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PARTISAN REVIEW
state and municipal ownership can exist alongside federal ownership;
the techniques of the co-operatives can be expanded; even the re–
sources of regulation have not been fully tapped. The more varieties
of ownership the better: liberty gets more fresh air and sunlight
through the interstices of a diversified society than through the close–
knit grip of collectivism. The recipe for retaining liberty is, not ra–
tionalization, but muddling through-a secret long known to the
British who, as D. W. Brogan has put it, "change anything except
the appearance of things."
Socialism, then, appears quite practicable within this frame of
reference, as a long-term proposition. Its gradual advance might
well preserve order and law, keep enough internal checks and dis–
continuities to guarantee a measure of freedom, and evolve new
and real forms for the expression of democracy. The active agents
in effecting the transition will probably be, not the working class,
but some combination of lawyers, business and labor managers, poli–
ticians and intellectuals, in the manner of the first New Deal, or of
the Labor government in Britain.
But we must return this question to the actualities from which
up to now it has been abstracted. The process of backing'into social–
ism in the contemporary world is not so simple as it sounds. Too
many forces are working, some wittingly, some not, to obstruct that
process. They can be discussed under three heads: the death-wish of
the capitalists; the betrayal of the intellectuals; and the counter–
revolution of the Soviet Union.
The Death-wish of the Capitalists
Marxist folklore, we have seen, has always overrated the bour–
geoisie. The capitalists have certainly been great organizers of pro–
duction and, in this process, great exploiters of the downtrodden.
But their confidence, intelligence, and ruthlessness have always dwin–
dled as they got farther away from the factory or counting-house.
They have constituted a plutocracy, not an aristocracy. They have
never been, in the political sense, an effective governing class.
A plutocracy is trained to think in terms of business dealings
and not of war, in terms of security and not of honor, in terms of
class and not of nation. With their power dependent on the continued
convertibility of pieces of paper, they dread anything which might
upset the fragile conventions of economic society. They lack the in–
stinct, energy, and courage to govern. The shift which saved Britain
in 1940 suggests some of the contrasts. Chamberlain reflected the
