Functional socialism

ON SWEEPING OUR OWN DOORSTEP 31

politics. It means a new conception of citizenship. It must call into political life, not the men with financial or industrial interests, but the men who can contribute to our spiritual or cultural development. Is not education both a spiritual (of or pertaining to the spirit) and cultural task? Public health, too. The arts and sciences. And, at this moment, foreign and colonial policy. Personally, I do not doubt that a functional authority, call it the House of Industry or what you will, would easily arrange our foreign exchanges whether of goods or credit; but vastly more important, it would remove all cause for international jealousies and so all fear of war. That would enable an enlightened diplomacy to drink deep of the world’s culture, and so by the exchange of vitalizing ideas enrich mankind. That is why I believe that the segregation of the economic functions means the creation of the spiritual State, in which men and women, unhampered by economic confusion and waste, can achieve their cultural destiny.