Functional socialism

38 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

were in power, the problem of an ample supply of food would occasion little if any difficulty. Function will be compelled to recast values, and, in the process, to transform status. ‘The status of the technician and craftsman would rise, or at least be more secure; the status of our whole financial organization would fall, or at least be less regarded.

At this time of day, we must surely all be convinced that wealth is the creation of hand and brain and not of money and credit. Our economic strength, therefore, rests upon our functional capacity, in which finance must inevitably be a minor factor: must be regarded as the accountancy department, obeying the industrial policy decided by the economic authority. As things are, the banker is a croupier at the gaming table, with an illicit control of the gaming house. The predominance over industry of the money changers, particularly since the War, has blurred the national vision to the realities of life. So subtly has this mastery been achieved that we accept financial control, not only as inevitable, but as natural and desirable. It is a tragic delusion, Our sight—and worse, our insight—is refracted in an atmosphere of false values and glittering half-truths. Our urgent need is to learn to look at our social and economic life with the simple directness we look at mountain or stream. In this age of stupid complexities and empty conventions, the simple outlook becomes invaluable.

Let us apply this simple outlook to the Banks. ‘The national wealth is not stored in their vaults. That