Plaid Cymru fallacy (1969)

From the May 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The basic argument of Plaid Cymru is that our problems are caused by London government and the political link with England; that the London parties are bound to fail because they work within this system. The only solution, they say, is to set up a separate state in Wales.

It is true Labour, the Liberals, and the Tories are bound to fail but not because they they work within the so-called United Kingdom. They fail because they work within the economic system of the class ownership of the means of production and the profit motive. As long as they do this, it is the economic system that says what governments shall do, not the other way round, as the miserable failure of the Labour government shows with its record of continual backsliding on its promises in the face of economic pressures.

If you accept that it is the economic system, and not the political set-up, that causes our problems then the fallacy of Plaid policy is obvious. A separate state would not more solve them than a change of government in London. Any government in Cardiff would be in the same position as any in London: trying to see that goods produced in its state sell as cheaply as possible on the world market.