Nevertheless,
it was the accepted overall principle of private enterprise economy and
the ruling ethic of Western statecraft. The principle was formulated in
five propositions or axioms:
1. Make money, honestly if possible, but make money.
2. Every businessman for himself and the devil take the laggards.
3. We defend and promote our national interests.
4. Our national interests come first.
5. Our country, right or wrong.
These five propositions were the outcome of a millennium of experience
with the Crusades and extending to the present century. They are the
outcome of preoccupation with material incentives that can be stated in
two words, profit and power.
Such propositions, applied to everyday affairs, produced an economy and
a statecraft which favored the interests of a part before those of the
entire community. Where the whole is favored before any part there is a
possibility of co-existence and even of cooperation. Placing a part
before the whole involves competition all the way from the marketplace
to the chancelleries where the fate of nations is discussed and decided.
The above five propositions or axioms result from preoccupation with
material incentives: profit and power for managers, disciplined
co-ordination for subordinates, affluence, comfort and recognition for
the favored few. They provide the ideological background for twentieth
century western civilization.
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