Tony Benn, as he was by now known--having dropped syllables from his name

along with his inherited title, Viscount Stansgate--had first debated WFB in 1948, and had appeared on Firing Line once before, on the subject of the Concorde (see #S59). During the decades since their undergraduate encounter, Mr. Benn has remained as committed to socialism as Mr. Buckley has to a libertarian brand of conservatism. TB: "Why are people poor in the first place? Why do the people who create the wealth end up poor and the people who own the land end up rich? Now that is the basic socialist position...." WFB: "Why, by current standards, were 90 per cent of the American people poor in 1900, whereas only 9 per cent of them are poor today? Because there has been a universal increase [in the] gross national product which has been made possible by the economic exertions of free men--not men dictated to by the government."