organization that existed whenever people cooperated harmoniously in the service of com-
mon needs and mutual interests. Just as in individual therapy one did not “acquire” orgastic
potency, one removed the obstacles in the way of a naturally given function; so one did not
organize or “get “ work democracy. Rather, one removed the obstacles in the way of the nat-
urally given work-democratic functions. But this was no easy task. Reich therefore formulat-
ed certain maxims:
(a) The masses of people are incapable of freedom;
(b) The general capacity for freedom can be acquired only in the daily
struggle for a free life;
(c) It follows that the masses, who are incapable of freedom, must have
social power if they are to become capable of freedom and capable of creating and
maintaining freedom.Reich never resolved the dilemma of how sick individuals could take social power
and become capable of freedom. At various points in his writing he suggested certain direc-
tions, but these indications never amounted to a clear program. For example, in the 1930s
he emphasized a long-standing concern for the industrial worker’s alienation from the total
work product plus the monotony of labor in a highly rationalized, modern industrial socie-
ty. He saw one of the major tasks of progressive social development as finding ways to per-
mit workers an involvement with the work product and with decisionmaking about work; at
the same time, ways had to be found to accomplish these goals without losing the benefits
of rationalization and division of labor. In these hopes Reich anticipated certain industrial
experiments such as those in various Japanese industries and the work at the Volvo compa-
ny in Sweden, where teams of workers participate in different aspects of the total produc-
tion process as well as in decisions concerning work conditions.
Reich was quite aware that work democracy could not replace political struggle in
the near future. When he said, “Put an end to all politics!” he was expressing a long-range
goal.In the meantime he was all too aware that political forces would contend with one
another and that there were “lesser evils.” He never took the position, like the anarchists, of
saying:a plague on all your parties and governments. He made choices in the real world: for
the United States and the Allies over Germany, for the United States over the Soviet Union,
for Roosevelt over his Republican opponents, and in the 1950s, as we shall see—for
Eisenhower over his Democratic rival.
From the 1940s on, Reich never lost sight of the fact that there could be no polit-
ical organization oforgonomic findings. His basic position was that his work would have to
penetrate quietly and organically, the way a tree grows, in one of his favorite analogies. It did
not need—indeed, it would be killed by—an organization made up of “believers” who
would “vote” for orgonomy. Reich was impressed with the failure not only of Marxism but
ofother revolutionary ideas such as Christianity. He felt the discrepancy between truth and
power. He would have agreed heartily with Thoreau’s statement: “Just as when there is a lull
23 : Psychiatric, Sociological, and Educational Developments: 1940-1950 299