My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyfaulty method of over-centralisation when few colleagues are trusted.What will be the final verdict of history on this remarkable figure who for a period sogreatly inspired such a profoundly gifted people? His constructive achievementscertainly contain some lessons for the future. Chief among them was the CorporateState, whose study in detail is available to all; its mechanism for industrialconciliation could be used with or without its compulsive aspects. The chiefachievement of this organisation was the labour charter which abolished the chattelconcept of labour, and prevented those who had served an industry well being thrownon the scrap-heap when no longer wanted. The abolition of 'wage slavery' had longbeen in every socialist programme, but that overdue reform was left to the CorporateState.The elaborate mechanism of the Corporate State, like all other machines, could beused well or badly for human purposes. Men with a powerful motor-car at theirdisposal can use it to win a race, to expedite their daily business, or to drive it at speedinto a brick wall or over a cliff. At best, the Corporate State provided a means notonly to regulate relations in industry, but to secure an equable distribution of itsprofits. I have indicated that my criticism was and is that it tended to begin and endwith machinery. It is not enough in the age of modern science to establish a machinewhich ensures stability, or even fair distribution. The machine must be directed andcontrolled by men with a clear view of the changes, the new possibilities that sciencehas brought, and with the vision to devise new policies to meet them. The theory ofthe Corporate State organised as a human body was a moving idea, but I felt it shouldthen come alive and advance with modern science and economics toward constructiveand creative policies. It seemed to me too much a piece of machinery, an automaticstabiliser rather than a motiveforce.I could find nothing in Italian fascism comparable with the policies I devised in myperiod in government or in the previous Birmingham proposals. These policies, whichwe recommended throughout Britain in the seven years of our fascist movement from1932 to 1939, were ideas of an entirely different order of thought and action. I feelquite simply that they went far beyond the policies of either the Italians or theGermans at that time and had nothing at all to do with them. This may be regarded asinsular or personal prejudice, but I am confident that anyone studying impartially ourideas in Britain and comparing them with those of the Continent will not only findvery little relation between them, but will be constrained to admit that our policieswere far more creative. The similarity between us and the continental movementsbegan and ended with the need to fight for ideas to be heard at all, and this commonexperience of the Red assault gave us a certain mutual sympathy. In the end the headis more important than the fist, but this was seldom recognised at the time.Then and since we hear much more of young fascists giving castor oil to Reds, than ofthe constructive thinking in the Corporate State. We never hear a word, of course,about the previous crimes of the communists, such as holding the heads of living menin steel furnaces until they were burnt off; proof of these atrocities was to be seen atan exhibition in Rome which I examined in detail in the early thirties.302 of 424