How the miners can win (1984)

From the December 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present conflict in the mines has been as prolonged and bitter as any since the miners were first organised nationally in 1841. Most of the written words and the many speeches and statements which have argued out the day-to-day details of the conflict treat it as though it had never happened before. Yet the history of miners' strikes shows that this is a re-enactment of past struggles and a part of continuing class conflict.

These arguments which evade seeing the dispute as part of continuing class struggle, play into the hands of the government. the National Coal Board and. through them, the capitalist class. From their point of view it is important that the basic issue of class struggle should remain concealed. These arguments focus attention on the particular personalities involved but the Thatchers. Scargills and McGregors who at present occupy the centre stage have only taken over from others who have all acted out the long-running drama which was written by capitalism when it was first established.

Moreover, the government and the Coal Board would wish the issues to be argued out solely in terms of the economic logic of the market system. In this scheme of things the profit motive is the dominant economic factor which must lay down the boundaries for what can happen. In this way. the possibilities of action are confined within a narrow economic framework in which the interests of capital override all others.

What is the capitalist view of the function of the miners? It does not and cannot see them as useful workers producing a vital source of energy. Capitalism sees miners through the distorted lens of its economics. It sees miners as exploitable human commodities, economic units of labour power with wages as their price. The economic factors which regulate the use of miners' labour are those which regulate capitalist production as a whole. In this view, the function of miners is to maintain the overall profitability of British capitalism. Therefore the production of coal as a saleable commodity for profit must be in some proportion with the general level of commodity production and sales existing throughout the whole economy.

The position at the beginning of the strike was an accumulation of 50 million tons of coal which was in excess of British capitalism’s requirements. Regardless of the human need for energy supplies, the further stockpiling of coal would have incurred costs which would have subtracted from the overall profit. Therefore, according to the logic of the market system, coal production had to be reduced. The least profitable mines which incurred the highest running costs in relation to output had to be closed and. regardless of the social consequences, miners had to be sacked.

The miners have not submitted passively to this logic. They are not economic automatons but real people with real needs and definite material interests as workers in their struggle with capital. But the miners were caught in a trap. Had they not gone on strike the mines would have closed and by striking they closed them themselves. This trap illustrates the ultimate impossibility of the position of workers under capitalism. By striking, the miners have themselves reduced coal production and reduced coal stocks. But this would have happened anyway with pit closures. In this way the forces of the market have dictated events.

In the conflict, the present economic depression and the accumulated stocks of coal have determined the relative strength of the combatants. But more than this, the conflict has brought out into the open the conflicting interests over which the combatants are engaged in continuous class war. The miners have pressed their interests as members of working communities with the need for material security, the need to be socially useful and the need for responsibility and power of decision-making in running the life of their communities. The deadlock which has existed in the strike is the irreconcilable pressure of these needs on an economic system which cannot provide for them. The miners' struggle has been against the dictates of an economic tyranny which hires and fires workers according to whether they can be profitably employed. It has been a struggle against an economic tyranny which determines the lives of communities without giving these communities any democratic voice.

Moreover, during the strike the miners have demonstrated how socialism could be run on the practical basis of their own voluntary co-operation. The mutual aid which has been carried on has been a magnificent example of this. The organisation of food supplies, the practical activities of providing meals and transport have been carried on by voluntary co-operation. Nobody has been paying the mining families money for doing all this. This is what the apologists for capitalism say can never happen, yet at the same time they use the brutal forces of the state to attempt to smash it.

The miners and their communities can look back through generations of struggle, back to the early seventies, the general strike, the great strikes of the nineteenth century and countless others in between. They can recognise now that the many strikes of the past resolved nothing; each was a dress rehearsal for the next. Nor is there anything new in their long experience of having to confront the brutal forces of the state.

With this experience they can treat the hypocritical claim that the law is neutral with the contempt it deserves. They know that the law is an instrument of class oppression. framed politically by governments in the interests of the capitalist class. The truncheons which have been wielded against the heads of strikers are the same state truncheons which have smashed workers in the past. There is nothing new about the imprisonment of workers and the use of handcuffs in the course of arbitrary arrest. Neither is there anything new in the use of the law in smashing working class organisation. The present state appropriation of funds repeats the anti working class actions of previous governments.

The Miner in October announced the headline "It's War". This is right — it's  class war. But in this war. and in all the conditions of continued class struggle the question must be asked — is the strategy right? Without a clearly defined objective there can be no final victory. It is more than obvious now that by confining working class struggle solely to trade union action over wages and conditions of employment workers have fought on a battle ground where they are boxed in by the economics of capitalism, where they remain totally vulnerable and only capable of defence.

Whereas capitalists, acting through the state, can present an organised and united front with the clear objective of maintaining the present system of exploitation, the Trade Union movement has no counter strategy for pursuing the interests of workers. In these circumstances, organised capital has no great difficulty in keeping the Trade Union movement weak and fragmented. It can play one set of workers off against another, exploiting their insecurities. The isolation felt by the miners has been an example of this. It is not that the steel workers, the road haulage workers, the dockers and railwaymen are insensitive to the needs and struggles of the miners. They too are boxed in by the economic insecurities of capitalism.

On the other side of the class war the capitalists have kept control of two overwhelmingly superior positions. Firstly they have kept ownership and control of the means of production and all the material resources of life. Secondly they have maintained control of the forces of the state, including the police and the armed forces.

The vital question now is this. Is it possible that workers can continue to concede these overwhelming advantages to the capitalist class and at the same time hope to win victory in the class war? Such a victory requires that the tactic of trade union defence stays. At the same time workers must go on the offensive with the clear political object of taking over the means of production and the forces of the state.

At the very most, trade union action should be regarded as a short-term expedient aimed at curbing the inroads of capital on the lives of workers. This would involve negotiation with employers or their state agents, and if necessary strike action. But the main thrust of working class organisation must be political and aimed uncompromisingly at stripping the capitalist class of their ownership and control of the means of life and therefore the abolition of capitalism. In this work there is no need in any' circumstances to negotiate with capitalists or their governments. The responsibility rests entirely with the working class itself and this work must develop entirely through its own political organisation. It is only by ensuring the rapid growth of the Socialist Party and the World Socialist Movement that workers can shift the field of battle to their own advantage in the class war. This is how the miners, and all other workers, can win.

In their strike, the miners have acted under the greatest difficulties and disadvantages. The great danger now is that faced by the immense forces of organised capital, including the National Coal Board, the government, the law, the state machinery and the hostile media, and not least having to struggle as working class families with all the conditions of material shortages, the miners might become demoralised and lapse into a mood of despair. Thoughts must be focussed on all the elements involved in the strike which show the direction which must be taken in the immediate future. The example of co-operation, of organisation, and the links which have been renewed nationally and internationally. must be built upon. By combining this co-operation and this organisation with the political work of organising for socialism, workers can convert their struggles into the most powerful force for social change. This is the positive and constructive thing that can emerge from the coal strike. With the World Socialist Movement. trade unions could contribute massively to bringing the issue of socialism before all workers throughout the world.

This need to link day-to-day resistance to capital with the political work of organising for a change in society was recognised by the Trade Union movement in its earliest days. The tragedy has been that in this country it has linked itself with the Labour Party. It did this in the mistaken idea that a Labour government could reform capitalism to the advantage of the working class. In particular it focussed its political aims on nationalisation. Socialists warned against these mistaken ideas at the beginning of the century when the Labour Party was formed. Inevitably the trade union link with the Labour Party and hopes invested in nationalisation have proved a completely useless diversion. The prolonged and bitter struggle of the miners against a nationalised capitalist industry is its own condemnation of nationalisation. Under the last Labour government unemployment doubled and unions had to fight as strenuously against its effects as ever they have had to do against a Tory government. But all that has been proved correct is the socialist stand that workers cannot solve their problems under capitalism. Political organisation must be directed at the abolition of capitalism.

For this purpose, the Socialist Party has never compromised socialist principles, nor supported any programme or cause which might damage working class interests or unity. We have kept our object clear. Workers can only solve their problems by organising to establish a society based on the common ownership of the means of life in which the people of the world co-operate to produce goods and provide services directly for need. This is the only way in which the miners, in co-operation with all other workers, can win.

Pieter Lawrence

Blogger's Note:

In this same issue of the Socialist Standard, there was an advert for an audio recording of a recent SPGB public meeting on the subject of the ongoing Miners' Strike. That audio recording is available on the SPGB website. It is worth listening to, as the speaker, Steve Coleman, was an excellent speaker. Click on the link:

The Miners Strike  – A Marxist Analysis

Speaker – Steve Coleman

Venue: Duke of York, Kings Cross, London

Date: 12th October 1984