In the last few years what the early Victorians used to call the ╥Condition of England Question╙ has once again become a central topic of political and literary discussion. During the intervening century, however, the question has changed its nature. The problems of early Victorian England were the problems of exuberant growth. Ours are the problems of relative decline. The loss of empire and the social changes of the last 20 years have provoked a fumbling, incoherent search for national identity. Acknowledged or not, that search must be one of the major themes of any serious attempt to understand Britain today. In a variety of forms it is one of the main preoccupations of Mr Anthony Sampson╒s brilliant and penetrating Anatomy of Britain (Hodder and Stoughton, 35s).
It must be admitted that Mr Sampson╒s title is a misnomer. Properly speaking, this is not an anatomy of Britain: it is an anatomy of the British ruling class, and in particular of the political, bureaucratic, and financial Älites of the Capital. The results of this choice of emphasis are not entirely satisfactory. Although most of its inhabitants remain stubbornly unconvinced of the fact, South-east England is not Britain; and the mere existence of this newspaper is a proof that British political history cannot be understood in a narrowly metropolitan context. This needs stressing not out of sentimental local patriotism, but as a matter of genuine practical significance. The least satisfactory parts of the book are those dealing with the Labour Party; and one reason is that Mr Sampson has not given due weight to the strength of the regional interests and regional loyalties within it. Although British politics are in some respects more metropolitan than those of any other major democracy, they are not quite as metropolitan as Mr Sampson╒s readers might suppose.
Apart from this comparatively minor blemish, however, Mr Sampson╒s picture of the Establishment seems to me as convincing as it is disturbing. His most important finding needs particular emphasis: ╥The rulers are not at all close-knit or united. They are not so much in the centre of a solar system as in a cluster of interlocking circles, each one largely preoccupied with its own professionalism and expertise, and touching the others only at one edge╔ In writing this book I have had a growing impression of having visited not a single country but a loose federation of institutions, each threatening not to coalesce but to conflict or break away.╙ The lack of conflict between the circles is reinforced, as Mr Sampson notes, by a lack of movement from one circle to another. There is a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing at the top, as when Cabinet Ministers become company directors, but at the lower levels of the various institutional pyramids of our society advancement comes to those who stick, as firmly and as unadventurously as possible, to their professional lasts. The way to become a Professor of Politics is not ╤ Heaven forbid! ╤ to enter the House of Commons: it is to write books about it. The way to become head of the Treasury is not to take time off to study the basic problems of the economy: it is to embed oneself as safely as possible in the orthodox Treasury ╥groove.╙
Mr Sampson╒s description of the facts seems to me absolutely right, but his attitudes towards them are much more questionable. Having dissected the odd combination of sloppy amateurism and unadventurous professionalism which bedevils so much of life in Britain today, he goes on to advocate a kind of tough-minded, forward-looking Älitism which seems to me almost as unpleasant as the attitudes which prevail now. Mr Sampson╒s Britain would be much harder, more ruthless and more prosperous than the present one; but I am not sure that it would be more democratic or more humane. ╥The atmosphere of privilege which hangs around the Conservative Party is not itself necessarily disastrous,╙ Mr Sampson tells us. ╥Politics and banking are dynastic businesses in most countries; not even the Churchills and Cecils can compete in scope with the Kennedys, and even Krushchev recognises the importance of sons-in-law. But the menace of the British Conservative nexus, it seems to me, lies in the fact that it has retreated into an isolated and defensive amateur world, which cherishes irrelevant aspects of the past and regards the activities of meritocrats and technocrats as a potential menace.╙ In other words, the main defect of modern British society is not inequality but inefficiency.
This is now a fashionable doctrine but it remains a hopelessly barren one. Efficiency cannot reasonably be made an end in itself. It can only be a means to an end; and it should not be made an object of social policy without first answering the question: efficient for what purpose? It is because Mr Sampson does not answer that question that the passage I have just quoted seems unsatisfactory. He says that an atmosphere of privilege is ╥not necessarily disastrous.╙ But disastrous for whom? It may not be disastrous from the point of view of economic growth or military power ╤ but it is unquestionably disastrous from that of democratic principle. To reply that the United States and the Soviet Union both have privileged Älites is not an adequate answer, unless it is assumed that the United States and the Soviet Union are wholly democratic societies. Such an assumption would be hard to sustain.
Mr Sampson╒s apparent admiration for the ╥meritocrats and technocrats╙ has equally disturbing overtones. He quotes, approvingly, a remark of Dr Per Jacobssen: ╥What would be the good if people were to say that the British are nice people, but they no longer have money?╙ The answer is, of course, that it might be a great deal of good. The British people might decide to sacrifice a part of their standard of living for the sake of greater leisure, or they might deliberately reduce the efficiency of their industries in order to establish a system of industrial democracy. Such decisions would no doubt seem incomprehensible to Dr Jacobssen; but they would be wise decisions none the less. If we have to have an Älite, then I agree with Mr Sampson in wanting a dynamic Älite, open to talent rather than the present exclusive and unadventurous one. But I would prefer to have no Älites at all ╤ and if that led to a loss of power or prosperity, it would seem to me that the price had been worth paying.
