Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

142 LIFE AND IDEAS OF MITRINOVIC

metabolic system by which nourishment is taken in to provide energy and waste is excreted, the respiratory and circulation system through which air is inhaled and energy distributed through the blood stream, and the neryous system which receives and interprets sensations from the outside environment and transmits impulses to action. All three systems permeate the whole body. There is no governing function. The body is only healthy when the major functions are all operating in proper balance. If one of the systems fails to function properly some or all of the others try to modify their own operation to try and restore the balance.

The Social State which was the focus of so much attention and discussion during the period of the New Britain Movement was an attempt to apply this kind of organic model to the social world. If one looked at society as if it were an organism, then individual human beings could be likened to single cells, whilst groups of individuals could be compared with the different organs performing different functions within the whole organism. Each individual and group thus had its own contribution to make towards the maintenance and well being of the rest of society. Like the different organs in the body each would be autonomous and free to make that contribution in its own way, according to its own principles, fulfilling its own ends in the process, except insofar as their performance interfered with the functioning of other constituent elements of society.

The twin principles of devolution and federation which were at the core of New Britain’s proposals for a re-ordering of society represented the expression of this idea of the organic social order in organisational terms. The one principle being that all those with the same interest, performing the same function, should associate with each other and consult together; the principle of devolution being that such groups should be self-managing with every decision being taken at the lowest possible level by those who would either have to implement it or would be affected by it. Similarly, the emphasis on the three-fold nature of the social state represented the application of the organic model to society. The metabolic, circulatory and nervous system of the body could be viewed as the production, distribution and consumption systems of the organism. The metabolic system absorbs raw materials and produces energy, which is distributed around the body through the blood stream by the circulatory system and is eventually consumed in the activities stimulated by the nervous system. In the social organism these three major functions of production, distribution and consumption are performed by the economic, political and cultural systems respectively. Economics is concerned with the whole process of providing the material necessities and amenities of life. The realm of culture, including religion,