Monetary matters
Sir: The last sentence of the second paragraph of my article 'Who are the radicals now?' in The Spectator of November 8 contained a transcription error. The sentence should have read "The question is particularly acute If one is no more turned on about equality than about public ownership." As printed it read "if one is now more turned on . ." This may not be to everyone's taste; but that is what wrote!
The date of the argument over inflation between Sir Leslie Rowan anu "Foxy" Falk should have been 1957, not 1967.
Samuel 13rittan The Financial Times, Bracken House' Cannon Street, London EC4.
Sir: Surely Samuel Brittan goes too far in implying that only a competitive! capitalist system does not require maSsi enthusiasm? The French have managed, to operate a system of "five-year plans without it, while few observers would hold that 'workers' co-ops' in Yugosievia function as a result of it alone: Furthermore, decentralised markets are by no means indissolubly linked t° capitalism. Public entrepreneurship as in Austria, Canada or Italy can be used to create and preserve as much or even more compeition and consumer choice., Perhaps that is why, as he correctlY, observes, "The case for competition an ,the price system as distinct fron) private ownership and traditional differentials is as alien to most con veil' tional middle-class Conservative voters as it is to trade unionists." In fact, In°st trade unionists have a stronger reason to defend it than the middle class, sinne only competition and the price systen1 are consistent with the preservation 0f their rights of free collective bargaining while the middle classes seem able tn turn any economic system to their advantage. Donald .R0Y
15 Rusholme Road, London SW15.
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