Functional socialism

CHAPTER IX LUXURY

I have had occasion to ask whether, in future, Bond Street would be abolished or extended to every town in the kingdom. In other words, how would a functional society deal with the appetitive industries? “Industries” is the right word. 1 was recently told that the British are now beating both the French and Americans in the manufacture of cosmetics—face powder, lipstick, rouge, and the several gadgets deemed necessary to feminine adornment. It is not for me to inquire why British women should transform their well-complexioned cheeks into spotted chamois leather; the point is that this particular trade runs into many millions and an amazing tonnage. I remember, too, a voyage I once took in a twenty-ton schooner from Vera Cruz to Cartagena. The only British products prominently advertised were somebody’s “Old Tom” gin and somebody else’s lager beer. They blared their existence at every vantage point down the whole coast. One wonders whether the untutored Carib or Maya pictures Great Britain as a vast brewery and distillery. Any sanely organized people must, sooner or