Does the election of Clint Eastwood as Mayor of Carmel, California, mean that the Ronald Reagan syndrome — an irritating rash of ageing movie stars spreading into positions of power — is about to flourish ever more malignantly? Even by the standards of capitalist politics. Eastwood's election seems more puzzling than most. Carmel is a small (pop 5,000) seaside town which began as an artistic hermitage and has developed into a refuge for a few of America's elderly rich. The place is protective of its environment — it mounts a stern resistance to things like obtrusive advertising, flashing neon signs, fast food disgorgers and the like (these monstrosities are considered more suitable for the places where American workers, who contributed so signally to the affluence of Carmel's inhabitants, eke out their lives) Eastwood has lived in the place for some 14 years, he owns a restaurant there and his bid to become Mayor was said to be motivated by a desire to make his business more prominent with just the kind of eyesores which Carmel has always resisted. It might have been expected, then, that the electors would have given Eastwood, as a threat to their cherished environment, the voting equivalent of a sheriff s bum's rush out of town and then gone quietly back to enjoying their wealth. Perhaps his election was the result of those 2,166 people who voted for him being dazzled by his halo of showbiz glamour. All of this was written up in the British press in terms which encouraged the voters here to wallow in a smug assurance that of course they would never fall for such an appeal.
Well, as Eastwood himself might say. in a rare outburst of loquacity. "Oh. yeah?" British politicians are no exception to the general rule, in that they wrap their intentions up in some attractive tinsel but any worker with a flicker of consciousness, or a glimmer of memory, should have no difficulty in tearing this aside to get at the reality underneath. The Tories, for example, persist in telling us that life in Thatcher Britain is really very enjoyable and secure. There are still a few problems but these are well on the way to being sorted out. Meanwhile, we should rejoice over a fall in something called interest rates which determine how much one section of the ruling class pay another for borrowing their money — or about a fall in the price of oil (but then again at some times we should rejoice when the price of oil goes up) or we should get interested in whether workers at Westland's or British Leyland are to be exploited by the British capitalist class or by a group of capitalists from America or Europe.
Underneath this packaging the poverty of the workers deepens — more and more are forced into the desperate struggle to survive on the dole, they die of the cold or because medical services have been cut back, the pressures of making ends meet become more intense for those who are in work. Yet millions of workers support the Tories at election time, millions are impressed by Thatcher's supposed firmness of purpose.
Are these people dazzled by Thatcher's appearance — her hairdo, her teeth, her schoolmarm's voice? Do they tremble ecstatically at the sight of Lawson's well-nourished frame? It can't be that they are impressed by any overwhelming logic in the case for the Tories, for there has never been a successful Conservative government — in the sense that they have kept their promises, solved the problems of capitalism, been midwife at the birth of a prosperous and secure country.
As we all know, the voters sometimes get restless with Tory government, with the same old faces posing at the door of Number Ten. the gutter press revelations about the intimate lives of the same old leaders, the same old rhetorical tricks before the TV cameras. It becomes time for a change and luckily for capitalism (the system's spokespersons say it is luckily for democracy) there is an alternative party who will make some trifling adjustments in running capitalism and who have a clutch of promises and delusions to use in misleading the working class in allowing them a period of power.
In spite of all the combined efforts of Neil Kinnock, Tony Benn and the Militant Tendency, Labour has not been counted out of workers' reckoning as a future government for British capitalism. Their latest offering, outlined by Roy Hattersley in the House of Commons on February 12. is "Directed reflation with public sector capital spending on housing, schools and roads" which will be financed through £3 billion more taxes on the higher income groups. This type of programme is probably seen by most workers as not entirely out of touch with reality, dealing with matters which concern them like unemployment, bad housing, deficient services. This bland, predictable response to capitalism's malaises may dazzle enough workers to win the seats needed to get Labour back into power. They will then set about "creating jobs", "controlling inflation", hoping that their relations with the trade union movement will enable them to impose wage restraint without the kind of turmoil which this has caused in the past.
This might be more convincing were it not for the fact that these policies have already been tried and have failed. Hattersley is telling us that it is possible to control capitalism's economy as easily as if it were a motor car — a touch on the brake here, a dab on the accelerator there — but there is no evidence, either in theory or in practical experience, to support him. Unemployment is a result of capitalism's anarchic cycle of economic boom and slump and essentially it is quite out of the control of any politician or "expert". The Labour government of 1929-31 could not control it and when unemployment again began to emerge as a serious problem in the 1970s. the Labour government then could only watch in impotence as the dole queues doubled.
Whatever their relationship with the unions Labour cannot deny the class conflict of capitalism. They can't eliminate, through juggling with the tax regulations, the fact that this is a class divided society, in which the interests of the socially useful, productive class — the workers — are opposed to those of the socially useless parasites — the capitalists. On that fact the policies of past Labour governments. with those of much of the trade union leadership, have come to grief. Every Labour government has gone down in miserable defeat; there is no reason to think that things will be different in the future, no cause to believe that there is some mysterious lesson, closed to them in the past, which they can have learned now and which will enable them to succeed where once they failed. Perhaps the millions of workers who vote Labour, in spite of the evidence of that party's impotence and futility, are soothed by Kinnock's endless drone of verbiage, or by Hattersley's avuncular lisp; it can't be because of any glowing record of successful Labour governments.
Voting Tory or Labour — or for any of the others like the Alliance or the Communist Party — is like choosing between the Bad and the Ugly, with either label applying to either party. What of the Good? Capitalism puts the human race into such peril that the issue must be faced: there is nothing to hope for in the workers putting their trust in the parties which do not challenge the basis of modern society. Are the working class to continue to deny their political power to change society, by surrendering it to leaders who can only skim over the system's surface? Or will they assert that power to bring about revolutionary. fundamental social change to a world where poverty, famine, war. needless disease. class conflict are unknown?
Voters — which means workers — all over the world need to face these questions. Running the political cowboys out of town would be a start. Socialists have been around urging this for too long; when the working class begin to act for themselves we shall be able to ride off into the sunset.
Ivan
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