Economic growth

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32873, 23 March 1972, Page 12

Economic growth

Sir, —“M.C.H.” says he finds my view “mystifying.” I believe, as I said, that the State should help workers to obtain ownership of 40 per cent of the shares in their own factories. Ido not support the "total social ownership” which “M.C.H.” advocates because human beings are bom with different abilities and sensitivities, so that the natural and ideal form of society is an aristocratic one. The Marxist idea that the masses collectively rather than individuals are important actually demeans even ordinary individuals. I am hostile towards orthodox socialism because many socialists are arrogant over-impli-fiers, lacking in reverence for things which deserve respect. They would stamp on human genius without a qualm and would reduce everything to their own mundane level. I want a world where greatness and heroism are still recognised, not one where people live like fell-fed farm animals in an over-egalitar-ian mediocracy.—Yours, etc., MARK D. SADLER. March 22, 1972.

Sir, — Economic growth should be for the people and governed by the people, and not by the burgeoning monopolies which dominate all western “sovereign” States. Socialism will not abolish intellectual handicap, mental illness, and human weaknesses in domestic relationships, but, by replacing the pervading game of seeking power over the lives of others with a system which logically extends democracy from the political into the economic field, there will be less tendency and less reason to impose punishment—even life imprisonment — for mental

and social deficiencies. If Karl Marx made any mistake, it was because in his gentle modesty he underestimated his own cataclysmic influence on the world. But only the time-table of inevitable reason was altered when the forces of privilege got warning to sharpen their claws. H. Griffiths would expect greater reward for the more industrious (and their families) even in heaven.— Yours, etc., “JIM ABELSON.” March 22, 1972.