Functional socialism

144 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

as precious as it is in politics; but I also realized that politics is an essential factor in our national life. The problem therefore was to relate economics to politics in such wise that industry should function on its own foundations, whilst to politics should be assigned the supreme mandate of expressing citizenship in its myriad forms, its rights and privileges, its duties and responsibilities.

Theoretically, I was—and am—convinced that sovereignty is a quality inhering, no doubt in different degrees, in all human societies; that to concentrate it in any one institution is to threaten grave injury to fifty other institutions; that at all hazards the primacy of function must be harmonized with the sovereignty of citizenship.

These problems have now been clarified, if not solved; in 1912, when I put them to the test of cold print, they were vague, difficult and (to most minds) remote. At that time, I was associated with the New Age, then under the memorable editorship of A. R. Orage. We discussed the issues involved into the small hours of many nights; gradually our vision cleared and finally we sketched a reasonably clear elevation of our Guild structure. Nevertheless, it was an act of conspicuous courage and faith on his part to publish the book serially. For the New Age had a reputation for brilliant common-sense whilst its committal to this propaganda might create an atmosphere of “impossibilism”.

In travelling this via media between State Socialism and Syndicalism, the path was tortuous and