ALL contemporary political technique is upon the Marxist model , for the simple reason that that is a model of first-rate efficacy .sx All our politics are class-politics :sx every system is based upon the group ( or cell ) technique .sx And Youth-Politics is no exception to that rule on the contrary , it is peculiarly adapted to group and cell organization .sx The disciplining and militarizing of youth is natural and easy :sx and in Russia , Italy , and Germany that is going on apace .sx In social and literary circles , again , youth-groups ( sets , cliques , or cells ) are very easily formed .sx It is seldom that any individual of importance belongs to one for long ; indeed , in the nature of things , such groups or small herds are rather directed against the individual , on principle .sx But ( apart from that rather unfortunate characteristic ) they do good work , especially of a destructive order .sx Often such groups are formed with some specific destructive function in view :sx as soon as the object marked down for destruction is eliminated , they will generally break up , just as soldiers are disbanded , once the military object for which they were mobilized has been achieved .sx During the next few years , Youth-Politics are destined to be the pivot upon which all social movements turn .sx Therefore , not youth , of course the simple fact of adolescence and the earliest adult years but the Politics-of-Youth , or Youth-Mysticism , as a political ideology , or stalking-horse for political action , deserves especial attention .sx Long ago the moderately observant must have noticed in English public life in the Popular Press , in political addresses , in fiction-books , in cartoons , in film and theatre the incessant recurrence of the Youth motif .sx That , of course , is our old friend the Youth-Politician hard at work upon the popular plane .sx And for the greater part he is there upon that popular sentimental plane .sx in the capacity of an agitator .sx He is stirring up the youths :sx spurring on the non-youths to give battle to the babies , setting this person by the ears , and that person by the ears .sx It is very amusing to watch him hurrying from one camp to .sx the other , pulling this wire and that wire attached to his puppets , or assuming first one disguise then another himself .sx No puppet-showman could be more dexterous than is he in squaring the shoulder , putting an indignant spark into the eye , causing the combative jaw to protrude , of the gouty-and-porty-lumbago-ridden red-faced puppet labelled .sx " Old Stager , " or " Old Colonel , " in making the " Old Colonel , " in a towering passion , dash off a letter to the press denouncing " all this cocktail-drinking " etc. , of the " younger generation " :sx or , on the other hand , more expert in causing the " juvenile-lead " puppet to wave his arms and point his finger , hurling defiance at the Old Gang or the Old Men at the top who refuse to make way for him .sx This Punch and Judy show has become a regular feature of our social life .sx The class-war of the rich and poor :sx the sex-war of women against men :sx the age-war of young against old , are civil wars .sx But they are none the less wars .sx They are just as easily related to economic factors in our changing social organization as are any other wars as any war of cannon and bomb .sx One of the main difficulties that the writer of such a treatise as this has to contend against is the ineradicably sentimental attitude of the average man or woman towards war .sx For Everyman to be made to see that such class-wars are not spontaneous upheavals is very difficult indeed .sx The true significance of the surface disturbances resulting from the occult operations of a Politics-of-Youth escapes Everyman entirely .sx Thus Feminism was a political disturbance that remained , doubtless , a great puzzle to him .sx " Ah , these women !sx " he would unquestionably bluster .sx Just as now he would bluster " Ah , these youngsters , the young devils !sx " .sx For the Man-in-the-Street such a war as that of 1914-18 , appears in purely sentimental , " nationalist , " terms .sx He really believes at the time that England is very angry with that great big bully , Germany ( and he never looks behind these abstractions - America is Uncle Sam , a lean man of middle-age in the costume of 1800 , Russia is a bearded Moujik , and so on ) :sx and when Old England sees Germany invading poor little Belgium , well , she gets very cross indeed and goes over into Flanders to put a stop to it !sx And Everyman , or the Man-in-the-Street , never quite gets these sentimental , nationalist , values out of his simple head , or out of his blood , rather .sx It is no part of my task to enlighten Mr. Everyman , in this article :sx but the odd thing is that so many people reveal themselves as a sort of select species of Everyman , the moment one gets into what is by way of being a novel field of research .sx They might accept the economic backgrounds of war ( that of cannon and bomb ) :sx " Oh yes , everyone knows that is so , " they might say .sx But that a class-war could resemble in that respect a war , they would be unable at first to see .sx But let us get right down to the economic heart of the matter now , and see if it is really so difficult to understand why a first-class economic brain should wish to encourage this latest of the class-wars .sx Youth-Polities is , upon the purely economic side , a technique for mobilizing and manipulating the herds in office , workshop and factory .sx It is there that the effects of the Youth propaganda are principally to be looked for the wage-question is the critical one .sx In highly " rationalized " Big Business the machine today takes the place increasingly of the man .sx A bank clerk , a post-office employee , both perform work that requires no intelligence or particular training or skill .sx To receive and to check paying-in books , do invoicing , to sell a shilling's-worth of three-halfpenny stamps , demands as little intelligence as that of which the least gifted Bushman or Australian Black Boy may boast .sx The skin of the person performing these miracles of intelligence is white and he is remunerated , in consequence , more than would be a mere native .sx If a civil servant , he gets on top of that a jolly little pension .sx Economically , how can this appear otherwise than all wrong to the really fanatical economic brain ?sx Now , if , in addition to the fancy-price expected by the proud possessor of the white-skin , there is a further complication on the score of gender in short , if , because this expensive little White Fellow asks for still more because , in addition to being a White Fellow ( rather than a Black Fellow ) , he is of the male sex why then , how can the business-man pure and simple do otherwise than squirm with impotent rage !sx In the past especially , he must have done so , before Feminism ( winning its class-war under the shadow of that other war ) corrected all that for Big Business and knocked on the head for Big Business all the gender nonsense and of course very great nonsense it was .sx But even today the Business Lord still has to pay , on the average , his male wage-slave more than his female wage-slave .sx All along the line he feels that he pays through the nose .sx He pays ( 1 ) for the colour of the skin , he pays ( 2 ) for the sex , he pays ( 3 ) for beer and cigarettes ( 4 ) for semi-detached , self-contained , domiciles .sx There is no end to what he has to pay for .sx But there is something worse even than all that a still greater affront to common sense .sx For on top of everything else , a man actually has the effrontery to expect more and more , the older he gets .sx That is the last straw !sx For doing exactly the same thing , only not quite so efficiently ( because he is more and more bored and henpecked , catches cold more easily , and moves about with less elasticity ) :sx the cup of the sorely-tried economic Magnate is indeed full to overflowing !sx In the majority of cases these people who expect , the older they get , to have more and more money , are nothing but a postage-stamp-machine , or an adding-machine , or a sorting-machine .sx Only they are a machine that once was new , but that is wearing-out !sx Ninety per cent .sx of these semi-automatons are anything but indispensable .sx A child of ten could do their work just as well , were child-labour not illegal .sx Prior to the Machine Age such terms as " seniority , " " experience , " may have had some meaning .sx Today they have absolutely none .sx All this clutter of obsolete notions , inherited from an individualist past ( different in every respect from the era of the Massenmensch ) , have in some fashion to be got rid of .sx Desperately this pathetic little robot of a wage-slave clings to all the vestiges of privilege .sx realities in another system , unreal in this one .sx Relentlessly his invisible , anonymous , Boss , in a hundred ways , discourages and snubs him .sx In a hundred ways , likewise , this invisible person teaches and encourages the younger colleagues of Mr. Everyman to snub and discourage him .sx For , after all , he has to be taught somehow that his pretentions are absurd preposterous claims such as no law of Economics or of common sense would be found to endorse .sx And this , of course , is where the age-war comes in handy .sx In the democratic West , measures of drastic reform cannot be carried through quite so high-handedly as in Soviet Russia .sx The manager of the super-concern cannot send for the little Robot Tom Thumb in question , and address him as follows :sx " You old bald adding-machine of forty-odd I admire your impudence I am taken aback by your sheer neck !sx Do you realize that every year , for fifteen years now , you should have been getting less annually , not more , for your wretched services ?sx Is it possible that you do not see that a boy of twenty is far better able than you are to perform the simple tasks for which we pay you so handsomely better because he is twenty years more fresh than you no other reason ten years hence he'll be in the same class as you but at least we are teaching him what to expect .sx His notions won't be so grand as yours :sx he knows that he will get less if anything , and will be very lucky if he gets as much for a time .sx But you you are preposterous !sx You ask for a rise for more and more money , the older you get !sx That is indeed the limit !sx There is many a good strong youth of seventeen who would eat his hat for your job ?sx Do you know that ?sx For two pins I'd give it to him !sx I love Youth , I do there's no nonsense about Youth grateful for whatever turns up , as hard as nails , and none of your nonsense about " Experience " !sx " Youth at the Helm !sx " that's my motto !sx You hop it and don't let me hear , again , a word about higher wages , see ?sx From now on I drop you 4s .sx 6d .sx And at the New Year out you go !sx We shall require your services no longer !sx " .sx The corpulent , and highly-experienced , manager , would by this time be quite out of breath , we will suppose .sx But actually this justifiable tirade could never be uttered at all democracy precludes any such divine directness .sx And then still more effective Young Mr. Everyman can be steamed up ( by hypnotic compulsion of press and other propaganda , and incessant hoarse whispers in his ear that he is young , and that he should inherit the earth by all rights ) ; and Young Mr. Everyman will scowl or curl his lip more and more at the sight of Old Mr. Everyman until eventually , upon any pretext , Young Mr. E. will be telling Old Mr. E. , over and over again , all the disobliging things that the strategic G.H.Q. of Big Business has had conveyed ( via press and film ) into his otherwise not very well-stocked or resourceful noddle .sx ( It is the story of Cato and his slaves over again Divide et Impera .sx ) Again , Mrs. Everyman will be called upon to play her part , in this bitter and squalid comedy .sx Unfurling the banner of the sex-war , she will also tell Mr. Everyman what she thinks of him .sx