|
George Douglas Howard Cole (25 September 1889 – 14 January 1959) was an English political theorist, economist, writer and historian. As a libertarian socialist he was a long-time member of the Fabian Society and an advocate for the Co-operative movement. He and his wife Margaret Cole (1893–1980) together wrote many popular detective stories, featuring the investigators Superintendent Wilson, Everard Blatchington and Dr Tancred. Cole was educated at St Paul's School and Balliol College, Oxford. As a conscientious objector during World War One, Cole's involvement in the campaign against conscription introduced him to a co-worker, Margaret Postgate, whom he married in 1918. The couple both worked for the Fabian Society for the next six years before moving to Oxford, where Cole started writing for the ''Manchester Guardian''. During these years, he also authored several economic and historical works including biographies of William Cobbett and Robert Owen. In 1925, he became reader in economics at University College, Oxford. In 1944, Cole became the first Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford. He was succeeded in the chair by Isaiah Berlin in 1957. Cole was initially a pacifist; however, he abandoned this position around 1938, stating that "Hitler cured me of pacifism".〔Martin Ceadel, "The Peace Movement Between the Wars: Problems of Definition", in ''Campaigns for Peace : British peace movements''. Edited by Richard Taylor and Nigel Young. Manchester University Press, 1987. ISBN 0719018927 (p. 84).〕 He was listed in the 'Black Book' of prominent subjects to be arrested in the case of a successful Nazi invasion of Britain 〔 Walter Schellenberg, The Schellenberg Memoirs, London 1956 (Deutsch: Aufzeichungen, München 1979) pp 174.〕 == Socialism == Cole became interested in Fabianism while studying at Balliol College, Oxford. He joined the Fabian Society's executive under the sponsorship of Sidney Webb. Cole became a principal proponent of Guild Socialist ideas, a libertarian socialist alternative to Marxist political economy. These ideas he put forward in ''The New Age'' before and during the First World War, and also in the pages of ''The New Statesman'', the weekly founded by the Webbs and George Bernard Shaw. Cole said his interest in socialism was kindled by his reading ''News from Nowhere'', the utopian novel by William Morris. He wrote,
Neither a Marxist nor a Social Democrat, Cole envisioned a Socialism of decentralized association and active, participatory democracy, whose basic units would be sited at the workplace and in the community rather than in any central apparatus of the State.〔(Peter Sedgwick, "A Return to First Things", ''Balliol College Annual Record 1980,'' pp.86–88 (review of A. W. Wright, ''G.D.H. Cole and Socialist Democracy''). Marxists’ Internet Archive. Online. )〕 In 1936 Cole began calling for a Popular Front movement in Britain, where the Labour Party would ally with other parties against the threat of fascism.〔Daniel Ritschel, ''The Politics of Planning: The Debate on Economic Planning in Britain in the 1930s''. Oxford University Press, 1997 ISBN 019820647X (pp. 282–83)〕 Cole was a powerful influence on the life of the young Harold Wilson, whom he taught, worked with and convinced to join the Labour Party. Before him, Hugh Gaitskell was a student of Cole's. Cole wrote at least seven books for the Left Book Club, all of which were published by Victor Gollancz Ltd. These are marked with LBC in the list of his books given below. Although Cole admired the Soviet Union for creating a socialist economy, he rejected its dictatorial government as a model for socialist societies elsewhere. In a 1939 lecture, Cole stated:
In his book ''Europe, Russia and the Future'' published in 1941, Cole claimed that however immoral the new Nazi-dominated Europe was, in some ways it was better than the "impracticable" system of sovereign states that had preceded it. In economic terms it could be said that "it would be better to let Hitler conquer all Europe short of the Soviet Union, and thereafter exploit it ruthlessly in the Nazi interest, than to go back to the pre-war order of independent Nation States with frontiers drawn so as to cut right across the natural units of production and exchange".〔G. D. H. Cole, ''Europe, Russia and the Future'' (London: Victor Gollancz, 1941), p. 104.〕 Cole also stated: "I would much sooner see the Soviet Union, even with its policy unchanged, dominant over all Europe, including Great Britain, than see an attempt to restore the pre-war States to their futile and uncreative independence and their petty economic nationalism under capitalist domination. Much better be ruled by Stalin than by the destructive and monopolistic cliques which dominate Western capitalism".〔Cole, ''Europe, Russia and the Future'', p. 104.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「G. D. H. Cole」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|