PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

that the socialist philosophy rests on prophetic insight into destiny.
It rests on an hypothesis about human nature. [Footnote: _Cf._
Thorstein Veblen, "The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and His
Followers," in _The Place of Science in Modern Civilization,_
esp. pp. 413-418.]
The socialist practice is based on a belief that if men are
economically situated in different ways, they can then be induced to
hold certain views. Undoubtedly they often come to believe, or can be
induced to believe different things, as they are, for example,
landlords or tenants, employees or employers, skilled or unskilled
laborers, wageworkers or salaried men, buyers or sellers, farmers or
middle-men, exporters or importers, creditors or debtors. Differences
of income make a profound difference in contact and opportunity. Men
who work at machines will tend, as Mr. Thorstein Veblen has so
brilliantly demonstrated, [Footnote: _The Theory of Business
Enterprise_.] to interpret experience differently from handicraftsmen
or traders. If this were all that the materialistic conception of
politics
asserted, the theory would be an immensely valuable hypothesis that
every interpreter of opinion would have to use. But he would often
have to abandon the theory, and he would always have to be on
guard. For in trying to explain a certain public opinion, it is rarely
obvious which of a man's many social relations is effecting a particular
opinion. Does Smith's opinion arise from his problems as a landlord,
an importer, an owner of railway shares, or an employer? Does
Jones's opinion, Jones being a weaver in a textile mill, come from
the attitude of his boss, the competition of new immigrants, his wife's
grocery bills, or the ever present contract with the firm which is
selling him a Ford car and a house and lot on the instalment plan?
Without special inquiry you cannot tell. The economic determinist
cannot tell.
A man's various economic contacts limit or enlarge the range of his
opinions. But which of the contacts, in what guise, on what theory,
the materialistic conception of politics cannot predict. It can
predict, with a high degree of probability, that if a man owns a
factory, his ownership will figure in those opinions which seem to
have some bearing on that factory. But how the function of being an
owner will figure, no economic determinist as such, can tell you.
There is no fixed set of opinions on any question that go with being
the owner of a factory, no views on labor, on property, on management,
let alone views on less immediate matters. The determinist can predict
that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the owner will resist
attempts to deprive him of ownership, or that he will favor
legislation which he thinks will increase his profits. But since there
is no magic in ownership which enables a business man to know what
laws will make him prosper, there is no chain of cause and effect