Functional socialism

FUNCTION 65

of finance by function is, to him, an affrighting revolution. It is to commerce and finance he assigns the management of industry; labour is an intractable factor calling for special treatment outside the framework of management. Parallel, if you like; but emphatically outside the manager’s room. Apart from its internal purchasing power, labour—the source of function—is an unmitigated nuisance. Beyond that minimum purchasing power—labour’s modest charge upon production and distributioncommerce and finance are divinely ordained to pouch the plunder.

This Victorian conception of our national economy assumes that commerce and finance are functionally of such supreme value that, between them, they are entitled to manage our economic affairs. Indeed, it would be nearer the truth to affirm that functional value is unknown to its philosophy. What counts is not service but possession; service is the handmaid to possession. But when function looks at our merchants and financiers, it shrugs its shoulders and declares that, functionally considered, the buying and selling of goods is of low stazus, whilst bankers cannot be rated higher than cashiers or accountants. As for the dividends earned by commercial methods, function simply asks what functional value do they bring to the common fund. Mr. Macmillan has assumed far too much. He assumes that reconstruction comes through the counting house: that whatever changes may come in our industrial structure are “‘to assist the efficient co-ordination of

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