Stuart Chase

Stuart Chase (1888-1985) Born in Somersworth, New Hampshire was an American economist and engineer trained at MIT. His writings covered topics as diverse as general semantics and physical economy. His hybrid background of engineering and economics places him in the same philosophical camp as R. Buckminster Fuller. It has been suggested that he was the originator of the expression "a New Deal", which became identified with the economic programs of American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had a cover story in "The New Republic" entitled "A New Deal for America," during the week that FDR gave his 1932 acceptance speech promising a new deal, but whether FDR speechwriter Samuel Rosenman saw the magazine is not clear.

He was a member of the Technical Alliance, and involved with the Technocracy movement. In "The Economy of Abundance" Chase suggests that the facts behind the ideas of Technocracy Incorporated remain more important than whether Howard Scott was a degreed engineer or not.

His 1938 book "The Tyranny of Words" was an early (perhaps the earliest, predating Hayakawa) and influential popularization of Alfred Korzybski's general semantics which can still be read with profit.

Quotes

Chase is quoted in S. I. Hayakawa's "Language in Thought and Action" as having said, "Common sense is that which tells us the world is flat".He also is famous for the quote, in the end of his book, "A NEW DEAL"(the anecdotal [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_/ai_n16359605] source of the name for FDR's signature policy), "Why should Russians have all the fun remaking a world?" in reference to the "socialist experiment" in the U.S.S.R..

Partial booklist

*"Your Money's Worth: A study in the waste of the consumer's dollar" 1928
*"The Tragedy of Waste" 1925
*"Men and Machines" 1929
*"A New Deal" 1932
*"A Generation of Industrial Peace;: Thirty years of labor relations at Standard Oil Company" 1941
*"The Proper Study of Mankind" Harper & Brothers 1948
*"Roads to Agreement: Successful methods in the science of human relations" 1951
*"For This We Fought;: Guide lines to America's future as reported to the Twentieth Century Fund"
*"Danger--Men Talking! a Background Book on Semantics and Communication"
*"Rich Land, Poor Land
*"The Proper Study of Mankind" Harper Colophon Books, 1956
*"American Credos" 1962
*"Guides to Straight Thinking, With 13 Common Fallacies"
*"The Economy of Abundance"
*"Tyranny of Words"

Books about Chase

"The Life and Writings of Stuart Chase (1888-1985)" edited By Richard Vangermeersch, Kingston, RI, USA, Elsevier

External links

* [http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/090431.html Stuart Chase Brief life of a public thinker: 1888-1985]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_/ai_n16359605