The Smug Minority

Publisher:  MacClelland & Stewart, Toronto, Canada
Year Published:  1968
Pages:  160pp     Dewey:  340.112
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX6563

This book is about freedom -- and the lack of it -- in Canada: freedom from useless and often degrading toil, freedom from want and freedom from ignorance. Berton maintains that a smug minority of business and political leaders has conspired to inhibit that freedom.

Abstract: 
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Table of Contents

Conversation for the Twenty-First Century
Part 1: The Tyranny of a Dying Ethic
1. Is Gordon Sinclair a Puritan?
2. The Thing We Think is Standing Still is Moving
3. The Contemporary Standards f Lord Thomson
4. A Subtreasury of Great Canadian Myths
5. The Contempt for Adult Values
6. Charles E Wilson's Version of Freedom

Part 2: The Mythology of Toil
1. The Dirtiest Job in the World
2. The Second Coming of Aristotle
3. Liquor Vendors Lying in the Sun
4. Did the Greeks Engage in Moonlighting?
5. Allan Lamport Meets the Hippies
6. The Fallacy of "Free Time"
Interlude: Clips from an Unpublished Newspaper

Part 3: The Shackles of Poverty
1. The Gospel According to George McCullagh
2. What Price Chamber of Commerce Freedom?
3. A Profile of the Canadian Poor
4. The Vicious Cycle of Want
5. The Folklore of Motherhood
6. Must "Planning" be a Dirty Word?

Part 4: The Illusion of Education
1. Down with Free Education
2. Universities: Pastures for the Privileged
3. An Under-Investment in Human Beings
4. The Poor Can't Go To College
5. Why Can't Learning by Fun?
6. Dialogue with Myself
The Parade of Progress

Subject Headings

• Social Services