Page:Minority of One March 1961.pdf/10

I still haven't resolved. These are questions for which, sooner or later, an answer must be found. And when it is found, who knows who will be revealed as Hitler's moral partners?!

It may well be true that at least part of the passiveness with which millions of people accepted their doom was due to their cultural-spiritual heritage. It may well be that the Jews of Poland and elsewhere died in total humility because their culture prevented them from becoming desperadoes. If so, I can only be proud of the dignity and rationality they displayed in the face of death. Culturally, they were too rooted, too substantive, too preoccupied with what was right and what was wrong, too rational and intelligent to shed blood, even Nazi blood, for no purpose. Had they become desperadoes, had they died only after senselessly killing a few Nazis, their desperate struggle would have neither helped them nor absorbed any significant degree of Nazi strength to make their conquest easier. Their doom could not be circumvented, and history would not have been one iota different from what it is. The only difference would have been the taking of a few more lives. That these would have been Nazi lives would make their death no more rational or purposeful. These humble millions of people who were led to death refused to kill even their killers when no purpose was served. They were no cowards. The slightest ray of hope, the slightest indication that their resistance was historically interweaving into a general battle against the forces of evil sufficed to make these miserable beings rebel. But even in the face of the gas chamber they refused to kill senselessly. With deep reverence and a quivering heart I bow my head to the millions whose plight I shared but whose final fate I escaped for refusing to consider human blood, even a Nazi's blood, as water. Among those millions were my 44-year old father, my 43-year old mother and my 22- year old sister. Their senseless and macaber death has left in my heart a wound that will never heal. In the deep sorrow that will never leave me, I am grateful to them for having died without first becoming senseless murderers. And, I am proud of their deep spirituality, of their Jewish culture that thus enabled them to save their human image even in the face of ultimate provocation. They died not as weaklings, not as martial heroes, but as human beings under circumstances that might have turned others into irrational desperadoes.

If there is any legacy to be gained from that never compromising dignity, it is the knowledge that life and blood have value. We must learn to reject rationalizations that put no value on human life. We must learn that even an enemy is human, and that not even justified hatred is a license for senseless destruction.

The personal lesson I have learned from the tragic death of my kin has, among others, one hypothetical application. I know that if I am attacked, I will defend myself. But if I am ever fatally wounded and nothing can save my life, I will not pray for my assassin's company into the abyss. I will still place some value on a life that can no longer redeem my own.

== Military Budget and Status Quo ==

(Continued from Page 3)

stimulate the American economy of the 1930s. The growing volume of the federal stimulant is reflected in the steadily rising federal budget. How to spend ever growing tens of billions of dollars of federal revenue becomes a matter of fateful importance. Only military spendings provide an opportunity of channeling the huge amounts without affecting basic social changes and undermining the present system of distribution. The military establishment is uniquely qualified to absorb any growing amounts of money while at the same time it constitutes a homogeneous entity which is in many respects isolated from the rest of the economy.

To appreciate the overall importance of this way of, channeling federal subsidies to the economy, let us speculate on the economic and social consequences of allocating the entire present federal budget for civilian use.

Budgetary allocations represent labor. Each amount of money allocated by the federal government is spent in the form of wages and salaries. Even when some commodity is purchased it is not the raw material for which a price has been paid, but the total labor that went into extracting the raw material and changing its form, then delivering and servicing the resulting commodity. When funds are spent on military purposes, those who draw the wages or salaries are given an opportunity to work, but they do not enlarge the consumer supplies of society. Such labor is non-productive; it is strictly negative. Carrying bricks is not in itself productive even though it involves labor. Only when the bricks are laid in a certain pattern, will a wall result, then a house which will eventually perform the social function of improving some family's life. Military spendings in a way resemble the carrying of bricks for no purpose other than the carrying itself.

If the government had to spend all its funds productively, all purchased labor would create economic values, things and services that would satisfy people's needs. If the federal government should, instead of removing millions of pounds of butter from the market, as is presently done, subsidize butter production so that it amply rewards the producers yet makes all the butter available to the population, quite a "miracle" would result: everybody in America could afford eating butter instead of margarine, the butter producer would be making a living and the only thing that would be eliminated would be the speculations of powerful interests whose profits do not come from production but rather from eliminating part of the produce from the market. If the government spent enough millions of dollars to subsidize housing, the labor so purchased would not only solve the housing problem in America but also eliminate the prevailing rent and land usury that is possible only for as long as a housing problem exists. Land and rent speculations would then hardly be possible because the prosperity of the landlord is predicated on a housing shortage. Or, take the question of medical services. If the federal government subsidized hospitals and all other medical services, the population's needs would be sufficiently satisfied so that the field would no longer offer itself for the usury of the professions and businesses exploiting it. If enough means for public transportation were produced through federal subsidies, the discrepancy between public needs and public availability would disappear and the field could no longer promise huge returns to its private entrepreneurs.

Apply these consequences to each and every branch of the industry, trade and services and you will arrive at the conclusion that were our federal government to spend its present military budget on civilian needs, what would result would automatically constitute some form of socialism. The resulting prosperity for all would eliminate the special premium for suppliers in times of scarcity. Our whole economy would undergo an evolutionary process towards a new system of distribution. All fruit of labor would be contributing to an ever growing distributive equality of plenty. One can figure out almost exactly how many billions of dollars could buy some kind of socialism for America.

Precisely because of such utopian-sounding but in actuality quite possible and obtainable results of proper federal interference in the economy, our private entrepreneurs entertain such grave apprehension about the ever expanding federal budget. While they are aware that our economy can no longer operate without federal injections, especially at regularly occurring intervals, they insist that the subsidies should be unproductive, or military, in order to circumvent the possible, not-so-utopian general welfare that would eliminate their own exceptional status. As long as these subsidies do not produce homes, consumer goods and public services, they stimulate the circulation of money without, however, upsetting the present discriminations of our system of distribution. In this sense they do not contribute to the general welfare; general welfare would in it. self not only amount to some kind of a socialistic reality but also eliminate the life blood of usury.

These basic interests of the prevailing economic regime cannot be expected to be upset or given up by their beneficiaries. Any upset would have to come in spite of them. Once their basic interest of diverting the federal subsidy to unproductive channels is catered to we are in the midst of the vicious circle that domestically promotes so many public depravities and internationally turns our era into one of perpetual dangers to humanity. The national leader, be he President, cabinet member or legislator, may see the situation basically in the same light and context