Full Employment? Another Labour Party Fallacy (1946)

From the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is full employment for the working class possible? What exactly does it mean? By whom is it desirable? Or is it a stunt to inspire the workers with hope and trust in our so-called Socialist Government?

 

These are not some of the questions asked in Parliament, or other public places. On the contrary, there seems to be general agreement, especially in the press, to keep up the fiction that full employment is possible, not merely for the repair of war damage, but indefinitely.

According to a leading article in the Daily Telegraph for November 16th, the Government's plan for full employment is much the same as that of the Coalition Government's in 1944. They say :—

“It differs little but in omissions and change of emphasis from the policy for maintaining 'a high and stable level of employment' which the Coalition Government set forth in 1944. That policy commanded general support as a well devised means of smoothing out booms and slumps, the main obstacles to full employment." 

Neither the Coalition Government, nor the present Labour Government, have so far explained how, by smoothing out the booms and slumps, fuller employment is obtained. Neither do they, or the Daily Telegraph, show how, when one dead level of employment has been reached, it is possible to achieve a condition of full employment. The plan is to spend on public works during the slump, leaving the booms to keep the workers busy during the few years—or months—they last. The Daily Telegraph, while hopeful of the results, is dubious of the ability of the Government and its experts to forecast the slumps, and adjust, their spending on public works accordingly.

Having once made the assertion that ''booms and slumps are the main obstacles to full employment," which is false, any deductions they make on that premise will undoubtedly be wrong. If, instead of eating all my cake to-day, I save a portion for to-morrow, obviously, nothing is added to the total.

In the same way, if a capitalist Government postpones its public works schemes to provide work during a slump, it creates no new employment. All it does is to arrange a levelling out, with little or no fluctuations.

If the unemployment figures during a boom are one million, and during a slump three million, cut out spending on public works during the boom and spread it over the slump and you get approximately two millions throughout both periods. The new arrangement is of no benefit to the workers. On the contrary, the advantage is on the side of Big Business, which has a well stocked labour market on which to draw at the very time world markets are expanding.

The Labour Government, in taking over the Capitalist bag of tricks, have taken with it its superstitions. Ever since the "South Sea bubble" there has been profound dread among capitalists of trade crises. "There's a slump on the way," or "a boom is just round the corner" were common expressions, generally spoken with superstitious awe, as though it were some great convulsion of nature. This dread impotence before the economic blizzard is still prevalent. According to the Daily Sketch (Nov. 23rd, 194.')), Mr. Dalton had said:—

"We must also arm ourselves with anti-slump powers, so that never again, as in past years, shall prices and productivity and employment all fall away through the failure of private enterprise."

The Daily Sketch leader commented as follows : —

"Even Mr. Dalton's Fabian audience must have caught their breath at the sheer ineptitude of that pronouncement, for there is no means within the capacity of man which would leave us an exception to the general experience in the event of a world slump. That will prove to be true Whether this country is run under state control or private enterprise."

For the last 30 years the workers have been unable to see much difference in the amount of unemployment during booms and slumps. They certainly do not become more prosperous during the booms. Big business, even when it gets really busy, cannot absorb more than part of the unemployed millions left over from the previous slump, Booms and slumps are no longer a mystery to all capitalists. This fact is made clear in a book by Roy Glenday, "Economic adviser to the Federation of British Industries," and entitled, "The Future of Economic Society" (Macmillan & Co., 1944).

Mr. Glenday gives facts and figures that shed much light on the subject of trade, both internal and international. In the production and marketing of motor cars, for instance, he says: The huge and complex plant necessary for standardisation and cheapness would be uneconomic without assurance of an ever expanding market. When saturation level has been reached with the ready money section, hire purchase methods are resorted to; which only puts off the evil day of partial, or even total collapse. When it is remembered that this is the normal process of big business in the production and sale of such things as radio sets, cycles and electric appliances of many kinds we can readily understand how this mad race for profits leads to crises.

Mr. Glenday has a convincing array of facts and evidence, from which he argues that Capitalism cannot survive its present crisis without some kind of adjustment in its environment. But contrary to what we should expect from an adviser to the Federation of British Industries, he envisages some form of “communism" the next step in human progress being what he calls the service state. Where, in return for security and a retiring pension, the individual will have to give up the right to choose his job, and must be prepared, not only to move from one locality to another, but also to change his job; undergoing a period of training, if necessary, to fit him for his new job. According to the Conservative press, something like this “service state” is contemplated for this country by the present Government, and already exists in Russia. They (the Conservatives) call it the servile state. But capitalism, whether British, Russian or American, means servility for the working-class always and everywhere. The right to choose his own job is of little value to the individual worker, the majority of whom consider themselves fortunate when they can find any sort of job and hold it down. Booms and slumps mean little to them.

Much depends on the point of view. From the capitalist viewpoint, it is eminently desirable that the workers should be kept busy; though not too busy in case they get independent. And not only because they are a source of profit; but also because many unemployed workers are a menace to a smoothly running system, and they have to be fed anyway.

The worker's point of view is different. He knows that the overstocked condition of the world's markets is the result of working-class energy. Of working-class efficiency combined with modern methods and machinery. The machinery itself being the result of working-class effort. In short, all the ingredients that go to make up overstocked markets are included in the phrase "human energy and the nature-given material," capitalists being excluded.

Under a rational system of society the machines would not belong to the capitalist, but to the people, and the people, while participating in the work of production and distribution, would arrange the conditions for themselves. They would do so through a real democracy worked out by themselves. The idea of finding or making work would be illogical and absurd. Under Socialism only the work necessary for the satisfaction of human needs according to an agreed standard of life and culture, would be performed. Booms and slumps would disappear along with the poverty and unemployment that spring from the wild scramble for profits.

F. E.