probably be very dead by this time. I didn’t know thenVietnam War was coming.nBell: With all the irritations and frustrations that comenwith being a full-time professional writer, do you still thinknit’s worth it?nGarrett: Nobody chooses. There’s a poem by DavidnSlavitt, “The Calf and the Ox,” based on a fable of Avianus,nwhere a frisky little calf is standing by the fence andnlaughing at this big dumb ox, yoked and pulling a big heavynplough. In his cheerful amusement the calf doesn’t see “thenfarmer who carries a glittering butcher knife / and a lightnhalter, coming toward the calf” And then the last line of thenpoem, -the old-fashioned moral, is, “Nobody gets to choosenwhich yoke to wear.” And I know that’s true.nYour major choices, such as they are, are always madenwithout any real knowledge of where they may lead, andnyou tell yourself that, as in “The Road Not Taken.” He’sngoing to say, as he does in the poem, “I took the one lessntravelled by, / and that has made all the difference.” But henmakes it quite clear that he didn’t know whether it was lessntravelled or not, so he was not capable of making thatnconclusion. What I would choose, knowing what I knownnow, would still be chosen in ignorance and would probablynturn out to be equally disappointing. So it seems to me angreat relief that nobody gets to choose which yoke to wear.nFORTY-NINERS: MARX, ENGELS,nAND HARROD’S by George WatsonnThe other day, in London, I had a vision on a movingnstaircase in Harrod’s.nHarrod’s is a department store in the British capital muchnloved by local duchesses and well-heeled visiting Americans—na sort of consumer-heaven with chic, from itsndelicatessen to its china and its sumptuous furnishings. It isnless noted for its mystical experiences, which is why I troublento report the matter. But when a manager — a refined andndignified presence — stepped onto the escalator beside me, Inventured to ask him when his store was founded. “Inn1849,” he replied. Whence my vision: For 184-9, as 1 knew,nwas the year Karl Marx left his native Germany for London,nwhere he was to spend the rest of his life. And I suddenlynsaw the whole history of Britain for the past century andnmore as a struggle between those two opposing spirits—nHarrod’s and Marx — with Harrod’s winning.nThe triumph of consumerism has been clear for a longntime. It was already clear when the centenary of Marx’sndeath passed off so unassumingly in 1983, with a modestnrite organized at his grave in north London by the dwindlingnBritish Communist Party, which lost its last seat in thenHouse of Commons as long ago as 1950. (It still has one innthe House of Lords.) It was clear before the Labour Partynleft office in 1979, in the first of three election defeats; clearneven before Clement Attlee lost the premiership tonWinston Churchill in 1951. Marx believed that Britainnwould be the first socialist state on earth, being the firstnindustrial nation: that was among the reasons why he settlednthere. It is far too late for the British to be that. But thenargument by now has gone much further, and a good manynpeople — including a good many in the Labour Party—nGeorge Watson, a Fellow of St. John’s College,nCambridge, is the author of Politics & Literature innModern Britain (Macmillan) and The Idea of Liberalismn(Macmillan). He has been a visiting professor of Englishnat the universities of Minnesota, Zurich, and Georgia,nand at New York University.nwonder if it will ever be socialist at all. In fact Labour is nownbusy rewriting its program (after its third electoral defeat innJune 1987) to come to terms with a nation where one fifthnare said to own shares and nearly two thirds their ownnhomes. In September 1987, Nigel Lawson, Chancellor ofnthe Exchequer, announced that with the privatization ofnBritish Petroleum there would be more shareholders thanntelevision sets in Britain; while the privatization of steel,nwater, and electricity is still to come.nThis is a large change: large even in the memory of thenliving. Less than half a century ago Joseph Schumpeter, nonnn..,^.v,./’^ 2i^//ZnJUNE {388127n