Who needs leaders? (1993)

From the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

John Major looks like he’s in deep trouble with his party. But what difference does a change of leadership make to the operation of Capitalism?

Who would you like to be Prime Minister of Great Britain? Or leader of the Labour Party? Of the Liberal Democrats? And when you have made your choice ask yourself why — not why you chose that particular person but why you bothered to make a choice. Ask yourself what persuaded you that whoever is nominally in charge of things makes any noticeable difference to what happens to us.

We ask these questions in response to the present void in both Conservative and Labour parties, in which they are wracked with doubt over whether their recent choice of leader was advisable. In both parties the doubts have triggered off the usual frenzied but surreptitious campaigning by aspirants to the leadership, while they all deny any such ambitions and profess undying loyalty to the leader.

This is especially noticeable in the Tory Party because, as the government, their mistakes, disputes and obvious impotence to control capitalism are so clearly exposed. This is not good for John Major, who came to be Prime Minister on the assumption — which he encouraged — that his government's style would be different from Thatcher's and that this would ensure it would be more successful in tackling current problems like unemployment, housing, shortage of medical services and so on. His lack of success makes it embarrassing for Tories to remember his promise in November 1990, to lead "a nation at ease with itself.

After nearly three years of his government whatever the nation is at case with it is not John Major, whose popularity is at the point where it causes friction in his and a campaign lo replace him much as Thatcher was replaced. One seasoned MP tells of the day when a senior Tory minister advised him never to forget that loyalty was the party's secret weapon. Of an enquiring mind, this MP soon realized that the opposite is the ease — that the Tories are as disloyal and ruthless when they decide their leader is likely to lose them seats in parliament. When it gets down to it that is why Thatcher had to go and why Major’s job is in jeopardy.

The relentless and fruitless search for the perfect leader is, like so many of the delusions which bolster the capitalist system, clearly influenced by prejudice. For example, nothing in a leader appeals to British people so much as an apparent firmness of purpose. But when that same characteristic is shown by an "enemy" leader — like Saddam Hussein, it is a very different matter. Saddam, says the prejudice was not firm and consistent in his policies; he was mad, just like all the other bogeymen of the Sun and similar papers.

In any case, how valid are the memories of Thatcher single-handedly beating off all those mad, grasping foreigners and doing something called "putting the great back in Great Britain"? The decline of British capitalism since the First World War has done much to fashion the political history of this country. In one way or another every government has had to accept, and work with, that reality. Some have done this more readily than others; some have skilfully practised deceit on the issue, so that the voters were convinced they were not doing what they were.

Part of this deceit has been in the speeches of leaders who have suggested that the decline in British power was avoidable and that they could reverse the trend. This posture has not been confined to the Tories; Harold Wilson, especially during his first spell in power, consistently talked about British power and the British economy forcing their way to the top in the world. At times he was so absorbed in this crazy notion that his voice lost its Yorkshire twang and took on a Churchillian growl when he spoke about it.

The idea is to conceal reality so that all those voters who are deluded into thinking that if Britain is a super power they will become super-workers will gratefully vote for a Wilson or a Thatcher. For her entire period in Number Ten Thatcher was one of the cleverest at hiding the reality and persuading British workers that it could be avoided. That was why so many of them voted for her. But the deception is self-perpetuating because it reinforces the notion that the decline — or the rise — of a capitalist power is not a matter of history but of political policy. The assumption is then that the collapse of the British Empire would not have happened had it not been for feeble egalitarians such as Clement Attlee is mistakenly supposed to have been. It is a delusion which does not help to understand the place and the function of leaders nor what happens under capitalism.

And that brings us to the crucial question of how useful are leaders. Do they really change the course of events? One field in which they are confident they have control is the economy. When things are going badly — when British capitalism is in recession or a financial crisis — the Chancellor of the Exchequer assures us that they have the remedy; trust them and all will be well. And when things are going well — when there is a boom — they claim the credit, saying it is due to their skill and intelligence.

About a year ago British capitalism went through a crisis which has come to be known as Black Wednesday. It was a day when a panic-stricken Chancellor (who, as one of those clever political leaders, is supposed never to gel in a panic) ended a succession of juggling with interest rates by withdrawing sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. This was supposed to be yet another example of politicians’ skill but in fact it happened only a short while after the Chancellor — the hapless Norman Lamont — and John Major had lectured us on the theme that the only way to prosperity for us all was lo keep sterling in the ERM. They were in no doubt about this quite sure that sterling would not be taken out of the ERM. Now many Tory politicians are asserting that the withdrawal is an example of their cleverness and that things for British capitalism are better as a result. For example, Norman Lamont is now very clear on the issue, urging “the Prime Minister to stand up and say once and for all that Britain should never again have anything to do with a single currency. Then we could all sing in the bath" (Well he was writing in the Sun).

Parasitic minority

Different conclusions have been drawn from that muddle, as from all the other episodes of similar chaos which regularly burst on the scene, stimulating more speeches, lectures and promises from political leaders. But only one conclusion fits the facts. No matter how clever and learned leaders may be, they can have no significant effect on how capitalism works and how it affects us. This social system works to its own priorities, to the benefit of a small parasitic minority. It cannot be controlled or manipulated. The cleverer leaders may be able to conceal this for a time; the not so clever — like Lamont and Major — can’t conceal it and that is why they arouse such contempt. To choose one leader against another is to choose one style of futility before another. It would be better to abandon the whole sorry mess and opt instead for efficacy for our own ability to change society so that we operate it, trusting ourselves to run the world for ourselves.

Ivan