718
R. H. S. CROSSMAN
lays down the rights not of the ordinary citizen but of an oligarchy,
deeply divided against itself but united in its determination to resist
domination by the political Executive. More and more decisions
which determine our development have been removed from West–
minster and Whitehall. Then where are they taken? The truth
is
that normally they are not taken at all and the determination of
some of the greatest issues of our national economy is left to the
free interplay of the great concentrations of power. Occasionally,
however, a decision
is
forced upon the Government by the pressures
of the democratic system.
If
the absence of national planning
threatens serious injury to organized labor, to the farming interests,
to the Catholic Church or to any other of the well organized and
powerful pressure groups that operate
in
our society, then the
Government may
be
forced to intervene--even to curb the activi–
ties of the oligopolists.
An
example of this process is to
be
found
in
the Government's
reactions to local unemployment. Strictly speaking, a modern man–
aged capitalism is not harmed by local unemployment: indeed, the
competition on which it depends may be discouraged by govern–
mental action which seeks to bring jobs to the workers instead of
compelling the worker to move to the job. Since, however, the Brit–
ish electorate is still quite unusually sensitive to the threat of un–
employment, the Government has found it expedient to induce
prosperous industries to move into hard-hit areas-Merseyside and
the Glasgow area, for example.
It is worth noticing, however, what happens
in
such cases.
There is no question of the Government
ordering
Fords or Vaux–
halls or the Rootes Group to establish their new factories in a par–
ticular area.
It
might, like King John, like to do so, but it lacks not
only the will to give a command of this kind but the instruments
with which to put it into effect. So what happens is a long-drawn–
out negotiation between the Minister and the oligopolists in ques–
tion) after which they graciously agree to stretch a point and help
the nation-provided the Government gives them a suitable reward.
This explains one odd contradiction in the Affluent Society.
The ordinary citizen feels that he is living in a community where
the state grows ever more powerful, remote and arbitrary; and, from
his point of view, this description is correct. But, in its relations with
