Intervention and reform

The momentum inherent in nature solves some problems but leaves gaps which only the visible hand can fill. The list extends to spillovers, warfare, law and order at home and the regulation of international trade. Aristotle, an open-minded pragmatist, is in favour of the optimal but not of the minimal state. The relief of poverty is a duty of the state as well as of private philanthropists whose stock of wealth must be kept intact in order to give them the option. Education must be made a public responsibility. The schools through the national curriculum should foster the central value system and discourage non-conformity. Outside the schools the censors should restrict the dissemination of destabilising opinion that, as in the work of Plato and George Orwell, could threaten the wellbeing of the organic whole.