704
R. H. S. CROSSMAN
at once accept his political conclusions as well. But with one differ–
ence.
If
I were as convinced as he is that modern
capitC1-lism, .~
II
worka,ble, sensible economy and so successful that sooner . or
l.a,t~
the Communist States are likely to remodel
themselv~s
' on ':th.e
AmeI:kan pattern, I should decide that the Labour Party
a.~
.such
had no further role to play and the time had come to reconst11.!ct
the Liberal Party as the main alternative to Conservatism. It may
be replied that the revival of Liberalism would be a formidable task,
but surely it would be no more formidable than the job of persuarl,–
ing the Labour Party that its
critique
of capitalism and its belief
in
public ownership as the central tenet of its creed are both entirely
obsolete. And that, after all, is what the Revisionists have set them–
selves to do.
I now turn to an examination of the basic assumption on which
the Revisionists rest their case. Are they right in assuming the sta–
bility of the Affluent Society? Are they correct to anticipate-:-if
it
is properly managed-a satisfactory rate of economic expansion?
b
their confidence justified when they believe that the contradictions
of pre-war capitalism have been removed? Or does our new post–
war capitalism contain within it new contradictions, which cannot
be resolved so long as the "commanding heights of the economy"
are privately owned and controlled?
I realize, of course, that the optimism of the Revisionist analys–
is is shared by the vast majority of the opinion-makers throughout
the Western world. Most of them, indeed, are reluctant to admit
the strength either of their war-time fears that peace would bring a
return to mass unemployment or of their post-war sense of relief as,
year by year after 1945, the "inevitable" slump was postponed. At
the end of the war, even John Maynard Keynes himself assumed
that the American economy would drift into a crisis that w.ould
probably engulf Britain as well. In the United States, where fear .of
unemployment is much less acute, uncritical confidence
in , free
enterprise was rapidly restored. In Britain, on the other hand,.
this
swing of opinion .away from ·Socialism back to free enterprise:was
postponed during the period of office of the Attlee Government,
,who were able to convince the electorate that they had averted a
return to . u,nemploymentby the application of So.cialist planning
and
controls, .Actually the Labour Government did very little plan-
