Functional socialism

60 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

nevertheless significant and important. But the Left has no monopoly of the creed that Parliament as now constituted cannot control economic developments or guard against existing dangers and urgencies. Mr. Harold Macmillan, M.P., is of the Right. He too has been interesting himeclfaa hte category of problems. From his book Reconstruction I quote:

Production cannot be planned in relation to estimated demand while industries are organized on competitive lines. In present circumstances [the italics are his] there are 20 channels through which any economic policy at all can be effectively administered throughout the field of productive effort. It is for this reason that I regard it as a matter of primary importance to produce an orderly structure in each of our national industries amenable to the authority of a representative directorate conducting the industries as self-governing units in accordance with the circumstances of the modern world.

Mr. Macmillan has been driven to this declaration by fear of economic disruption. He sees economic nationalism destroying the balance of the previous international economy.

Nations changed from being merely political and cultural entities; and economic nationalism became the dominating influence in their councils. .. . Prices break under the strain of the fierce necessity to keep the machines running and unload their output on the market. Costs of production are cut toa minimum. The more backward nations with a lower standard of life undercut the more highly developed. The machines which enabled