Schlesinger on Socialism

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Since there seems to be some confusion about what I actually said at the League for Industrial Democracy meeting on Saturday, and since the CRIMSON headline on Monday ("Schlesinger Says Socialism Forms Road to Tyranny") was misleading, may I trespass on your space to make again my not very complicated argument.

My points were (1) that socialism in the classical sense--total state ownership and totally centralized economic planning--would lead ultimately to tyranny; (2) that the best form of economic planning in a free society is on the New Deal-Fair Deal model, with emphasis on fiscal and budgetary policy rather than on direct physical controls; and (3) that contemporary democratic socialism, recognizing the political perils in total centralization, is renouncing the classical socialist pattern in favor of the New Deal formula.

Nothing that I said could be construed as a suggestion that contemporary democratic socialism, as in Britain or Scandinavia, is going to lead to tyranny; or as rejection of economic planning. Nor did I feel that Mr. Coldwell differed very much on the substance of these points, though he preferred to describe them in different language. Mr. Coldwell is certainly not an advocate, as the CRIMSON suggests, of "classical socialism." Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. '38.