The Game (2005)

Editorial from the April 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politics today is a game of Ins and Outs in which gangs of professional politicians compete with each other to attract votes, the gang securing a majority of seats in parliament assuming responsibility for running the political side of the profit system.

 

To win votes they have to promise – and be believed – to improve things both for the population in general, as by managing the economy so as to avoid slumps and crises, and for particular groups within the population. When the economy is expanding or even just ticking over the Ins have the advantage. They can claim that this is due to their wise statesmanship and prudent management. Such claims are false as the economy goes its own way – expanding or contracting as the prospect of profits rises or falls – irrespective of which gang of politicians is in office. But making such claims can backfire as, when the economy falters, the Outs can blame this on the incompetence and mismanagement of the Ins. But that’s not true either since politicians don’t control the way the economy works.

 

The Labour politicians who took over from the Tories as the Ins in 1997 have been lucky in this respect. In the past, Labour periods in office had happened to coincide with the downturn phase of the economic cycle, but the last election in 2001 and the coming election this year have happened to coincide with the economy ticking over. So, instead of having to live up to their previous reputation of being the party of austerity, they have been in the position of being able to offer a few crumbs to voters.

But throwing crumbs to the people (or to carefully targeted sections of the people whose votes could swing things) is not the main purpose of government. Marx once wrote that the government is “but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”. And it’s still true. The function of any government is to manage the common affairs of the capitalist class as a whole. This involves a number of things. Sustaining a context in which profit-making can continue. Spending the money raised from taxes (that are ultimately a burden on the capitalist class) in a prudent way on things that will benefit the capitalist class as a whole, such as providing them with an educated, relatively healthy and so productive workforce. Maintaining – and if need be using – armed forces to protect sources of raw materials, trade routes, investment outlets and markets abroad.

That’s what most government spending goes on, and balancing this against income from taxes is what budgets are essentially about. It is only because wage and salary workers, active or retired, have the vote that, occasionally if there’s a small margin of money spare, a few crumbs are offered to some section or other of the electorate.

No doubt, the pensioners, the home buyers and the families offered a few hundred extra pounds a year will accept these crumbs cast before them by Gordon Brown in his pre-election budget. Hopefully, they won’t accept them as bribes to vote for his particular gang of politicians, but simply because it would be stupid not to.

Nowadays most people have learned by experience and are rightly just as cynical about the politicians and their promises – and crumbs – as are politicians about how they get people to vote for them. But  cynicism is not enough. This should be turned into rejection. The game of Ins and Outs, to decide which gang of professional politicians should manage the common affairs of the capitalist class, only continues because most of us agree to take part in it.

But by voting for them we in effect give them the power to keep the capitalist system going. And that, not which particular gang of politicians happens to be in office, is the cause of today’s problems since built-in to capitalism is putting making profits before satisfying people’s needs.

 

Socialists are only too well aware that most people put up with capitalism, and go along with its political game of Ins and Outs in the hope of getting a few crumbs out of it, because they see no practicable alternative. But there is an alternative, as we explain in the articles in this issue.

Politics should be more than individuals deciding which politicians to trust to deliver some crumbs that they think will benefit them individually. It should be about collective action to change society. About taking over the whole bakery.