Functional socialism

18 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

And if our practical man should happen to bea wageearner, Our answer 1s so much the easier. Function would instantly determine the wage contract; the wage system would disappear; a change of status would follow. The emergence of the wage-earner from wagedom might in itself be deemed to be a new era. Almost; but not quite; for the new era must come with the birth-pangs of a vastly different conception of life and its purpose.

Believing, as I most emphatically do, that we cannot rise to a higher civilization without a change of heart as well as a change in our economic system, I am driven to the conclusion that functional devolution must equally apply to our cultural life. If, in the economic sphere, production must be the servant of social need and no longer of finance, with its fantastic jumble of charges, profits and dividends, so must our cultural elements minister to our spiritual needs. There is, of course, a long range of cultural activities difficult to co-ordinate, but at least we have the foundation of a cultural chamber in the social organization of education, medicine and the arts. It is not without significance that, in this country, the word “‘culture” is regarded with an amused lifting of the eyebrows, with a slight tinge of contempt. Perhaps it were nearer the mark to say that any claim to culture is regarded asa pose. It began, I imagine, in a reaction from Matthew Arnold, to be subse quently accentuated by Oscar Wilde. Nor need it be questioned that too many of our cultured folk betray a sort of spiritual snobbery. Nevertheless, culture