To avoid misunderstanding about the terms we use, we will state briefly what is meant by reformism and by revolution.
Reformism means the formulation of day to day policies to make superficial adjustments to capitalism through legislation to meet the changing requirements of the system. A reformist party is one which, on the basis of such policies, seeks power to administer capitalism.
By appealing to workers on a programme of reforms, the political agents of capitalism create the illusion of trying to change things. The workers who vote for such parties and policies are being duped into supporting the system which rests upon their exploitation. Revolution stands against all this. It means the abolition of the system which reformists seek to preserve.
Perhaps by using one popular reform as an example we can make the Socialist position more clear.
It can hardly be an exaggeration to say that no single piece of reform legislation in modern times, was ever heralded with such widespread acclaim as the so-called National Health Service Act of 1946.
Politicians of all parties were confident that a way had been worked out to maintain a standard of working class health, cheaply and consistent with industrial efficiency and profitability. Also they had a handy device to fob off any working class unrest with the conditions of post-war capitalism.
The majority of the working class at the time were deluded by the sales talk with which the act was presented to them and widely regarded it as free state benevolence for which they should be duly grateful.
The idea of free access to wealth is incompatible with the private property basis of capitalism.
There can be no “little bits’ of Socialism. It’s all or nothing. And this is just why the National Health Service has not fulfilled its promise. The Socialist Party of Gt. Britain never expected otherwise and published a pamphlet called Beveridge Re-organises Poverty five years before the Act came into force. Two references from this pamphlet will show the line of our approach. We quoted the Beveridge Report as follows:
“.. . that each individual citizen is more likely to concentrate upon his war effort if he feels his government will be ready in time for that better world . . .”
and Samuel Courtauld’s comment on the Report:
“.. . social security of this nature will be about the most profitable long-term investment the country could make. It will not undermine the morale of the nation’s workers: it will ultimately lead to higher efficiency among them and a lowering of production costs.” (Manchester Guardian 19 Feb. 1943).
Whether, after nearly twenty years, this reform has lived up to the hopes of the capitalist class, we cannot say, but for the workers it should be a hard-earned experience in the futility of reformism. Far from anything being free, the last twenty years have been one long moan by successive Labour and Tory leaders about the costs of the “service”. There has been an unending trail of legislation making adjustments to the Act itself, largely concerned with money matters. In October 1949, just over a year after the Act came into force, the then Labour Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee announced proposed charges of one shilling for each NHS prescription. Although this proposal was endorsed by the Labour Parliament, it was not until March 1952 that the Tory Government put it into effect. It should be noted that the present Labour Government’s removal of the charges was followed by the most ruthless and sustained attack upon wages in post-war years.
After only five years of NHS in May 1953 Aneurin Bevan was complaining about the high cost of prescriptions. Proprietary dexedrine had cost £400,000 in 1952, when its chemical equivalent would have cost £158,000 over the same period. (The British National Health Service (p. 84) by D. Mc. I. Johnson.)
Three years later the Guillebaud Report on the cost of National Health Service was published, but despite much earnest delving into bureaucratic machinery, nothing more was heard.
Section 2 of the NHS (Family Planning) Act 1967 gives local health authorities power to make charges for certain contraceptives, according to ‘means’ and subject to the approval of the Minister of Health.
Although this might conjure up some humorous situations in one’s mind, it is anything but funny to read about the conditions of near breakdown in the health administration which are so widespread to-day, after nearly twenty years of this capitalist panacea.
Thousands of disillusioned doctors going abroad to get away from it; surgeons in over-crowded hospitals working a 90 hour week; people waiting for kidney operations, who well may die simply because the machines are expensive; old, decaying hospitals with hopelessly inadequate amenities; nurses as ruthlessly driven for long hours and low wages as ever. In the midst of this situation the Tory government in 1963, published a Hospital Plan for England and Wales. This proposed the spending of £600 million in a ten years programme of hospital building up to 1973. This figure for ten years is about one-third of the amount then being spent yearly on armaments. A fitting comment on the priorities of capitalism. Although it must be said that much has been achieved on the technical side of surgery and research, this is a tribute to the workers in these fields and has nothing to do with the NHS as such. In fact much research is still carried out which is financed by voluntary contributions including investigation into the causes of such diseases as cancer.
The conclusion is inescapable, reforms must be looked at against the general background of capitalism. If human welfare is to become our main consideration, this system must make way for Socialism.
Harry Baldwin
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