Functional socialism

120 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters”. ‘The truth is that Smith could not disavow his economic man, however much he disliked him, and however much he responded to the natural man in the Fable des Abeilles.

Although never specific as to the proportionate allocation of capital, whether ‘‘fixed” or ‘“‘circulating” (the “constant” or “variable” capital of Marx), we may reasonably infer that by far the larger proportion would be constant. That is capital spent on machinery and equipment. If this be so, then we have a clue to his dictum that “capital limits industry”, which otherwise might read “‘shortage of equipment limits industry”. It is certain that never in his wildest dreams did he imagine an industrial system drenched, if not drowned, in finance-capital, as is the case with us. Poor opinion though he held of the capitalists of his day, what scorn would he have poured on a system, impersonal, all pervading and powerful, which now has mankind under its golden heel? Nevertheless, we cannot explain away the apparent contradictions in his views upon labour and capital except upon the hypothesis of a logical antinomy—a clash of two indisputable yet opposing truths. But it is in that clash we see the first faint intimation of a class struggle, culminating in Russia in a class war, in the struggle of economic groups in other countries, perhaps inevitable, assuredly tragic.