A B C of modern socialism

PREFACE

THESE short and inadequate chapters appeared senially, during August, September and October, 1937, in the columns of The Post, the official organ of the Union of Postal Workers. We are not only grateful to, but warmly applaud the courage of its Editor, Mr. Francis Andrews, in allowing to appear matter so disturbing to the peace and quietude of those pleasant Labour gatherings now scarcely distinguishable from mothers’ meetings.

The complexity of modern life, bringing in its train so many diversities in thought, motion and action, has for the moment brought all our political and industrial leaders to an intellectual standstill. This is obvious to any detached observer. One and all they are living on the scraps of obsolete controversies. Their political programme is an olla podrida from yesterday’s banquet; their industrial programme, if there is such a thing, is numbed and trustrated by the wage mentality. In such circumstances, a political victory would prove a disaster, whilst every industrial victory is instantly followed by a correlative rise in prices, which in its turn is followed by the inevitable depression. There can be no break in the vicious circle whilst Labour confines its purposes and activities within the ambit of the wage system. Not only the wage system in the concrete but the wage system spiritually