Functional socialism

94 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

In the joint reports of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress and the Executive of the Labour Party this ominous clause appears:

Then there is the day-to-day administration of the concern. ‘This is quickly becoming a profession and the persons undertaking the work will have to be trained business administrators.

Everything, of course, turns upon what the writers of this report mean by “‘trained business administrators’”. Are these managers, of varying status, skilful in so wangling production or distribution that profits are earned? Or is it that the most technically efficient men, whose main purpose is quality, is intended? The Report clearly indicates an acceptance by certain of the Labour leaders of the gap between the workers and the management. Hence the demand for “trained business administrators’, apparently appointed by the management, and without any consultation with the workers. These gentlemen met with a sharp rebuff at the Hastings Conference of the Labour Party; but it remains painfully evident that the functional principle has not yet been grasped by the very people whose economic emancipation depends upon it. They must learn, we would hope at not too great a price, that our functional, as distinct from our financial, life is essential to national salvation. Once fully seised of this, they will know with certainty that our functional organization must be a unity and not, as industry is to-day, a duality. Worse, a warring