A Life Philosophy

I was astonished to be asked to contribute to this series. Who, on earth anyway, would be interested in my "philosophy"? I would bring an entirely unnecessary attention upon myself in exposing my ego and my errors. Indeed unlike Mr. Jourdain, who discovered that for all his life he had been speaking prose and had not realised it, I suspected that, having professed a deviation ist economics all my life, I was now expected to expose it. But the temptation was too enticing. I agreed to write this portentous "life philosophy" partly, of course, due to ego, but also partly because I believe that my life has been rather unusual and may be useful in illustrating some surprising aspects of the alleged rigidity of British society and the development of ideas and economic policy. Born in 1926 of working class parents in a Leicester slum, I was unpromising material. My father was then a clerk in a grocery chain store. He had left school at the age of 13, but he was, as we would say nowadays, both numerate and literate. From 1917 until 1937 or 1938 he was a communist, but, unlike many others, he was revolted by Stalin's terror, in particular the massacre of the POUMS in Spain. He remained a staunch ultra left wing socialist until the end. My early intellectual domestic diet was one of romanticized revolutions righting the capitalist exploitation of the working class, etc. In the 1930s, schools, even in such slums, were well-structured and disciplined. Corporal punishment was administered firmly and fairly. The pupils learned or else. School was highly competitive?and a good preparation for life. One was rewarded for performance and pun ished for perfidy and laziness but not for failure. The critical test came at the age of 11. Then all pupils were set an examination, the outcome of which decided whether they were to win a scholarship and be sent to the superior 'secon dary schools' where one was educated to the age of 15 or 16 (and even to the age of 18), or to the 'senior schools' for the 70 per cent who did not qualify for the secondary schools. The senior schools were intended as the last rung on the educational ladder for those who would not