ECONOMIC MOTIVES IN THE NEW SOCIETY, by J. A. Hobson. Crown 8vo, 4/6.
Perhaps the most telling argument used against drastic schemes of economic reconstruction is that which holds that any system of public ownership and representative government of essential industries would break down because it would fail to create the necessary incentives to production and distribution. In this book Mr. Hobson examines this important question in detail. He analyses these “incentives” both from the producing and the consuming side and proposes many ways by which they might be not only retained but stimulated. He provides satisfactory answers to such questions as: Will the present standards of management, skill, workmanship and factory discipline be improved? Will the consumers benefit? Will people save? i. e. Will sufficient fresh capital be forthcoming for the further developments of industry?
It is a valuable book because it successfully counters the argument which has, on appearance at least, some show of reason behind it.
LAND NATIONALISATION, by A. Emil Davies, L.C.C., and Dorothy Evans (formerly Organiser, Land Nationalisation Society). Crown 8vo, 4/6.
In the past the importance of the land problem has been neglected, but now the changed conditions brought about by the war call for increased production at home. This book shows that the present system of land ownership impedes production on every hand and stands in the way of almost every vital reform.
The authors contend that no solution of the serious problems that confront the community can be found until the nation itself becomes the ground landlord of the country in which it lives. They put forward a scheme for nationalisation complete in financial and administrative details, providing for the participation of various sections of the community in the management of the land.
PROLETCULT, by Eden and Cedar Paul (authors of “Creative Revolution”). Crown 8vo, 4/6.
Education to-day, availing itself of the widest means, employing the press and the cinemas no less effectively than the schools, imposes upon the community the ideology, the cultured outlook, of the ruling class.
The authors contend that among the working classes there are many who strive for the realisation of a new culture.
Proletcult (proletarian culture) organises and consolidates the thought-forces which will complete the overthrow of Capitalism. It will then inaugurate and build up the economic and social, the artistic and intellectual life of the “new era.” This great and far-reaching contemporary movement is the theme of “Proletcult.”