"Albert Einstein. The world as I see it (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

the end in view. Nor do I believe that a sudden transference of the control
of industry to the hands of the public would be beneficial from the point of
view of production; private enterprise should be left its sphere of
activity, in so far as it has not already been eliminated by industry itself
in the form of cartelization.

There are, however, two respects in which this economic freedom ought
to be limited. In each branch of industry the number of working hours per
week ought so to be reduced by law that unemployment is systematically
abolished. At the same time minimum wages must be fixed in such a way that
the purchasing power of the workers keeps pace with production.

Further, in those industries which have become monopolistic in
character through organization on the part of the producers, prices must be
controlled by the State in order to keep the creation of new capital within
reasonable bounds and prevent the artificial strangling of production and
consumption.

In this way it might perhaps be possible to establish a proper balance
between production and consumption without too great a limitation of free
enterprise, and at the same time to stop the intolerable tyranny of the
owners of the means of production (land, machinery) over the wage-earners,
in the widest sense of the term.

Culture and Prosperity

If one would estimate the damage done by the great political
catastrophe to the development of human civilization, one must remember that
culture in its higher forms is a delicate plant which depends on a
complicated set of conditions and is wont to flourish only in a few places
at any given time. For it to blossom there is needed, first of all, a
certain degree of prosperity, which enables a fraction of the population to
work at things not directly necessary to the maintenance of life; secondly,
a moral tradition of respect for cultural values and achievements, in virtue
of which this class is provided with the means of living by the other
classes, those who provide the immediate necessities of life.

During the past century Germany has been one of the countries in which
both conditions were fulfilled. The prosperity was, taken as a whole, modest
but sufficient; the tradition of respect for culture vigorous. On this basis
the German nation has brought forth fruits of culture which form an integral
part of the development of the modern world. The tradition, in the main,
still stands; the prosperity is gone. The industries of the country have
been cut off almost completely from the sources of raw materials on which
the existence of the industrial part of the population was based. The
surplus necessary to support the intellectual worker has suddenly ceased to
exist. With it the tradition which depends on it will inevitably collapse
also, and a fruitful nursery of culture turn to wilderness.

The human race, in so far as it sets a value on culture, has an