We Still Hold These Truths

Foreword By William J. Bennett

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Herbert Croly - In the complete democracy a man

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Herbert Croly The Promise of American Life

Categories: Collectivism, Government - Progressive Conception, Self-Interest

Date: 1909

In the complete democracy a man must in some way be made to serve the nation in the very act of contributing to his own individual fulfillment. Not until his personal action is dictated by disinterested motives can there be any such harmony between private and public interests. To ask an individual citizen continually to sacrfice his recognize private interest to the welfare of his countrymen is to make an impossible demand, and yet just such a continual sacrifice is apparently required of an individual in a democratic state. The only entirely satisfactory solution of the difficulty is offered by the systematic authoritative transformation of the private interest of the individual into a disinterested devotion to a special object. [Progressive]

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