SUBVERSION BY SUBSIDISED PEDANTRY
— PROFESSORS AND PLANNED ECONOMY
(By SOLOMON BRIGG.)
(No, 24.)
IN previous articles we have been examining the technique of Capitalism facing this the major crisis of its existence. In turn we have analysed the Fascist experiment, the position of the Press, certain phases of financial control, and the insidious attempt to undermine responsible working-class organisation by suborning responsible working-class executives.
One of the most recent phases of declining capitalism has been its growing consciousness that an enlightened democracy represents the most serious challenge to the continuance of its exploitation of the masses. In America, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Upton Sinclair and John Dos Passos have brought to literature a recognition of the social necessities of the times, and ripped away the conventional hypocrisy cloaking the vices of a materialistic age.
In England, Bernard Shaw with his mordant pen has in the "Apple Cart" and similar works, shown the true significance of the social struggle, Harold Laski has remorselessly analysed the political concepts from London University; G. H. D. Cole has advocated Fabianism from the shelter of Oxford; whilst in literature J. Middleton Murry, the late D. H. Lawrence and more recently Aldous Huxley have shown that the intellectuals of the period all realise its deficiencies due to the failure of capitalism to assess true social values.
Aldous Huxley in "Brave New Worlds" is seen by John Strachey as sending the "long, delicate, probing fingers of his analysis into every corner of capitalist society. Go where you like, 'do what you will,' you will never escape from the smell of ordure and decay."
That the Australian Government censored this volume from the gifted pen of England's most brilliant young literary giant is thus seen in its true perspective. His Utopia is a repugnant one, machine conceived and machine built, and its automata may well be accepted as the most devastating destructive criticism of the machine age yet essayed in literature. But authority is even more restive under satire than the philippics of its avowed opponents.
Effective Contribution
In England the London University has been long a meeting place for intellectuals and social theorists, free to promulgate their views, however dangerous from the point of view of the established order. Such freedom of thought was rightly regarded as the most effective contribution to intellectual democracy achieved in any part of the world. Laski in his recent work, "Democracy in Crisis," felt himself free to pursue his analysis even as far as a consideration of the possible reactions of the Crown itself, and Middleton Murry in the "Adelphi" is free to consider the application of revolutionary Communism to Britain without calling down the wrath of the authorities.
Professor Albert Einstein, the world's greatest physicist, found sanctuary from the excesses of Nazi-ism in a Chair at Oxford University, and no one questioned his political views prior to his appointment, although everyone recognised that they were not in harmony with present-day Capitalism. Nevertheless, when he appeared in the gallery of the Lords during a debate on the Semitic question, members of that House, models of Conservative propriety, broke the traditions of ages by rising in their places to applaud his appearance.
Professor Soddy, Professor of Physics at Oxford, feels himself free to advocate radical monetary theories, and even officials of the British Treasury itself, like Mr. R. G. Hawtrey and Dr. Wm. Shaw, are free to enter the field of monetary controversy, expounding heterodox views on occasions in direct opposition to those of their own department.
Mr. J. M. Keynes, in his "Essays in Persuasion," finds that "the Economic Problem, as one may call it for short, the problem of want and poverty, and the economic struggle between classes and nations, is nothing but a frightful muddle, a transitory and unnecessary muddle," but if he held the views of Marx he would still be free to practise his profession at Cambridge without restraint. So Marx himself, after conflicts in Prussia and expulsion from Paris, found sanctuary in London, and "Das Kapital'" represents the fruits of his research in the British Museum and London libraries.
This led, no doubt, to his observation that Britain was the only country in which he had been that could achieve the emancipation of the working classes without recourse to violence but could, in fact, achieve it by utilising the constitutional processes at hand.
All of which leads up to an examination of the position of the intellectuals in Australia, and the attitude adopted by the University administrators to freedom of thought and discussion. The noble conception of the University presented by Cardinal Newman has lost much of its lustre during recent years. As the economic struggle has intensified, Capitalism has realised the necessity of regimenting every agency to assist it in its fight.
Politically-minded
So the University as Australia knows it has become politically-minded in the very narrow sense of the term, and we have witnessed of late developments which show that it no longer can be regarded as an institution of scholarship and research, but rather as a very pliant instrument for the cultivation of a ''correct attitude." It is, indeed, significant that professors of history, and economics in particular, who have shown a disposition to examine facts from a detached intellectual standpoint and convey their judgement judicially and honestly to their students, have invariably been frozen out. In the realm of history, obviously, the man who essays a true economic interpretation of the principal phases of historic development and the motives actuating the leading figures engaged, may be regarded as a "social menace" by those desirous of maintaining the present system.
If he exposes the cant teachings of the schools regarding the many "fights for freedom" and shows how Imperialism meant the exploitation of helpless colored races, how unscrupulous employers were protected by an equally unscrupulous State when exploiting the workers, particularly the women and children, he is immediately out of court— and incidentally out of a job. Obviously the results of such teaching will be quickly apparent in a new attitude in the schools, and instead of the vicious sentimentalism and gross misrepresentations of facts now posturing in the guise of history, the children who are not destined to reach the higher stages of the educational regime will be informed of the truth regarding the mistakes of the past.
How many are conversant with the terrible story of the transportation of the early industrialists, who had the temerity to advocate some relief from the sufferings of their fellows? The history professor who deals with even the objective data of the Five Years' Plan is regarded as a dangerous influence, although in every other country in the world this experiment is being studied in order to ascertain the benefits of a planned economy, and already its principles have been adopted in a modified form in the tottering citadels of Capitalism itself.
Banks' Briefs.
But when we turn to Economics, the position is even more desperate. Indeed, in many of our public institutions we find occupants of teaching positions who are at the same time obviously in receipt of briefs from private banks and large trusts. How they reconcile their dual positions it is impossible to say, as in a crisis like the present they are called upon to interpret the functions of the institutions they are sponsoring, and analyse for their students the effects of the policy being pursued by the financial institutions.
If they consent to become paid propagandists in a quasi-private capacity, how may they avoid becoming partisans in the lecture hall? But their position becomes altogether intolerable when called upon in their public capacity to act in the advisory capacity as monetary technicians to the State in defining relief measures. As the private banking institutions occupy the keystone of the present monetary arch their views are impossible of acceptance as the unbiassed judgment of independent experts.
The Chicago economic professor, charged with being the presiding genius behind one of the most lucrative "rackets" in that exotic centre of the modern technique of speedy expropriation, is, if guilty, merely pursuing the present liberal tendencies of his profession to their logical conclusion. The threadbare plaint of the University pedant that he is removed from the worldly taints of commercialism is every day proving a mockery and sham.
So the lecture hall has become the forum for the political and commercial aspirations of its dons. If it is intellectually and politically dangerous for a University teacher to examine in a controversial manner the teachings and practices of Communism it must be equally intellectually and politically dangerous for another professor to openly espouse the revolutionary philosophy of Fascism, or advocate the destruction of the existing Parliamentary instrument.
Labor believes that it should be the function of the University teacher to examine untrammelled every modern political, social and economic phenomenon as it arises, without the interference of any group of muddling administrative penguins. The first duty of every teacher must be that he thoroughly examines all the data available, forms his independent judgment, and is then free to indicate his views. Otherwise he must submit all the objective facts in a dispassionate manner pro. and con., and leave his students to formulate their own opinions. Either method properly handled gives to posterity a chance, but there must be no suppression of material facts, as so often happens at present for the sole reason that such do not happen to coincide with the views of the teacher.
Labor however, must be determined that the channels of true education shall not be polluted by capitalistic subversion, by making the various University faculties merely a convenient method of subsidising propaganda to be disseminated there-from through every aspect of public life. Hitler in his expulsion of the University professors because of their refusal to embrace Nazi-ism or because of their religious beliefs, Jewish or Roman Catholic, has revealed the ultimate results of such a policy.
Repugnant
Similarly in Russia the historic pronouncement that the intellectuals of the old regime would provide a satisfactory "manure" is repugnant to our ideals of intellectual freedom. The Universities must remain sanctuaries for free and independent research and erudition, and, with the growing reliance upon technicians for guidance in a planned economy, it is more urgently necessary than ever before that they should remain such.
Unfortunately Labor administrators in the past have often failed to appreciate the necessity of policing these important avenues by failing to secure adequate representation of working class thought on the administrative executives of these institutions. In the future development of our country this must be regarded as one of the most urgent tasks, and no excuse accepted for failing to carry out the declared will of the Movement in this connection.
The true conception of the position of the University teacher should be that he is equal in status with our present conception of the position of a Supreme Court Judge. His remuneration must be sufficient to enable him to devote his time entirely to his duties; and, being thus economically independent, a condition of his employment must be that he cannot accept retainers from outside institutions. He is indeed a servant of society and he should be at all times prepared to give his services to solving the problems confronting the State.
Apart from these conditions, he must be free to advance any views which his studies inform him to be intellectually and socially correct. By adopting these principles, the University might be restored to its former position of honor in the community.
Labor Daily (Sydney, NSW), August 1933 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article236575880
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