elementary mass education, the development of monopolistic control of newspapers, the decline of public discussion, the advance of demagogy, the change in public taste, which in turn affects social philosophy and literary style. The influence of Veblen on Dr. Innis has been, I suspect, profound, and it is interesting to note the

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Reviews of Books 601

similarity between the philosophy of history implicit in these essays, and that explicitly defended by such an avowed disciple of Veblen as Professor Ayres in his recent Theory of Economic Progress.

Dr. Innis's insistence in two essays on the university, "A Plea for the University Tradition" and "The University in the Modern Crisis," on the value of free and honest discussion reveals, however, that his philosophy cannot be simply deterministic. He agrees with Professor Whitehead that "the safest generalisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato" and he believes that its power succumbed in the face "of the industrial revolution . . . and the rise of ro- manticism." The effects of this loss he summarizes in a quotation from the late Justice Holmes that truth has become "the majority vote of the nation that can lick all the others." So far we see in this line of thought a typical Innis development of the thesis that innovations (of the Industrial Revolution) have resulted in a revolutionary change in philosophy and social attitudes and ways of behaviour. We have also, I might interpolate, a quite typical revelation of Dr. Innis's idolatry of the Academy, its mnethod of verbal communication and its passionate concern for ideas. But Dr. Innis concludes the passage I have been summarizing with an appeal, the passion of which is not the less effective by reason of being sternly controlled, for the university to face this problem, to come to the rescue of the classical values, to resist the subornations and facile vulgarisms of commerce and the threatenings of a powerful state, and to devote itself to the genuine pursuit of knowledge. We are left to ask, therefore, in what sense Dr. Innis thinks that free discussion remains possible, or what value he can attach to such discussion in the uni- versities. If our standards, our values, our very ways of thought are de- termined by an economic process over which we can exert no control, of what meaning is an appeal to throw over these false ways and seek to pursue others which were fashioned by a culture under the dominance of very different economic trends?

I am not sure that Dr. Innis ever formulates the question in quite that way, or that he directly answers it. I think, however, that two or three answers are here and there indicated in the course of these essays. In the first place, Dr. Innis believes in the independent value of honest inquiry for its own sake. Even if only a few odd sociological sports were able to dissociate themselves from prevailing trends an(d attitudes, to strike out for themselves in objective research and in clear-cut verbal communication of their ideas, one with another, even if these men had no influence on the current of events or on the prevalent decadence and vulgarity of scholarship, art, and philosophy, that pursuit would be worth while for its own sake. You do not have to believe that the scholar will successfully influence the world about him, to believe in the value of scholarship. On this point Dr. Innis is insistent, and he has but small regard for those whose primary intent is to use their scholarship in an attempt to influence policy or the course of public events.

Further, however, Dr. Innis indicates that he thinks a problem of our day is to reconcile the modern concern for great masses, for "the welfare of the whole world, without taking any particular care of anybody," with the

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602 Tihe Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science

classical liberal passion for the individual. He formulates this problem, does not solve it (one would scarcely expect him to in a short paper), but indicates that he thinks its solution is most apt to be achieved in a society in which there are as many "free" institutions as possible, to obstruct the acquisition of complete power by any one institution. Important among these free institutions is the university.

Finally there is clear evidence, seldom explicitly formulated, of a dualistic view of historical causation. Perhaps in these essays the emphasis has repeatedly been thrown on the importance of technology. Again and again, however, systems of ideas, especially religious systems are credited with a place in the causal order, a place related in some way, not specifically de- scribed, to the place occupied by technology, but clearly not an entirely inferior or dependent place in the causal hierarchy. The classical Greek tradition, along with the Hebraic religious tradition, are the two such systems most important causally in the evolution of our western society. The Greek tradition, bulwark against the complete corruption of our order, is peculiarly in the charge arnd safe-keeping of the universities. To them Dr. Innis ad- dresses his appeal; that they will be successful he has, I suspect, little hope, for he hints at times at an almost monastic ideal of the university as the refuge of the few who will pursue knowledge for its own sake, apart from a world which is quite unrelated to them. Yet he is not without all hope, for he says 4"with imperfect competition between concepts the university is essentially an ivory tower in which courage can be mustered to attack any concept that threatens to become a monopoly."

I shall conclude this review by indicating one or two points on which, I believe, reasonable objection may be taken to Dr. Innis's position. I doubt if he has yet satisfactorily integrated his theory of historical causation. Many of his causal relations, advanced in bold but dubious generalizations, are entirely speculative. I think some causal processes could be shown analytically to be more precisely deterministic within a given institutional and temporal framework, than Dr. Innis himself ever indicates. At the same time, just as the causal process could be more rigorously established as definite and in- evitable, it would be shown to be socially more limited, and thus subject, as are the causal processes of the natural order, to conscious human control. Thus human purpose may enter into the totality of social causation more definitely, and in a more precisely discernible fashion, than Dr. Innis indicates. If that is so, it would follow that an understanding of the causal processes of the economy would permit more complete control of them, and thus give greater freedom to man than he at present enjoys or than Dr. Innis believes him capable of enjoying. I share with Dr. Innis a dislike of all concentrations of power, but fear rather less than he concentration of power in the hands of the state, and rather more than he such concentration in private and irre- sponsible hands. If a greater freedom over our social process can be achieved by social control, I should favour increasing the power of the state as the controlling agency, as against permitting the augmentation of the power of private units. The latter must remain irresponsible. The state can be made responsible, and abuses of power checked, though I freely admit that this

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Reviews of Books 603

will require a more enlightened and active electorate and a considerable strengthening of parliamentary and judicial checks on the administration.

B. S. KEIRSTEAD

McGill University.

Brandeis: A Free Man's Life. By ALPHEUS THOMAS MASON. New York: Viking Press [Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada]. 1946. Pp. xiv, 713. ($6.00)

THIS book has been a labour of love. The author is one of many long-standing admirers of Mr. Justice Brandeis. In three of his earlier books, Brandeis is the central figure. In 1940, his devotion to the study and understanding of Brandeis's work was rewarded by access to the justice's voluminous private papers for the purpose of preparing a full-length biography. He has worked through these and a great variety of other sources with great care. It may not be the definitive work on a man of such enduring interest as Brandeis, but it is likely to be a long time before anyone else traverses as wide a range of data in the same devoted spirit.

Through a great part of his public career, Brandeis was a figure of contro- versy, the din of which reached a peak in the fight against his appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1916. In his early years of the practice of law, he made a substantial fortune as a corporation lawyer. As his judgment of the state of the Republic in the nineties matured, he became a militant reformer fighting the corporate power in the name of the people.

As "People's Attorney," for example, he denounced the monopoly position of the United Shoe Machinery Company, a position he had defended as counsel for the corporation a few years earlier. In 1910, as counsel for the shippers, he defeated an application by the railroads to the Interstate Commerce Com- mission for an increase in rates. In 1913, as special counsel to the Commission itself he criticized the big shippers and urged that some railway rates were too low. Having been a Republican, he climbed on the Wilson bandwagon. In these and a number of other incidents, there was at least an appearance of equivocality. "In certain complicated situations of which he was the storm centre, men of divergent interests could and did mistake his position and his views.

He had the audacity to attack powerful men accustomed to carry legis- latures around in their pockets and to receive deferential submission. He had, as accountant, economist, and advocate, the superb competence needed to rout them from their entrenched positions. He thus drew their frenzied anger and bitter denunciation. They exploited various incidents in his career to try to make him appear as a demagogue and an unprincipled opportunist attorney.

Before Brandeis died in 1941, much of what he had fought for had become accepted public policy. He provided much of the inspiration for the New Deal and forged many of its weapons. Yet in his judicial opinions and in his guarded private counsel, he was less than lukewarm on some significant aspects of the New Deal programme in practice. Finally, when the ex-People's

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