British Socialism: Ferment and Polemic

...Strachey is highly effective as a socialist theorist who has absorbed the Schumpeterian argument as well as the Marxian, and consequently transcended the customary parochial concern with what Keynes may or may not have meant...

...The end, if one is to go by the current literary orthodoxy, is greater equality within a somewhat more democratic framework...

...Crosland's work would have to take in a good deal of territory, for the author has not only revised socialist theory to suit his purpose, but added a fairly comprehensive blueprint of the good society, complete with legislative prescriptions for reforming the educational system and the social services—all conceived in terms of what is practicable in Britain, and written in the manner of a rising young statesman with fairly good prospects of inclusion in the next Labor Government...

...It may seem absurd to devote so much space to this undistinguished production...

...For all the Labor Party's regrettable penchant for "ethical" twaddle as a substitute for theory, the doctrinal substance of British socialism remains sufficiently tough to repel both Keynesian and Leninist assaults...

...It is less easy to admire the construction of his work...

...An adequate review of Mr...

...Gaitskell and his friends) what Mr...

...But it is emphatically not open to any socialist, whatever his intellectual antecedents, to pretend that he is the sole custodian of values which in actual fact are to this day professed by the overwhelming majority of nonsocialists in all civilized countries...

...It is also self-contradictory...

...Here, too, the economic and political strands are pulled together in a unified concept, so that political activity becomes meaningful, instead of bombinating in a vacuum...

...Whether Mr...

...Laborists of varying tendencies continue to write pamphlets and books, but the hard core of scientific analysis is difficult to locate...

...This procedure is distinctly unfair to him, as will be immediately obvious to anyone who reads Contemporary Capitalism together with the bulky pamphlet entitled Twentieth Century Socialism...

...In Britain at any rate this kind of doubleedged critique of liberalism and Communism has practical relevance...

...Now this opens a very wide territory for debate...

...His combination of an essentially scientific intellectualism with a rational acceptance of the technical (not moral) superiority of socialism is offensive to what, notwithstanding one's reluctance to employ cliches, must be called the petty bourgeois mind...

...Here at last is hard thinking (though not as austere as Mrs...

...The breaking down of inherited caste distinctions—which is what Laborists mean when they talk of "doing away with classes"—can only generalize the attitudes now prevalent among the more moneyed strata which the authors deplore...

...Capitalists have accepted material values as the main criterion of progress...

...When one speaks of intellectual doubts one refers to the state of mind now prevalent among the socialists in the Labor Party, i.e., those who still believe that the welfare state and the mixed economy are stages on the road to something less banal...

...For one thing, the ideal society advocated in this manifesto already exists in large measure in two British Commonwealth countries—Australia and New Zealand—and shows signs of coming into being in a third, Canada...

...It never seems to have struck the editors of this collective work (two professional social scientists, backed by a further array of university talent) that the proper distinction lies between liberals and socialists—not between an abstraction called "capitalism" and a utopia labelled "socialist society...

...Crossman, reviewing John Strachey's Contemporary Capitalism* last summer, began by observing that British socialists have run out of fresh ideas...

...tober 5), thereby demonstrating once more the presence of two distinct schools of thought within the Labor Party: one addicted to greater equality within the frame-work of the mixed economy, the other convinced that social ownerships of the means of production is what really matters, and that the decisive transfer of power from the possessing class to public administration has not yet occurred...

...This is not so, and here and there Mr...

...But this is no place for considering the technicalities of such a program, or the conceptual framework that lies behind it...

...Schumpeter of course appreciated Marx precisely because (whatever his blind spots) he was totally free from this kind of pettiness...

...Such questions are best left to specialists...

...Joan Robinson's new volume, The Accumulation of Capital, which is aimed at professional economists only...

...But then the existence of a statecontrolled sector, as he himself points out, is only a means to an end...

...Strachey's work, the professional economists cannot afford to pass him by: he is himself one of them, as well as being that rarest of phenomena, a British socialist who has made a serious study of Marx...

...Fabianism is strictly a national affair: there has never yet been a Fabian manifesto or treatise that could profitably be dissected for the benefit of people outside the British Isles...

...This, plus the standard demand for greater educational equality, represents the sum and substance of what the official propagandists of the British Labor movement have to say in the second half of the present century...

...Moreover, we are spared the sermons of the ethical school, to say nothing of their ghastly style...

...It may seem a waste of time to labor this point, but in fact the current malaise in British socialism is closely bound up with the prevalence of a mentality which would have seemed equally vulgar to a Schumpeter or a Marx...

...Crosland's work—might it not have been wiser to call it The Future of Fabianism...

...are to believe the authors of Twentieth Century Socialism, is really a matter of the utmost simplicity: At bottom the conflict between capitalism and socialism has always been a conflict of values...

...for Mr...

...This is true, but the explanation lies not, as he seems to think, in their overwhelmingly successful concentration upon practice ("under the Labor Government they were so busy changing the world that they had no time to understand it"), but rather in the exhaustion of a certain intellectual heritage which was never quite as ample as the beneficiaries had been led to suppose...

...Crosland is right or wrong matters less than that he is in tune with the current fashion of "Little Englandism," which also affects the Conservatives: neither party at the moment has much to say to the outside world...

...Gaitskell's recent Fabian Tract, Socialism and Nationalisation —is firmly although cautiously insistent...

...Given the present political stalemate this is perhaps the most hopeful indicator of the movement's capacity for further maturation...

...These ideas all express in their various ways the basic worth of every human personality...

...AND NOW BACK FROM SOCIALISM to Keynesian liberalism...

...And it does so in an optimistic manner—somewhat to the surprise of economists (right, left and center) who were under the impression that Britain has to face urgent and crucial problems of economic survival...

...FROM THESE TRIVIALITIES one turns with some relief to Mr...

...Strachey's explication of this well-known subject, Social-Democratic Marxism on the European Continent was never seriously perturbed by the rather academic question of how much good trade-unionism was likely to do the workers under free, i.e., un-controlled, capitalism...

...By 1960 or thereabouts the political fruits should begin to become visible...

...Mr...

...Beyond it there lies an uncertain twilight zone in which capitalism and Communism are battling for control of the industrial revolution...

...This is the opening paragraph of the book...

...What needs to be said about his work is simply that it does for the official leadership of the Labor Party (i.e...

...Indeed the whole slogan is nothing but a feeble rendering of `Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite"— liberal values first proclaimed (and in a measure translated into reality) by the "bourgeois" revolution of 1789...

...but it is irrelevant to the socialist issue...

...But there are ideological refinements hidden from the official platform-drafters which in this Socialist Union manifesto are explored to the point of exhaustion...

...As an example of moral self-congratulation phrased in civilservice prose it is paralleled only by the official Party statement, Towards Equality, of which it is indeed an elaboration...

...Contrary to what the layman may tend to gather from Mr...

...Now it is open to socialists to assert that they are the inheritors of this particular tradition—although the claim is unconvincing when made on behalf of movements like the British which stem from a different national background...

...It really ought not to be necessary to demonstrate once more that the European "revolution" Marx and Engels were always referring to in their correspondence was the democratic one which was aborted in 1848 and eventually took place in 1918...

...Marx of course was even worse—he actually believed that the producers should own their tools) The authors of Twentieth Century Socialism are miles removed from such utopianism...

...This is true, and needed saying...

...Yet there is no doubt which of the two books is the more important politically...

...Strachey is himself a Social-Democrat in the European sense, i.e., a democratic socialist who has studied Marx and adapted his concepts to the reality of modern, post-liberal capitalism...

...And if Fabianism should turn out to have no future, what are the Keynesians in the Labor Party going to do about it...

...The two principal themes—Marx's theory of economics, and the impact of democracy on social processes—are rather tenuously linked by an argument which lays a little too much stress on the "immiseration" issue...

...An exception must be made for the Keynesians...

...C. A. R. Crosland's important book The Future of Socialism, which made its appearance last fall, a few words must nonetheless be devoted to the long-range political significance of this bulky and learned volume...

...The non-specialist can only register a faint feeling of surprise at the title chosen for Mr...

...Now it is true that British society is still somewhat remote from this ideal, but the causes of this insufficiency have little to do with the absence of socialism...

...The true course consists in modifying the economic structure through democratic-political pressure, until state capitalism has passed by gradual stages into socialism, democratically controlled...

...In plain terms, it means making it possible for everyone to have a car...

...His rather detached treatment of Keynes is in itself a substantial irritant to liberal orthodoxy, and probably accounts for some of the peevishness with which his offerings has been received in those quarters...

...The best hope they can hold out to their countrymen is a further dose of gas-and-water socialism, combined with even stiffer taxes (as if the present ones were not enough to discourage the acquisition of professional skill) and some vague talk about "responsible participation in industry," to be brought about apparently by exhorting the dull mass of managers and workers to become more public-spirited...

...Strachey comes close to saying it...

...Strachey is trying to do for the group represented by Aneurin Bevan (now promoted to second place in the hierarchy...

...It sets the tone for what must in all conscience be described as one of the dullest, most dispiriting and least original literary productions put out by any major political group in recent years...

...But then Lenin made the same mistake, so perhaps Mr...

...To say nothing of the naivete implied by the suggestion that the conflict is simply one of "values...

...the more so since Mr...

...Nor does the reflection appear to have passed through their minds that the "human ideals of equality, freedom and fellowship" were given an earthly resting-place by the French Revolution over a century and a half ago...

...Incidentally, what is wrong with wanting to have a car...

...Because he is tempted to devote a good part of his argument to a refutation of Leninism, the reader may gain the mistaken impression that the ColnVA munists have somehow made off with the substances of the Marxian case...

...for although space does not permit the inclusion of a review of Mr...

...Notwithstanding its eclecticism, and also notwithstanding a certain prosiness, this is a significant book, if only because it shows that socialist theory retains a capacity for development...

...but then, for all the well-meant efforts of the left-wingers among them to pass themselves off as Socialists, no one has yet quite succeeded in demonstrating that socialism, laborism and Keynesian liberalism all come to the same thing in the long run—a demonstration not required, let me hasten to add, in the interests of politics, since the Labor Party is quite happy to accommodate all of these conflicting strains...

...It is not necessary to share Schumpeter's unbounded admiration for the historic achievement of capitalism to sense that there is something faintly repellent about the assumption of moral superiority which breathes through all the 150 pages of Twentieth Century Socialism...

...These lacunae the official school proposes to fill by making society more egalitarian, more fluid—in short, more like America (this of course cannot be avowed...

...But then he is once more drawn back to the pauperization issue, to which he attaches a quite disproportionate degree of importance...

...Whatever criticism may be advanced on Mr...

...A debate of this kind, however, must be conducted mainly in terms of what the British economy is or is not capable of achieving during the coming decade...

...They make man the measure of the good society...

...When he is not bothered by his King Charles's Head, Mr...

...But the shift of emphasis away from social ownership and towards "equality" within the present mixed economy is rapidly becoming the dividing line between socialism and Laborism...

...Strachey can be excused...

...Strachey has publicly come to grips with it in the columns of the New Statesman (Oc...

...and these surely can be cured by a little intensified preaching...

...For this alone Mr...

...Now this is the precise opposite of what the Socialist Union doctrinaires really want, since in their private philosophy the satisfaction of material wants comes a long way behind the achievement of such noble but vague strivings as "the longing for a society in which people, no longer divided by the barriers of privilege, can be conscious of their common humanity...

...But "materialism" is the inevitable consequence of making society more egalitarian...

...In short, it summarizes all the intellectual arguments at the disposal of those who feel that the transitional period between capitalism and socialism is going to be long, and that the bulk of the British electorate is in no mood for short-cuts...

...He even seems to think that Marx expected capitalism to break down in his own life-time...

...This, of course, is a realistic prescription only for advanced countries in possession of a democratic tradition and a politically mature working-class: in short, for the Western world...

...But before trying to assess its significance, it will be necessary to devote some observations to the prevailing party orthodoxy which he sets out to challenge...

...On this the official school—to judge from Mr...

...But Mr...

...It follows that Britain need only reach the level of an adequately functioning welfare state in a reasonably democratic environment for the official school to have nothing left to complain about, except the continued prevalence of "material values," i.e., the cash nexus, and the immoral desire of people to "keep up with the Joneses...

...The official ideology of modern society is liberalism, and liberalism is the historical incorporation, as well as the original source, of the demand for "freedom, equality and fellowship...

...It is likewise no accident that Schumpeter, no less than Marx, is a bugbear to a good many Laborite ideologists...

...Strachey's book, itself the first instalment of a projected major theoretical work dealing with the whole corpus of socialist doctrine, thus comes at the right moment...

...Strachey wins an outsize medal...

...This may be all that can be achieved during the next decade or two, but in that case why call it socialism and pretend that it represents a break with the principles and practices of the ages...

...It is his equality, his freedom, his fellowship—not only his economic advantage—which have been the ends of socialist endeavour...

...Socialists who wish to distinguish themselves from liberals (or, for that matter, from the conservative Christian-Democratic parties in Europe whose general philosophy is in tune with that outlined in Twentieth Century Socialism) must find more solid ground on which to stand than a lachrymose repudiation of the cash nexus...

...What socialists have wanted to see embodied in the economy were the universal human ideals of equality, freedom and fellowship...

...The politically relevant part of his argument, it needs to be added, is in conformity with strict Labor Party orthodoxy: liberals and Communists are both mistaken, the former in regarding capitalism as viable, the latter in believing that it will break down...

...whereas it is extremely difficult to think of a specialist in any field who would be likely to benefit from reading Twentieth Century Socialism...

...Strachey could have been a little more plain-spoken in characterizing the cost of Stalinism to the populations under its control...

...Neither of these is socialist by any definition of the term, but all three are a good deal more democratic and less class-ridden than Britain, and all possess considerable elements of that mixed economy which this school now regards as the aim of socialist planning...

...They are rooted partly in economic difficulties about which the manifesto has nothing worth-while to say, and partly in the accumulated heritage of pre-liberal, pre-democratic, and—when all is said and done—precapitalist attitudes...

...Jr is, by any standard, a come-down even from the theory and practice of the Labor Government...

...WHAT THE MODERN WORLD has to make up its mind about, if we * Random House, 1956...

...The chief one is the contrast between "capitalist" materialism and "socialist" concern for "ethical values...

...The division of course is not absolute: there are points of agreement, e.g., acceptance of the need for public control over the key sectors of the economy...

...The aim may be worthy, and even important...