ABSTRACT
Public power is endowed by the liberal-rationalist today with a natural superiority, with an immaculateness that no private power can claim, not even those private powers-such as the universities and foundations—that a special case must be made for. Private power carries much the same odium today for the liberal that persisting feudal enclaves of privilege carried for the eighteenth-century philosophe. Such power seems against nature and contrary to reason. The key word in this crucial distinction between public and private power is legitimacy. Preoccupation with political power allows the intellectual to indulge idealistic passions in terms which also satisfy the passion for empiricism and objectivity. While the intellectuals were debating capitalism and socialism, the organizational revolution passed them by, leaving them categories without substance. Preoccupation with political power allows the intellectual to indulge idealistic passions in terms which also satisfy the passion for empiricism and objectivity.
