Functional socialism

64 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

chains. They are, in fact, en garde. Mr. Macmillan again:

The world is equipped to produce more than the world markets will absorb. “This statement is a selfevident truth. But there are two observations which have to be made. In the first place, it is an economically ridiculous and a politically dangerous state of affairs. It is ridiculous because millions of people are enduring poverty and hardship as an apparent consequence of potential plenty. It is dangerous because an intelligent populace will not suffer permanently under so painful a paradox. The danger is not that they will destroy merely the system which creates poverty amidst plenty, but that they will be driven in desperation to destroy much that is valuable as well. Until we take action to deal with the economic evil the political danger will exist. We are to-day preparing the ground for violence. We are feeding fanatical revolutionary movements with the material they require.

THE VICTORIAN CONCEPTION

It apparently does not occur to Mr. Macmillan that, if the material were not there, there would be no revolutionists, reasonable or fanatic. The question is how far can he stem the revolutionary flow by buttressing our present commercial system and extending the powers and functions of finance? He sees life in the light of commerce and not economy, of well-founded finance, and with no conception of function. In the world struggle between function which liberates and finance which enslaves, he is definitely on the side of finance. The conquest