Joseph Mayer

STEUART HENDERSON BRITT. The Spenders. Pp. x, 293. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1960.

worst. It is burdened with detail and contains many errors. The history of immigration is divided into three periods: 1608-1776, 1776-1870, and 1870-1929. It is based on the research of such pioneers in this field as the late Miecislaus Haiman and provides a useful summary of the findings of numerous, mostly unpublished, recent dissertations and theses on Polish-American topics. Unfortunately, it is rather narrowly biographical in orientation and overloaded with long and meaningless lists of names. The choice of the year 1929 as the closing date for the third period is surprising, but it is left unexplained. The discussion of the causes of Polish emigration to America is more original and interesting. The attempt to analyze the activities of some Polish-American organizations is vitiated by the author’s fragmentary approach to the problems of the PolishAmerican community, as well as by his obvious inability to use either a sociological

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ture and processes of the national society. For the theoretical framework of his study of symbolism, Warner relies mainly on the generalizing, nonhistorical approach of such writers as Frazer, Durkheim, Robertson, Smith, Radcliffe-Brown, and Freud. &dquo;The influence of the moral order on the creation and maintenance of symbol systems [is emphasized], the influence of the human species as an (organic) animal organization is also stressed .... Most religious beliefs are fundamentally based on the simple realities and on the relations of family deities&dquo; (pp. 447, 506). In practice, however, Warner devotes much attention to class and economic factors as well

VANCE PACKARD. The Status Seekers. An Exploration of Class Behavior in Amer ica and the Hidden Barriers That Affect You, Your Community, Your Future. Pp. viii, 376. New York: David McKay Company, 1959.

on negotiations with Japan in 1940-41. In this book he gives an account of what took place, documenting it with long excerpts from the memoranda exchanged between the Dutch and Japanese delegates. Japan tried to’ coerce the Netherlands Indies into joining the co-prosperity sphere and accepting Japanese control. Her method was to make sweeping economic demands backed by vague but unmistakable threats. The policy succeeded when tried on the Vichy government of Indo-China, but it failed completely with the Dutch. In both cases the demands were presented when the home governments were on the verge of defeat, the Japanese delicately pointing out that the changed conditions in Europe necessitated adjustments in Asia. The de= mands included an enormous increase in the export to Japan of oil, rubber, tin, iron, and other war materials; a great extension of the areas allotted to Japanese development companies for exploitation; and a considerable increase in immigration. The Dutch offered quite a generous increase in the shipment of raw materials and a mod-

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curious amalgam of mysticism and realism,&dquo; but it provided for gradual liquidation of mortgage indebtedness and created about 700,000 hereditary homesteads on 40 per cent of German soil. They are indivisible, inalienable, and unmortgageable pieces of agricultural property. As far as national consumption is concerned, &dquo;the German people as a whole obviously consumed more in 1938 than they did in 1932.&dquo; &dquo;There were per capita increases of consumption between 1932 and 1938, especially in wheat, flour, lean meat, butter, salt-water fish, sugar, cereals, coffee,&dquo; although some quantities of these commodities may be simply stored. The separately published book Nazi War Finance and Banking is partly an extension and partly a repetition of material contained in the main book. The available information is scanty, however, and with reference to the role of banking much still remains shrouded in mystery; from my

HAYEK, FRIEDRICH A. The Road to Serf dom. Pp. xi, 250. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944.

This little volume by a prominent economist starts out in a manner to encourage the reader to feel that he is finally being introduced to a scientific study of economic phenomena. Economics is to be reconstructed on the basis of &dquo;up-to-date scientific equipment&dquo;; the &dquo;withered notions and barren dogmas&dquo; of scholasticism-&dquo;in short, all sorts of dogmatic rubbish inherited from earlier epochs&dquo;-are to be abandoned; and rigorous concepts are to be introduced as the result of &dquo;a preliminary scientific analysis of economic reality&dquo; (pp. v, 3, 5-’~) . Unhappily, it soon turns out that the author apparently lacks any appreciation of what scientific method actually is. The essence of scientific method, whether first

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KAUFMANN, FELIX. Methodenlehre der Sozialwissenschaften. Pp. iv, 331. Vienna: Julius Springer, 1936. RM 16. This profound volume on methodology systematically analyzes some of the most important current procedural problems confronting the social studies in general and economics in particular. In fact, its scope is even wider, since more than one third of its contents (Part I) is devoted to general theory of knowledge under such subdivisions as philosophical fundamentals, logico-mathematical thought and relation of deduction to induction, reality and law and the principle of causality, vitalistic and psycho-physical methodology, the general concept of value, and the relation of epistemology to metaphysics. All these subjects are dealt with realistically and for the most part in a way to help dissipate underlying misconceptions. Part II applies this dialectical procedure