My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyin the Voltaire-Rousseau attitude of life; and above all the latter. Rousseau, in ourview, either made a big mistake, or was much misunderstood. Rousseau said: Equality.We reply, if you mean equality of opportunity, yes; if you mean equality of man, no.That is an absurdity. I believe personally that if he is properly read, Rousseau meantequality of opportunity.Equality of opportunity is a fundamental thing. Let those rule who are fitted to rule.Let no man rule because his grandfather proved himself fitted to rule. It was a revoltagainst privilege, an affirmation that the man of talent and of capacity should be theman to conduct the affairs of a great nation. 'But that doctrine was seized upon by hislater disciples as meaning the equality of man, that all men were equal. From thatconstruction arises the whole fallacy, as we see it. It is a manifest and clear absurdity.One man, in mind and physique, differs immensely from another. It is not a question,as socialists often say, of moral or spiritual equality. That is a totally different thing.Morally and spiritually, the man who sweeps the floor of a big business may be vastlysuperior to the manager of that business. But the question is, which man is fitted to dowhich job. What is the proper function that he has to perform? Some people are goodat one thing and some at another. Certainly we eliminate altogether the social classconception from fascism, because that rests upon the chance of heredity; but we dosay that certain people are fitted by nature to do certain things, and others are not. Andonce you adopt that basis of thought, you challenge the whole conception ofdemocracy.'This must be one of the last occasions when I used the term democracy in what seemsthe pejorative sense, no doubt in reaction to the experience of government throughwhich I had recently passed. It was my habit during only a brief period, for it soonseemed to me clear that democracy in its true sense —government of the people, bythe people, for the people, as an expression of the natural, healthy will of the peoplewhen free from the deception of financial politics—was exactly what we wanted. Itwas the perversion of democracy and not democracy itself which we condemned;what I subsequently called financial democracy, and in my denunciation of the systemI always used that phrase, arguing that the power of money within the prevailingsystem invariably prevented the fulfilment of the people's will which was the essenceof true democracy. In this context I was aiming in particular at the replacement of thegeographical by an occupational franchise, the vote according to occupation, craft orprofession rather than according to residence; an informed vote. I still think it is apreferable system, but I no longer advocate it, as we have more urgent things to do,and with certain reforms the present system can be made to work effectively.After establishing a case against chaotic egalitarianism, I argued in favour ofcomplete equality of opportunity, the career open to talent: 'When a man has provedhimself, he may rise to the greatest position in the land, and our whole educationalsystem must be so devised'. Then came a return to Spengler and the main themes: mypreoccupation with Caesarism in history and with science in the modern age. It wasSpengler's profound understanding of Caesarism which first attracted me to him, buthis appreciation of modern science was shallow, indeed scanty. The union of aCaesarian movement with science seemed to me at once the prime requirement of themodern age and the answer to the ultimate fatality predicted by Spengler.First came an analysis of Caesarism in history and of the inevitable differences of270 of 424