ABSTRACT
This volume is characterized by the aistinguished author in his Preface as a "political book" and as a variation from the "more strictly academic work" to which he is accustomed and inclined. Such a study is necessitated, he explains, by the alarming extent to which public opinion in our day is guided by "amateurs and cranks," by people with an ax to grind or a panacea to present. The sum and substance of the essay is defense of what the writer terms "economic liberalism." The author vigorously denounces any and all forms of planning, expresses his reservations about mass democracy, and holds as suspect "conscious social control."
