How YOU REALLY EARN YOUR LIVING.

By Lewis H. Honey '03. New York: Prentice-Hall. 1952. 282 pp. $1.50.

Lewis H. Haney, professor in New York University's School of Business, has written a frimer of economics, subtitled "Every Man's guide to American Economics." According to The preface, the project was undertaken in response to the suggestion of a keen-minded Business man who was primarily concerned with the economic illiteracy of the present generation of adults. The book is therefore designed to be read by employees, employers, and your neighbor, and it covers many of the topics treated in a standard elementary text. In addition, however, it includes chapters on such controversial subjects as "Do We Want Public or Private Enterprise?" and "Seven Ways to Lose Freedom or Save It."

How You Really Earn Your Living is written in much the same form and spirit as a catechism: questions are answered by short, categorical paragraphs, and the defense of private enterprise accompanies much of the description of how the American economy works. As a result the book is highly polemic, and will be greeted with great praise by those who share Haney's particular social philosophy, but receive bitter denunciation from those of "New" or "Fair Deal" persuasion. For example, Haney identifies the movement for socialized medicine as one of the important last steps toward collectivization, saying:

It has always been in the minds of thoroughgoing collectivists to mold the lives of all members of society, to the end that people may be made more alike and so be more easily managed. Consistent thinkers among them have desired to control education, and even to break up family life, so as to make all children the wards of the state. Then, they suppose, it will be easier to handle them (p. 242).

On the whole, Haney's book is an impassioned plea for a casting out of what he considers the false goals of the social planners and preserving freedom by returning to the practice of individualism.