"The hope that the internal enemies will all be destroyed and that the new society will create only men who will be in perfect accord with the collective will of society, and will not seek personal advantage in the social process, is romantic in its interpretation of the possibilities of human nature and in its mystical glorification of the anticipated automatic mutuality in the communist society. ...In all these prophecies pure sentimentality obscures the fact that there can never be a perfect mutuality of interest between individuals who perform different functions in society... Man will always be imaginative enough to enlarge his needs beyond minimum requirements and selfish enough to feel the pressure of his needs more than the needs of others. Every society will have to maintain methods of arbitrating conflicting needs to the end of history; and in that process those who are shrewder will gain some advantage over the simple, even if they should lack special instruments of power."
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Academics from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesProtestants from the United StatesChristian existentialistsTheologians from Missouri
Original Language: English
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pp. 194-196
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr
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Reinhold Niebuhr
1892 – 1971
US-amerikanischer Theologe, Philosoph und Politologe
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