In this essay no attempt is made to discuss Bultmann’s important contribution to Formgeschichte, which is, perhaps, the work for which he will be remembered. The purpose of the essay is rather to examine some of the assumptions that enter into Bultmann’s thought; assumptions that serve to shape, at the very least, his approach to Scriptural, and other problems.

This can be best understood if one of Bultmann’s typical preoccupations is considered. In his essay ‘New Testament and Mythology’ he attempts to explain in what sense he regards the New Testament as an historical document, in view of the amount of figurative language it contains. His explanation raises, among other problems, the question of what is meant by history, and this question in its turn, for Bultmann, forces the discussion into the realm of philosophy.

It is, perhaps, useful at this point to summarize Bultmann’s position about history, as set out in his History and Eschatology. History only begins when man frees himself from participation in a world that is full of gods; a world that he pictures, rather than analyses, in story forms that reflect both the regularity or rhythm of nature, and the irruption of awesome event. It is only when a human group becomes conscious of the processes that shape its experience that history, as self-conscious reflection on human relationships within a group, can be said to emerge. Both chronicle, with its selective character, and narrative, with its patterning of events, emerge from a reflection on, and an evaluation of, the causes and the interconnection of events regarded as significant in the experience of a people.

The education policy of the Labour Party is without any doubt of considerable importance and far more attention ought to be paid to the draft policy document, Learning to Live, than has been given in the popular press which concentrated on comprehensive schools and the fate of the public schools. When this document is considered at the October Party conference there may be some opposition that will lead to changes in detail, but it is unlikely that the conference will do other than endorse the document as a whole. The important thing to recognize is that a favourable vote at the conference will not stop the discussion on education, for of all topics this is about the most popular with Labour Party members. Furthermore, there cannot be another party with as many educational ‘experts’ as the Labour Party has—even if many of them are self-elected.

To discuss the development of an educational policy inside the Labour Party is not possible without recognizing that several schools of thought exist and that there are two other documents besides the official party policy document. One is the Victory for Socialism publication, Equality in Education, while the other, Education and Socialism, comes from the influential Socialist Union group.

The publication of Mr B. C. Roberts’s book on wages policy has revived academic interest in this subject, though there has never been any real possibility of a wages policy on the lines of those adopted in some other European countries, notably Sweden and the Netherlands, being accepted here. In these countries, the main responsibility for fixing wage rates has been given to a central body in the hope that this procedure would help to stabilize both wages and prices, thereby bringing the inflationary spiral to an end. As a secondary aim, it was hoped that centralized wage fixing would bring about a more equitable and rational wages structure than would free collective bargaining. In this country, though we have been faced with the same kind of economic problem, the trade unions have preferred to retain their traditional independence and freedom in collective bargaining.

The argument that a centralized wages policy will check inflation rests upon two assumptions: first, that rising money wages are a cause of inflation, and secondly, that centralized wage fixing will in fact lead to a stabilizing of wage rates and labour costs. The Cohen Report showed that personal incomes in this country, in which wages and salaries are the biggest item, have risen more rapidly than output since the war. Between 1946 and 1956, production rose on average by three per cent a year and the wage and salary bill by eight per cent a year. This, however, is not proof that wage increases have been the principal cause of rising prices, or that the wage increases have been the result of irresponsible demands by trade unions.