The Great Radio Drive (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

When an employer buys labour power the right to direct it goes with the sale. He has the last word in fixing the price, and he, or his overseers, supervise delivery of the commodity. Why, then, are the workers being subjected to a never-ending spate of propaganda for more production?

In normal times the supply of labour exceeds the demand; and the worker is always being squeezed by the overseers for that last ounce of energy. But since the war, times have not been normal. The nation’s factory gates have not been besieged by a million or two unemployed. Hence the drive for increased production along different lines.

The drive has consisted largely of appeals and straight talks over the air for individual effort. Leaflets, posters and pamphlets have been printed and distributed in millions. Few countries in the world have ever seen such a colossal effort to persuade people to work, and work harder.

The radio was used to its limit to the point of utter boredom. Economists—of the make capitalism work type—were brought to the microphone several times a week. Ministers’ appeals were reported in the news, and several hours of radio time were monopolised daily to put over the dreary propaganda of a government that had obtained power by making promises they were unable to implement.

It was obvious from the start that the main purpose was to exert pressure on the workers to increase production per man-hour. Some of the speakers emphasised the need for improved machinery and methods. In one series of broadcasts, “Management and Men,” stress was laid on the need for closer contact between managers and the lower grades. Production committees were advocated, and meetings arranged of all grades, where the firm’s plans could be explained, and their difficulties freely discussed, presumably, among other things, the need to keep costs, especially wages, low.

Sir George Schuster, who wound up the series, wanted managers, foremen and men to work as a team, as they did during the war. He entirely deprecated the notion that there were two sides in industry.

The idea of taking the workers into their confidence and seeking their co-operation is sure to meet with some response. Many would regard the move with suspicion. Others might look on it as an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the boss. Such motives are quite common under the system. On that point read what Dr. John Murphy was reported as saying in the Sunday Express (6/6/48). His full title, by the way, is Dr. John Murphy, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Religion, Manchester University. He writes on gambling, but what he says explains the reason for much that seems incomprehensible in the relations of wage-workers. He says:

  “Gambling is the natural blossoming, true to type, of a competitive and acquisitive system of society, in which the poorer classes are struggling with each other for the means of life, and the richer are competing with each other for security and greater and greater wealth.”

Sir George may deprecate, but he cannot deny that there are two sides in industry. Otherwise to speak of capitalists and workers, as we all do, would be nonsense. Consciously, or unconsciously, he leaves out the capitalist and calls for team work between managers, foremen and men. Managers and foremen are just as much wage-workers as men. To call them salaried is no more than an appeal to vanity. What they sell to the capitalist is their ability to direct and stimulate the actual producers. Their place in the team is one of authority. They represent the owner. Their responsibility is over the production of surplus value; the reservoir of profits.

Sir George’s advice to managers, foremen and men to team up is, therefore, given on behalf of the capitalists. Managers, foremen and men are all subject to pressure from someone above them. All are liable to the sack for circumstances over which they often have no control. The capitalist has the last word in fixing their wages or salaries, and he dictates the terms.

The capitalist is no respecter of persons when buying labour-power. He naturally expects the brain worker to be more costly than the manual worker, but he takes advantage of either when the market is in his favour. The Daily Graphic (1/10/47) said: “The scientific mind, trained largely at private expense, through years at university, is today worth little more than the muscle of a stoker or the tongue of a shop- steward.” They instanced dock labourers, trawler men, garment cutters, miners, factory hands and truck drivers earning up to £15 per week; and compared them with doctors, dentists, physicists, metallurgists, chemists, designers and other technicians who, they say, "enter the labour market at five or six pounds per week after an education costing between £1,500 and £3,000.”

For those who aspire to these good jobs, so-called, the low salary is not the only snag. A paragraph in the Sunday Pictorial (6/6/48) throws some light on other business methods.

  "High premiums demanded from prospective employees are worrying the Ministry of Labour. Guarantees up to £500 are being asked from ex-officers directed to promising jobs through the Labour Exchange."

It does not follow that employers who ask for such guarantees are indulging in sharp practice. It may only be a form of barrier to protect themselves from an influx of ex-officers the government is unable to place. Ministers have been lavish in their promises, or prophecies, of the good jobs waiting for capable men of all ranks.

One speaker on the Third Programme (7/6/48) describing himself as a social statistician, argued that the pay of the black-coated workers had remained almost stationary since 1938. Taxation had hit them harder than either capitalists or manual workers, and they were almost helpless in voicing their resentment. It was they, he said, who constituted the floating vote for which Tory and Labour competed at elections. If that is true it is added proof of John Murphy's indictment of the capitalist system, and, what is perhaps still worse for the workers the readiness to vote sectionally for alleged sectional benefits as against working-class interests as a whole.

In one radio discussion (3/6/48) on the relative efficiency of British and American business methods the American speaker wound up by saying: “You point the finger at the worker all the time, but it is the management that is at fault." He charged British industry with an excessive number of directors with high salaries. Of their reluctance to instal up-to-date machinery, and their emphasis on increased production per man hour, instead of increasing the number of men on the job, with greater inducement in the shape of higher wages,

This question of increased number of workers as against increased production per man-hour is, to say the least, distasteful to big business. They object to paying four men to do the work of three, or even twenty to do the work of nineteen. If it were only a question of man-power to satisfy the needs of the people, and not one of profits, there are enough workers available in the field of commerce and finance, together with the armed forces, munition workers and a host of others engaged in tasks that add nothing to production, without mentioning the idlers who take the lion's share. There is enough man-power serving the capitalists which, if utilised in actual production would reduce by half the working time necessary for each.

Production comes first. Before men could trade, someone had to produce. All the vast machinery of exchange has been built up on production. Yet the object of production, the satisfaction of human need, takes second place in modern society. Today, the emphasis is on production per man-hour because, with the payment of less wages per unit of production, greater profits are available to each national group of capitalists to utilise in the international scramble for power.

In the past, trade has encouraged production, and the producers have responded to new demands. The two things have given us the enormous possibilities of the fuller life, that for the workers, is always just round the comer. The obstacle to that fuller life is big business—capitalism. Trade and commerce no longer contribute towards the well-being of the producers. It hampers and stops production directly profits are threatened. It has become a hard shell of class interests and privilege that constrict the social organism and prevent its emergence into that fuller life that its past struggles have made possible.

The Labour Party, pledged to make capitalism work and pave the way for socialism at the same time, have forgotten the second in face of the obstacles that have frustrated their efforts in pursuit of the first. Without a huge unemployed army they cannot drive, they can only stimulate by persuasion and utter warnings of either increased austerity or widespread unemployment. Two Labour governments have failed to make capitalism work. In 1930 because of the depression; in 1948 because there is no depression, and, therefore, no unemployed millions exercising pressure on those at work.

The Economist in May, 1947, had stated bluntly that the system could not be made to work efficiently unless there was five or six per cent, of unemployment. The Labour Party had promised full employment. The demand for labour, under the exceptional circumstances created by the war, favoured the workers if they chose to push their claims for higher wages and better conditions. They had to be side-tracked. Hence their appeals for loyalty to the Labour movement, their attempt to freeze wages, and their promise of profits-limitations they were afraid to enforce.

The government in its efforts to ginger up the workers was supported by all the big leaders in the Labour and trade union camps. They issued a monthly news sheet called "Target" which the Daily Herald (2/6/48) described as follows:

  “ 'Target,' which is backed by the T.U.C. and the F.B.I., as well as by the government, expounds in concentrated form today's supreme truth—that everything depends on production; that production depends on individual effort; and that individual effort can be greatly stimulated if every worker is given full and regular information about his task." 

Even before this the T.U.C. had already been busy in the drive. The Daily Herald (31/5/48) reported on a leaflet they had issued, in which they asked the question, “ How far do you walk after you get to work?” They discovered that quite a lot of time was wasted in fetching and carrying, which might have been to their credit if the savings had gone to wages instead of profits.

Labour M.Ps. and trade union leaders have vied with each other to get press notices about their participation in the F.B.I. and T.U.C. drive. One of the most naive was reported in the Daily Herald (10/6/48), Mr. Jack Jones:

  “Asking workers not to think of extra production as benefiting the profits of the ‘boss,' Sir . Stafford Cripps will look after that."

To the average worker the propaganda of the Labour Party has, no doubt, been confusing in the past. Today we see the Labour Party in power, and in combination with the Federation of British Industries and the Trade Union Congress engaged in the biggest drive that has ever been organised against the industrial workers of this country. Surely this is sufficient to give every serious-minded worker cause to reflect on the possibility of dispensing with all kinds of leaders and studying the cause of his incessant toil and poverty in the light of Socialist knowledge.

F. Foan