Functional socialism

108 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

political and functional reactions to luxury as a principle and to articles of luxury? Let us first recall the main argument. The political chamber, the House of Commons, being responsible for public policy, can declare and enforce any law touching conduct. The functional chamber, the House of Industry, is responsible for giving economic effect to public policy. If, for example, the House of Commons should declare that any particular commodity is socially undesirable, the House of Industry must withdraw it from the market, whatever the economic disturbance. But we have also discovered that the new political economy must no longer be built upon effective but upon natural demand: upon social and personal needs. In practice this means that our economic programme must first compass the primary needs of the whole community. After that the less urgent needs, and so up the scale to what we would now regard as luxuries. And there is no reason to suppose that the whole programme could not easily be accomplished with ample leisure to spare.

If, now, we regard luxury as a possible political issue, in which the production of articles of luxury is involved, we can see how the political and functional chambers must co-operate. It will be found, I anticipate, that, since the elimination of debasing luxuries and habits is fundamentally a problem of education, and, further, as the British people will never consent to be dragooned, a great moral and intellectual struggle would ensue. Cutting across this struggle, we should encounter in a new aspect the