Page:Carnegie Flexner Report.djvu/173

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RECONSTRUCTION
155

which should procure for all the advantage of such conditions as is now possible would speedily bring about a reconstruction quite as extensive as that described.

Such control in the social interest inevitably encounters the objection that individualism is thereby impaired. So it is, at that level; so it is intended. The community through such regulation undertakes to abridge the freedom of particular individuals to exploit certain conditions for their personal benefit. But its aim is thereby to secure for all others more freedom at a higher level. Society forbids a company of physicians to pour out upon the community a horde of i ill trained physicians. Their liberty is indeed clipped. As a result, however, more competent doctor being trained under the auspices of the state itself, the public health is improved; the physical well-being of the wage-worker is heightened; and restriction put upon the liberty, so-called, of a dozen doctors increases the effectual liberty of all other citizens. Has democracy, then, really suffered a set-back? Reorganization along rational lines involves the strengthening, not the weakening, of democratic principle, because it tends to provide the conditions upon which well-being and effectual liberty depend.