Chapter 18. Postface

¹ Robert Flint: Socialism; William Graham: Socialism, Old and New.

² Flint: Socialism, p. 23.

³ Sidgwick: Elements of Politics, p. 160. Sidgwick, of course, belonged to a generation when property was still property and a bulwark of liberty. There is much food for reflection on the changes wrought by time (and not so very much time) in his explanation of his use of the word ‘socialistic’: ‘the requirement that one sane adult, apart from contract or claim to reparation, shall contribute positively by money or services to the support of others I shall call “socialistic”’ (Elements of Politics, p. 42).

⁴ De Laveleye: Le Socialisme Contemporain, Introduction.

⁵ Faguet: Le Socialisme en 1907, p. 1.

¹ Bradlaugh.

² Bourgin: Les Systèmes Socialistes, pp. 3–6.

¹ Faguet: Le Socialisme en 1907, p. 322: e.g. ‘la plupart des idées rigoureusement déduites de l'idée de justice étant abominablement fausses.’

¹ Mr. Hawtrey has endeavoured to familiarise us with ‘Burgessry’; but even if ‘Burgessry,’ with Mr. Hawtrey's help, contrives to acquire letters of naturalisation, like some other naturalised aliens it will continue to speak with a horrible foreign accent.

¹ Cole: What Marx Really Meant, p. 127.

¹Syndicalisme et Socialisme, p. 17.

² Sorel: Matériaux d'une Théorie du Proletariat, pp. 184–188.

³ Sorel: Reflections on Violence, pp. 143–144.

¹ Sorel: Préface pour Gatti, in Matériaux d'une Théorie du proletariat, p. 213.

²Reflections on Violence, p. 132.

³ Perhaps the last word on the class war, and on history as the record of class wars may, quite properly, be left to a philosopher. Croce's final summary is not unamusing:

‘I should be inclined to say that history is a class war (1) when there are classes; (2) when they have antagonistic interests; (3) when they are aware of this antagonism, which would give us, in the main, the humorous equivalence that history is a class war only when it is a class war.’

He goes on to add that ‘in fact sometimes classes have not had antagonistic interests, and very often they are not conscious of them; of which the socialists are well aware when they endeavour by efforts not always crowned with success... to arouse this consciousness in the modern proletariat’ (Croce: Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx, p. 85).

¹ Cole: The Next Ten Years, p. 134.

²Ibid. p. 131.

³Ibid. p. 143.

¹ Cf. Chapter VI, on Saint-Simon, p. 144.

² That the New Leviathan is really a somewhat diffident and reticent Leviathan may be illustrated by two trivial examples. Sometimes more illumination can be derived from the relatively trivial than from the consideration of a major issue.

(i) The London Passenger Transport Act, 1933 (23 Geo. 5, Ch. 14), made provision for the establishment of the London Passenger Transport Board. Even if the Government wished to decline all responsibility for the work of the Board, one would have thought that they might at least have pulled up their socks, and accepted responsibility for the appointment of the Board. But no: under section 1 of the Act this duty is entrusted to a body of ‘Appointing Trustees,’ comprising the Chairman of the London County Council, the Chairman of the Committee of London Clearing Banks, the President of the Law Society, and the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The Poet Laureate is an obvious and inexplicable omission from the list. Thus the Government not merely wash their hands of the work of the Board: they even disclaim the responsibility of choosing the right men for the job.

(ii) When the Broadcasting Committee presided over by Lord Ullswater reported (1935), they pointed out that in the early days the Postmaster-General was a natural choice as Minister responsible for broadcasting services. But, in the intervening years, the service had acquired ‘a high and certainly unforeseen degree of educative and cultural importance, ‘and accordingly they suggested that ‘responsibility for the cultural side of broadcasting should be transferred to a Cabinet Minister in the House of Commons, preferably a senior member of the Government, and free from any heavy Departmental responsibilities’ (Cmd. 5091). The Memorandum of the Postmaster-General, embodying the conclusions of the Government (Cmd. 5207), is significant. On this issue, it is recorded that ‘the Government consider that if a Minister “free from heavy Departmental responsibilities” were specially appointed to be “responsible in respect of broad questions of policy and culture,” he would find himself more and more obliged to exercise actual control.’ In less official language, responsibility (such as it is) for the B.B.C. is better entrusted to an over-worked Minister, who will probably be compelled to take his responsibility lightly; if entrusted to one of the ornamental Ministers, without portfolio (worth mentioning), he might in his ample leisure be in danger of taking his responsibilities seriously, and might even become interested in the B.B.C.

In essence and despite appearances, a timorous and faint-hearted Leviathan.

¹ The naive idea that in order to still the voice of political controversy, it is merely necessary to turn questions over to a Planning Commission, finds extreme expression in Mr. Lipson's treatment of the issue in A Planned Economy or Free Enterprise (pp. 296–297). Twelve large proliferations of problems are included in the scope of his Planning Commission, so presumably the list is not exhaustive. Even so, if we may abridge and condense, the Commission is to (i) direct the resources of the country; (ii) look to national security; (iii) take steps to avoid booms and slumps; (iv) divert labour and capital from declining industries;... (vii) ‘frame a comprehensive labour code relating to wages, hours, holidays, technical training, housing, and general conditions of work’; (viii) supervise trade associations; (ix) set up public corporations in industries not left to private enterprise; (x) formulate monetary policy, etc.; (xi) control investment abroad; (xii) develop international economic co-operation. It is assumed that these proposals will have ‘the merit of taking national planning out of the arena of party strife,’ and that such a planning commission ‘would be detached from politics and so exert an influence which parties and governments would be bound to respect.’ If we (and Parliament) may not decently discuss these things because the Planning Commission has spoken or is about to speak, what on earth is left for us to talk about? But indeed there is not one of these headings which would not, very properly, provoke Parliament to the utterance of furlongs of Hansards. Take, for example, No. 7, which alone has been quoted in full in the foregoing condensation. What chance is there that the parties concerned would seal their mouths on such a code, merely on the assurance that thus-and-thus had the Planning Commission decided?

It is assumed in the text, and probably most plain citizens assume, that a plan implies a period of currency. It may be a short-period plan, designed to take us to an objective not so remote; or it may be a long-period plan, which seeks to fix our eyes on a more distant future. But acts of decision, taken singly or in conjunction, do not constitute a plan. Mrs. Wootton, in the essay contributed to the Fabian publication Can Planning be Democratic? interprets planning as meaning that major economic decisions (on certain types of questions which are not specified) ‘are made deliberately by someone acting on behalf of all the people concerned’ (Op. cit. p. 38). But surely a plan should be something more than this.