The Labour Government: Are they bunglers? (1970)

From the February 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a recent ad. (Sunday Mirror, 4 January) the Tories contrast what Labour promised they would do with what they have in fact done. Under the heading "Bunglers or liars?" they say:

  It’s easy, isn’t it, to dismiss the whole lot of them as a bunch of liars who will say anything to save their faces and stay in power.
  Is that the truth? We don’t honestly believe it is. We think that when these people said these things, they believed them.
  But the extent to which they have failed to live up to their promises reveals an incompetence which is quite staggering. You appointed these people to run the affairs of the country so that everyone living here should prosper. That is what Governments are for.
  You gave these people their power. You pay them with your money. You hoped that by doing so you would enjoy a better life, and that your children would enjoy a better future. You can see what they promised you. And how dismally they have failed.
   Isn’t it time we set to work to undo the damage they have done ?

It is true that people voted Labour in the hope that this would bring them a better life. But it is not true that Labour has failed because they are utterly incompetent: nor that governments exist to “run the affairs of the country so that everyone living here should prosper”.

We are living in a class society in which there is no common social interest. The government’s job is to look after the interests of the propertied few who own Britain. This job involves all governments in conflict with the other class in society, those who have to work for a wage or salary. In managing the affairs of the capitalists governments have to ensure that profit-making can go on as smoothly as possible and are, from time to time, forced to take measures aimed at restoring profit levels by reducing workers’ living standards. The Tories have done this as well as Labour.

Labour has failed not because they are bunglers nor because they are liars, but because the capitalist system just cannot be made to work in the interests of wage and salary earners. In expecting Labour to do this, the voters set them an impossible task.

This is why a change of government from Labour to Tory would make no difference. Even if the Tories were as clever as they claim, they still could not ensure that everyone benefited from capitalism. If they are elected and when they fail (as on previous occasions) we shall not call them liars. Nor shall we suggest they are bunglers. We shall simply point out that no government. Labour, Tory, Liberal or a coalition, can make capitalism work in the interests of all. Capitalism is a class system that can only work for those who own the means of production. Until these means are commonly owned the problems facing wage and salary earners can never be solved.

Those who are going to vote Tory in the hope of getting a better life will be as disappointed as those who voted Labour last time.