The Fallacy of the "Middle Way"

Frank Chodorov

[Reprinted from Human Events, Vol. VIII, No.19, 9 May, 1951]

The resignation of Aneurin Bevan from the British Government poses a question for so-called intellectuals who glibly advocate a "mixed economy" -- partly Socialistic, partly free. Can it work? Bevan is convinced it cannot. He and his group blame "austerity" on the "mixture". The Atlee regime, they maintain, has failed because it has been too timid, too reluctant to wipe out what is left of Capitalism in England.

Bevan is logically sound as a nut. Capitalism and Socialism are so antagonistic in texture that there is no way to make them mix. The one is a way of life grounded in the axiom of private property; the other denies the axiom out of hand. How can you have harmony in a social order that accepts the axiom in some areas, rejects it in others?

When you reject private property, as an axiom, you have government intervention and control. But, a social economy -- as distinguished from a Robinson Crusoe economy -- is so meshed that it cannot be partly controlled, partly free. When the government undertakes to fix prices it is compelled to fix wages. Intervention in the meat business at the butcher shop level leads to intervention at the slaughter house, then on the farm, and when you follow through you come to the tannery and the shoe business. Each control calls for control of contiguous areas in order to make the previous control work.

Experience has shown that once Socialism pokes its foot into the door, Capitalism is on its way out. A "mixed" economy is a temporary concession to Capitalistic habits and traditions. Sevan's position is this: since Capitalism is doomed, why not be done with concessions and hurry the inevitable along? He is logical.

II

Now, if Socialism and Capitalism cannot be housed within a given country without causing friction, can there be harmony in a world of sovereign states, some Socialistic, some Capitalistic? Karl Marx said it is impossible, and the "unmixed" Socialists have always stuck by their Prophet. They sometimes disagree among themselves as to whether evolution or revolution will ultimately wipe out world-Capitalism and …

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