Functional socialism

GENESIS ne

MacDonald has, at any time, been a Socialist. It was precisely because he was a Liberal masquerading in Socialist clothes that so many of us declined to be associated with him. His final defection in 1931 was only surprising because it surprised so many. He had more dupes than we thought. In any event, conventional politics were to both men as breath to their nostrils. And conventional or reformist politics are tragically inadequate to clarify the existing social and economic confusions.

The foregoing facts partly explain why the functional aspect of Labour’s activities has receded into the unconscious. But there is yet another reason: of function itself, Labour, like the rest of mankind, is unconscious.

That sounds cryptic: let me explain.

Our original presentation of National Guilds was mainly mechanistic. It was a scheme of organization, which we regarded as the logical answer both to State Socialism and Syndicalism. On looking back, it is evident that we had not yet evolved the fundamental principle. We were vaguely conscious of it; it awaited realization. Like other pioneers, we saw through a glass darkly. Pioneering involves a blind pilgrimage inspired equally by vision and intuition. We were not different from the others. In the succeeding pages, I have explained how de Meztu came to our rescue. I wrote National Guilds in 1912 and 1913. It was, I think, in 1916 that de Mzztu wrote Authority, Liberty, Function. Had we met him earlier, there would have been no “‘Guild Socialism’”’.