Functional socialism

FUNCTION 61

man to conquer scarcity now threaten to plunge him deeper and deeper into poverty.

To some of us this appears to be the reductio ad absurdum of Capitalism. Not so Mr. Macmillan. As we shall see, he borrows the clothes of function to revive the old system. A new facade to a decaying institution.

V QUEEN VICTORIA IS DEAD

We left Mr. Harold Macmillan, M.P., disturbed, if not distressed, by the shrinkage and disorganization of our trade. He does not realize that, even though the patient may have bright intervals, the present economic system is suffering from creeping paralysis. Broadly stated, he proposes for each industry or group of industries a National Industrial Council, “‘to encourage and assist the efficient coordination of purchasing, production, marketing, and research; on lines that would enable each industry to evolve towards the highest possible unity of policy and the necessary degree of centralization of control”. Secondly, he advocates an Investment and Development Board, to be composed of representatives from the Tariff Advisory Committee, the National Industrial Councils, and the Bankers’ Industrial Development Trust with powers and functions enJarged. He thus offers his public a book on “‘Reconstruction”, which, on examination, is found to be a purely commercial reorganization. He writes of a