ABSTRACT
A planned economy could conceivably be brought into existence in Great Britain at the hands either of a Government determined to make the capitalist eyetem work better by reorganising it, or of a Government determined, at least in the long run, to supersede Capitalism by a Socialist system. In effect a capitalist Government in a parliamentary country is bound to be deterred from the institution of any effective form of planning by the fear that any real advance towards a planned economy would involve making both the control of industry and the distribution of the product far more directly political issues than they are at present, and would thus threaten the entire basis of distribution of incomes in accordance with the capitalist principle of marginal productivity. A planned economy may not be inconsistent with Fascism, but it is plainly inconsistent with capitalist parliamentarism.
