Functional socialism

44. FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

function, is to clothe it with flesh and blood. When we see it permeating the community as an active principle we can understand it better. Let us then see function in the person of John Smith. He is a decent member of society, tolerant, without political bias. He is a competent man at his job; he wants things well done; he resents slacking or carelessness. Above all, he is irritated by the restraints of those unseen forces that frequently prevent him from working, when he knows that the things he makes are not only useful but wanted. He reasons with himself or with his mates that there is something seriously wrong when the market is glutted at a moment when the community is in need of the glutted commodities. You cannot convince him that production is for profit and not primarily for use. You cannot convince him that there are “subjective rights” which must be honoured before he is allowed to make what the public needs. Being peaceful and law-abiding, he accepts the situation; nevertheless, he is not convinced. “There’s something wrong somewhere,” he says to himself or his mates. And being themselves practical men they say, “Hear! Hear!” At this stage, John Smith personifies frustrated function.

Next, let us suppose that the powers-that-be say to John Smith: “We now realize that the old system is hopelessly wrong; subjective rights must yield to the prime necessity of creating and distributing wealth, and since you are the only man who can do it, go to it.” John Smith has received a mandate on