So They Say: Prospective Candidates (1977)

The So They Say Column from the May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prospective Candidates

Labour’s by-election defeats have led to some soul-searching by its supporters and most notably the Labour Party Young Socialists. This ill-named assortment of nibbling sprats held a conference recently at which they made the following astonishing discovery :

  The Government is losing support because it is not implementing genuine socialist policies. Instead it is doing the Tories’ job for them and betraying the working class.

The Times, 11th April 77

That the Government has not implemented “genuine socialist policies” is not in doubt; what the LPYS have overlooked is that their heroes had never promised or intended this. The word Socialism applies, for example, to a society in which there will be no means of exchange because there will be no private property. Put that proposition to a member of the Government, or of the LPYS, and watch them shy away. The junior careerists have already learned that such ideas are not the way to win office. They have learned to be “realistic.” On one hand a succession of delegates to their conference blamed “the failure of capitalism for virtually all of society’s main problems” and yet:

  The Labour Party, which as Sir Harold Wilson said, is a broad church, tolerates criticisms from its youth movement, knowing that many of their best people become important members of the main party.

We draw LPYS members’ attention to the fact that it is not the “failure of capitalism” which is to blame for social problems—this suggests capitalism could behave in another way—it is the existence of capitalism which brings on and perpetuates social problems. LPYS members will note that the Labour Party is committed to perpetuating capitalism.

Ever the Twain shall meet

The Federation of Conservative Students were addressed by Mrs. Margaret Thatcher on the 4th of April, when she told them:

  Many people were deeply anti-socialist and were horrified that the Liberals had joined forces with the most socialist government in our history.

The Times, 5th April 77

Such stirring words must have had her supporters bristling in their tweeds with self-righteous fervour. However, Mrs. Thatcher is a busy woman and has other things to attend to: three days later she arrived in China and is currently hob-nobbing with the blood-red Chinese leaders. We could do no more than guess at the kind of justifications which the true blues are inventing to bridge the contradiction. One newspaper made an interesting point:

  . . . at a deeper level the politics of China are beginning to show distant but real parallels with those of Britain and other Western societies.

Guardian, 9th April 77

For all the mumbo-jumbo and smoke screens raised around their "ideology”, the Chinese leaders have been determinedly running their own particular brand of capitalism in practice. Goods are produced for sale at a profit, and exploitation of the working class takes place through a wages system. Certainly Mrs. Thatcher has not been baffled at any imaginary or superficial differences, nor have the Chinese leaders. The “real parallels” which may surprise some who have been taken in by all the waffling, is that both the Conservatives and the Chinese leaders have the interests of their respective portions of the ruling class in mind and meet each other solely on this basis.

Thing big

In general, as unemployment rises so too do the platitudes of “our betters” increase in velocity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer however seems to have developed a new line during his budget speech. He now sounds completely resigned to being led by the nose through capitalism’s chaos, albeit without actually resigning from office, while telling the working class that there is nothing better to be done in any event. In fact the present high unemployment may be viewed as “the good old days” of tomorrow.

  The most disturbing feature of the world scene is that for the last two or three years every major industrial country has seen the unemployment level rising to what had been regarded in the post-war years as an unacceptable level for a well-managed economy. Mr. Healey added: I would not expect any fall in the level of unemployment—in fact some rise may be likely because demand and production are expected to continue to grow slowly.

London Evening Standard, 29th March 77

Interesting to note that Healey’s view of “unacceptable” has an infinitely variable interpretation according to the height of the particular slagheap he is standing on at the time.

Alan D'Arcy