The Importance of the Common Good in German Politics

Strauss: I've just been reading a really interesting book that maybe I'll bring in here because in a way this is what it's about. It's by a German jurist called Walter Merck, who was actually a member of the Nazi Party. He shows how the principle of the primacy of the common good above private interest has been kind of the guiding principle of German jurist prudence from the time of the Berberian tribes throughout the Middle Ages and so on. And he sees the primary entrance of common good of a realm or of a city as being found in justice and peace.