Socialism in Britain
The Socialist Tragedy. By Ivor Thomas, M.P. (Latimer House. 10s. 6d.)
DISILLUSIONED Communists frequently feel compelled to justify their defection by strident attacks on the Soviet system. Socialists have rarely followed their example. For their parties are hospitable. Having got rid of a good deal of orthodox Marxist ierbiage, they even make members of the. " upper classes " feel at home, as Mr. Thomas points out. Yet he has disowned and attacked them. For he has come to the conclusion that Socialism 'and Communism arc "sisters under their skin." Both stand for collectivism, the abolition of private property in the means of production and 'equality of incomes. Both trust to coercion ; the essence of planning is not forecasting events and preparing accordingly, but using compulsion for reaching them. Socialism is a modest half-way house on the road to the Communist Hotel de Luxe ; as it does not provide permanent accommodation, one has to move on. This being the case, the defence of the West cannot be left to Socialists, who differ in tactics only from Communists.
The meat of the book is in the second,half dealing with British problems and with the impact of Socialism on the life of man. Here Mr. Thomas is thoroughly at home. Though he carefully avoids the personal note, is impressively told story unfolds the tragedy of a British Socialist idealist rather than that of the British Socialist Party. Few British. Labour sympathisers are aware that the Measures for which they are voting may spell the doom of theit dearest spiritual aspirations. The absence of a, numerous peasant pro- prietorship has made of Britain a countri split between employed and employers. The employed, having an absolute permanent majority, claim that they can do as they like. Thus a democratic dictatorship might arise and impose its way of life both on those sitho opiaose it and on those who support it. While British Socialism runs the risk of destroying its own ideals, It has failed so far in its main practical tasks. Socialism cannot prove• its superiority over capitalism, unless by producing more goods with less effort. Marxists assumed that this could easily be done by rationalisation, eliminating wasteful competition. British experience has shown that rationalising in nationalised industries Is at least as difficult as streamlining the private sector. In many countries the bourgeois have successfully nationalised undertakings, and made a profit for the State. British Socialists have so far nationalised at a loss and burdened the consumer.
Mr. Thomas's attack on his former associates is massive but fair. Perhaps he underestimates their difficulties. On his own showing most British trade unionists are old-fashioned individualists, whose Ideals are personal independence, stability and security. They are mediaevalists rather than Socialists. Their creed is much closer to the egalitarianism of John Ball (A.D. 1360) than to Marx's " scientific Socialism." They are not even Syndicalists who want to wreck capitalist plants—except when misled by Communists. They wart to run them as they have always been run ; with no new methods, no dismissals, no changes, no redundancy. Full employment to them does not mean a maximum output of the most desirable goods at the lowest possible cost ; it means a state of affairs where every- body can keep the job he has selected, can always get the Job he wants, and can maintain a decent standard of Hying. The deepest
cause of the tragedy of British Socialism is that it has picked up Continental ideas long out of date, and is trying to impose them on a party, and through it on a people, which has always had a healthy aversion to general ideas and to their rational application. Mr. Ivor Thomas has done an excellent job by depicting on a large canvas both the failures of Socialism, which menace Great Britain's existence today, and its hopes, whose fulfilment would threaten her
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