Functional socialism

SIMPLE DIVISION 159

manner, the politician cannot, in the nature of things, give effect to the demands and needs of our economic system. The time has come to recognize the claims of industry to function on its own basis. Nothing is more disquieting than the tenacity of the politician in the maintenance of his authority over our industrial life. The tragedy of the present situation is that this authority is as legal as it is obsolete. And so we perpetually move round and round in a vicious circle. To break that circle and resolve our society into its component parts is the task of the hour.

A SCANDAL

These parts fall naturally into two main divisions: such organization as is necessary to our spiritual and cultural growth, and such organization as is necessary to provide the material means. It were surely now painfully clear that, as these organizations are fundamentally wide apart, to combine them under one authority is to invite disaster to both. That, in fact, is precisely what has happened. We are in a state of dire need, not because of any economic scarcity, but because we are impotent to realize our political or economic possibilities. The enemy is the fatuity of our governing classes (whatever their political creed) in forcing the economic flux into a political mould. It has ceased to be a problem; it has become a scandal.

THE NEXT STEP

The constitution of a national economic authority,