Functional socialism

138 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

to-day it can be absorbed in credit. Certainly in any highly organized industry, capable of issuing its own credits, the need for this class of capital would be small if not actually non-existent. The Cooperative Movement has reduced it to a minimum and, in consequence, is better able to compete with its over-capitalized competitors. From the functional point of view, the community is primarily concerned with such variable capital as is ancillary to constant capital; but we must remember that variable capital, in the sum total, constitutes a strong bulwark of Capitalism. By definition, all the capital of the banks is variable, as is that of the insurance companies, even though they have stupendous investments in constant capital—land, houses, railways, machinery. Then the vast merchanting concerns work with variable capital, even though many of them have large investments in the factories that supply their shops. I do not know the proportions of constant and variable capital now operating in Great Britain, but if, as we soon must, we regard both industry and finance through the eyes of function, it will be found to what an extent our capital resources have been wasted on undertakings of no social or functional value.

Although there are signs of a business revival in this country, perhaps the precursor of a world recovery on capitalist lines, we may be sure that the worst aspects of the system will continue. We can never again restore unemployment to its former percentage of two to three per cent of the working-