AbstractPrivate enterprise techniques, working in conjunction with public initiative, provide the most viable solution—sometimes the only one—for the job of rebuilding cities. But it is necessary to provide for corporate profits to make the combination successful. Several cities have tried it.
Self-governing professions possess the authority, delegated by the state, to prescribe & police the rules governing the acquisition & exercise of particular types of skill. Political scientists have argued that this delegation of state authority creates "private governments," & have focused attention upon the internal political processes of professional organizations & upon the mechanisms of their external accountability. It is argued here, however, that the political issues raised by the existence of self-governing professions are considerably broader, & that a concept of "property" is more appropriate to the analysis of these issues than is a concept of private government. Professions have established property rights in their respective skills. The system of property in the professional case bears analogy with medieval institutions -- professional property rights are exclusive, conditional upon the fulfillment of social responsibilities, & more corporate than individual in nature. The rise of a highly interdependent technology & a welfare state is forcing a broadening of the interpretation of the social responsibilities of the professions to take into account their impact upon the distribution of technological & financial resources, & is leading to a recovery of a concept of property, not only as an exclusive right, but as a right of access to productive resources. These changes in turn are leading the state toward an increased role in the governance of professional skill & in the securing of individual rights against the corporate power of professions. As this process continues, the state may be brought to treat professional property as "public," & to manage it in either a technocratic or a democratic socialist mode. Recent government policy initiatives in Ontario & Quebec show the influence of these forces; they also, however, reveal the influence of a governmental system that is highly respectful of corporate property rights & of specialized expertise. AA.
The paper sees the arms race (set in motion and fuelled by the industrialized countries, whether of the West or the East) and the struggle for a just world order (waged principally by the developing countries) as two sides of the same fundamental question: Will the transformation, now unquestionably under way, lead to a world run through global corporate economic management and a framework of political governance operated from global and subsidiary power centres supported by military might? Or will it lead to a world characterized by political national independence, economic self-reliance, respect for diversity in both technology and culture, and end of exploitation? The first, merely a perpetuation of the dominance-dependency structure of the imperialist days, will provide neither justice nor security; and the second will ensure both equity and peace, for a structure of inequity and exploitation is the primary source of conflict and violence. That is why the paper discusses the question of disarmament in the wider context of development such that it provides human beings everywhere with basic necessities of life, which can be made possible only in a just world order.
