A Fascist Beast?
SIR,—In Modelled on Mussolini. I stated that the new Industrial Reorganisation Corporation was a step towards corporatism. Nicholas Davenport has certainly been sensitive to such dangers in the past. His hook The Vested Interest was a timely warning of the non-voluntary state, although. personally, 1 would regard Bernard Shaw's approval as something like an undeserved political kiss of death. I am sorry that Mr. Davenport is (Fairfields excepted) less worried now.
!RC. however. is modelled on Mussolini's IRI (even unto a similarity of name). I do not share Mr. Davenport's optimism regarding the state bowing out of its operations: when the state steps in it tends to stay. But IRI is just one example of the present drift: others include compulsory wage and price fixing and an end to genuine negotiations (all current in Italy in the 1930s); the desire to give the large industrial organisations an authoritarian role; the increase in state powers and ownership without recourse to Parliament; the closed shop and closed business of many local authorities; incentives that depend on individuals at Whitehall rather than on known law. Mr. George Brown's recent attack on productivity agreements was not merely Luddite. but showed the Government's passion for rigid control at all costs.
MICHAEL IVENS
Aims of Industry. 5 Plough Place. Fetter Lane. London, EC4
Previous page
