Functional socialism

IO FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

acceptance; so we swallow one patent medicine after another. Needless to say, our last state is worse than the first.

Since politics is the art of life, we naturally look to our political leaders for light and guidance. Never, since the days of the Renaissance, has there been such an expectant feeling for a new era. The anomalies of our existing social and economic system puzzle and bewilder us. Social extravagance and economic waste go hand in hand. If our capital is to win big dividends, we must invest it in the luxury trades or in amusements. At the moment of writing there is some revival in our staple industries; but it brings a poor return compared with cinemas and the West End distributive trades. Foodstuffs are still a drug on the market and are frequently destroyed or withheld to maintain prices and profits. This particular kind of criminal waste has become so common that it escapes comment. With the depressed areas still with us, any withdrawal of food, clothing or household necessities must be described as criminal. At the recent Trades Union Congress one of the delegates remarked that he had been unemployed for nine years and had not bought a suit of clothes for six years. Is there not then an urgent need for a new orientation in our political philosophy? Assuredly; but where can we turn to find it?

I can understand, with some impatience, that the relatively comfortable classes are content to muddle along with the economic system substantially as our fathers left it. The shoe, of course, pinches here and