What About The Labour Party (1990)

A SPGB leaflet reproduced in the May 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Present Mess

Many workers are disgusted by the antics of the Thatcher mob, which stands for capitalism in its naked form. The wealth producers are legally robbed so that the rich can become richer. Everything is second to profit. The Tories are running the profit system the only way it can be run: produce more and more profits for the parasitical minority who own and control the resources of society, and to hell with the rest of us!

A New Government

When the government displays such open contempt towards the working class, a lot of workers start to look for something new. After all, the majority of workers did not vote for the Thatcher government in 1979, 1983 or 1987.

These days fewer and fewer workers fall for the con-trick of the so-called moderate Centre parties, with their 'moderate' nuclear weapons and their 'moderate' policies for squeezing more profits out of the wage slaves.

Some workers have turned to the Greens with their simplistic policies for an environmentally clean Capitalist Utopia. A few workers still opt for the daft dreams of the narrow-minded nationalists. But when most workers think of a change from the Tories they think of the Labour Party.

Neil Kinnock and his political gang are currently falling over themselves to prove that they are a 'responsible' government-in-waiting. They do not claim to stand for a different social system from the Tories — Kinnock admits that Labour is out to run capitalism. The Labour Party's claim is that they will run it better.

What Can Labour Do?

The best way to know what a future Labour government would do is to look at what the previous eight Labour governments have done. They have attempted to manage the profit system.

They have claimed to stand for peace, but it was the Labour government which introduced the British atom bomb and took Britain into the murderous NATO club. Labour supported the slaughter of workers in two world wars, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Ireland and the Falklands.

Labour claims to stand for the unions, but they have used troops to smash strikes (from the dockers in 1950 to Grunwick in 1977) and have been the only government in history to actually pass a law making it illegal for bosses to pay their workers more (the Wilson statuary income policy).

They claim to be against racism, but it was a Labour government that was the first ever to pass immigration laws based upon the colour of peoples' skins.

They claim to be on the side of the unemployed, but every Labour government since 1924 has left office with the number of unemployed higher than when they went in.

They claimed to be able to share out the wealth more 'fairly'. But under the last Labour government the richest 1% of the British population increased its share of wealth ownership from 24% to 25% of all marketable wealth in Britain.

In short, the history of Labour governments is one pathetic story after another of Labour leaders making promises which the capitalist system could not possibly let them carry out. They have done the dirty work of running the profit system according to its own laws. Trying to run the profit system in the interest of the working class is like trying to run the slaughter house for the benefit of the cattle.

The Reformist Dream

For as long as capitalism has existed and thrown up its countless problems there have been dreamers around who have wanted to keep capitalism and reform its problems out of existence. The reformist dream is an appealing one to workers who do not yet understand the nature of the system they are living under.

Faced with the callous rule of the Thatcher crowd it must be comforting to imagine that all we need is to put Kinnock and Co. in her place and life will be better. Comforting, maybe; wrong, certainly! No amount of tinkering with the system will ever make capitalism a comfortable dignified and secure system for workers to live under. The reformists will always fail.

The Socialist Alternative

Why waste time dreaming of a new government when it's a new way of organising society that we need? That new way is Socialism.

In a socialist society the resources of the world will belong to all the inhabitants of the world, not to an owning or controlling minority. There will be no classes — no workers and capitalists: we will all work according to our abilities for the common good. We will take according to our needs. Production will not be for sale and profit. The market, which both Tories and Labourites are sure we cannot live without, will exist no more. Goods and services will be produced solely for use.

This socialist alternative has nothing to do with Labour's plans for nationalised industries (state capitalism) or small, co-operative business enterprises. Socialism is not about the state managing the profit system, but about doing away with profits, the state and all of the other features of a non-co-operative, money-mad society.

No Followers Required

To bring in another Labour government simply requires persuading enough mugs to follow Kinnock. All capitalist parties are out to urge you to become a follower. This applies equally to the so-called left-wing revolutionaries who, just like their hero, Lenin, think that the workers are too dim to change the world except by following leaders.

The Socialist Party is not a leadership. We do not want to lead or govern anyone. Our sole purpose is to educate, agitate and organise for socialism. The change from capitalism to socialism cannot be brought about by us — or anyone else — acting on behalf of the working class. The workers must bring about socialism as a conscious, democratic majority.

If you can see that capitalism is against your interests however it is run, whoever runs it, then you will reject the phoney promises of the Labour Party and join The Socialist Party in working to bring about a real change in society.

Better Than Tories?

Kinnock's speech to the Labour Party Conference, Blackpool, 1988:

"  . . . we get the accusation that we are trying to run the capitalist economy better than the Tories . . . the fact is that the kind of economy we are faced with is going to be a market economy. It will be the one that we have to deal with when we are elected. We have got to make it work better than the Tories make it work . . . Even after that has been the implemented programme of a Labour government for years, there will still be a market economy."

The Independent, 5 October 1988.

Praising the Market

Extract from The Labour Party's Policy Review document, 1989:

"In our view, the economic role of modern government is to help make the market system work properly where it can, will and should — and to replace or strengthen it where it can't, won't or shouldn't. Helping 'to make the market work' means creating the conditions for enterprises to be more successful, enabling them to take a greater market share at home and abroad."

Making Capitalism Work

Douglas Houghton MP, writing of the 1964-66 Labour Government:

"Never has any previous Government done so much in so short a time to make modern capitalism work."

The Times, 25 April 1967

Never a Socialist Party

Tony Benn, former Labour cabinet minister and present member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, writing in The Independent, 17 May 1989: 

Past Labour governments have always worked within the limits set by market forces (as when the cabinet capitulated to the International Monetary Fund in 1976); have always supported nuclear weapons (as when Callaghan authorised the Chevaline without telling parliament); and have regularly confronted trade unionism (as with rigid wage policies). . . We must add . ..  a clear recognition that the Labour Party is not — and probably never was — a socialist party, and its individual members do not decide its policy, nor are its election pledges apparently meant to be taken seriously.

In Favour of Profits

Austin Mitchell, MP in his book The Case for Labour (Longman 1983)

  To our left is a body of critics who castigate Labour for failing as something it has never been: an instrument for the elimination of capitalism.
  Socialists cannot be opposed to profits. Capital must be rewarded if it is used productively for the benefit of the community.
  It is Labour’s responsibility to make the State more effective and to restore its role where it has been pushed out for doctrinaire reasons. It is, however, also Labour’s responsibility to rebuild the private sector.

More Competitive

Extract from The Labour Party's Policy Review document, 1989:

  "Labour's goal: an internationally competitive economy. The single most important requirement of economic policy is to make Britain internationally competitive."

This article is also available in leaflet form. Copies for distribution can be obtained (£2 per 100 plus postage) from: Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN.