NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 227, 8 July 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

SOCIALISM BREEDS TYRANNY. Socialists have lately been making much of the argument that the. war can only be won if Britain be reorganised along socialistic lines remarks the Times Literary Supplement. If this plunge be taken, they declare, not only will there be a triumphant march to victory but the days of peace afterwards will also be prosperous and secure. They do not reveal, and perhaps are not themselves conscious, that this rosy picture has its grimmer side. The Germans long ago discovered that Socialism is a useful adjunct of militarism. Jf the exigencies of war render the adoption of Socialism inevitable (Herr Rausclining has said: “Universal mobilisation is possible only under the system of State Socialism”), we may find in peace that this system does not lead to the humane Utopia of our dreams. On the contrary it is, according to “Odysseus,” the writer of a now booklet, “the biggest nightmare of all time: it is the system against which we are fighting.” “Odysseus” has the courage to come forward and declare that the ideals of Socialism are in ruins. As a humanitarian movement it has foundered; it has triumphed only as the supreme, development of the Machiavellian State. “Odysseus” points out that Karl Marx’s “vague, rather nonsensical, notion of the State ‘withering away’ showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the whole character of a bureaucracy. Civil Services do not wither away. State Socialism would create —and has created, wherever it has been established—an overwhelmingly powerful machine. There is no guarantee that this machine would not fall into the hands of a clique of unscrupulous men who could maintain themselves as a privileged class. It has happened, and Socialists, who readily believe in the fraility of human nature where “big business” is concerned, should not be surprised that it is bound to happen. “Odysseus” has a simple remedy: “The maintenance of a considerable degree of individualism in economic life as a corrective to this is an absolute essential for social health.”