Every time unemployment rises to high levels some feather-brained political genius is sure to rush into print and speech with a brand-new proposal for solving the problem by setting the unemployed at work constructing public works, roads and bridges, and so on. The funny thing is that they all believe they are the first ever to have thought of such schemes. Mr. Lloyd George's “New Deal” plan is at bottom nothing more than this, and his predecessors are legion. The ILP and Labour Party have been trotting it out for forty years. Sir Oswald Mosley, when he propounds it for the British Union of Fascists, has doubtless forgotten that Mr. John Strachey borrowed it for him from Bishop Berkeley, who recommended it 200 years ago, coupled with what was, in effect, slave-labour for the unemployed.
Earlier still, when Henry VIII was first contemplating the seizure of the lands and property of the monasteries, a plan was put forward for using some of the plunder “for aiding the poor and unfortunate, building up new towns, restoring decayed manors, reclaiming unprofitable parks, and constructing new roads throughout the kingdom”. (Economic Causes of the Reformation in England, Oscar Marti. Macmillan & Co. 1929. Page 195.)
(From the Socialist Standard, May 1935.)
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