Early in June the newspapers and the radio and TV announcers told us that we were all getting hot under the collar about the news that Chrysler, the car firm, was paying £12 million for part ownership of Rootes Motors. Those who were telling us how excited we were had two versions of the facts, one designed to raise our temperature to fever heat, the other to reassure us that all is well. The head of Rootes, along with government spokesmen, said that it is a commendable thing, bound to benefit us all, that Chrysler should be helping Rootes with cash and experience to sell more cars than before. The Labour Party leaders and leader-writers denied this and asked us to view the event as a very sinister thing from which we shall all suffer.
We were all supposed to know that the supreme significance of the deal lies in the fact that Chrysler’s is an American firm and Rootes is British. Probably three quarters of the population didn't know and don't care, but with a general election not far away, any stunt that can scare a few thousand voters into changing their allegiance is important to the professional politicians.
So we are asked to believe that it is bad for British workers that an American firm should buy shares in a British company because the next step may be that Chrysler's will gain control of Rootes and be able to determine its policy and activities. Mr. Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour Party, led the attack, and, with minor degrees of emphasis, most of the newspapers committed themselves to the opinion that, whether or not control of Rootes is in danger of passing to America at the present time, it would certainly be a serious matter if that ever happened. The Daily Worker, on June 10, took a line quite indistinguishable from that of the Labour Party spokesman in an article with the title, “It may be good for Chrysler, General Motors and Fords, but . . . It's no good for Britain.”
If the whole uproar is regarded as no more than an attempt to exploit anti-American feeling in order to win over some voters from Tory to Labour, there is no need to delve for any deeper argument; but in fact those who made the running for the protest were only too anxious to justify themselves with what purported to be reasons in addition to jibes about foreign control.
Most of the attempts at argument were remarkable chiefly for their vagueness and obscurity, but here and there some writer or speaker committed himself to something definite. So, for example, the Daily Herald on June 9. For the Herald's leader writer it was not an objection to American firms investing money in this country: on the contrary, the Herald agreed with the Government's claim that such investment deserves to be welcomed. But suppose, said the Herald, the investment is increased and eventually Chrysler's controls Rootes as Americans already control Fords and Vauxhalls. And suppose further that there is “ a slump in international markets,” what will the American owners do then? (It may be recalled here that the Herald seem to have overlooked its own belief that governments and economists now know all about preventing international slump, anyway).
Well, what will happen if the American motor firms with British subsidiaries find that they cannot sell all the output both from America and from Britain? The Herald thinks it knows that the answer is obvious.
If output and jobs were at stake, obviously preference would be given to American output and American jobs—not British.
So far from being obvious it is patently untrue and absurd. It asks us to believe that American employers are motivated by the wish to do good to American workers and that in order to have the motor firms in this country conducted in the interest of British workers we must have them run by British, not American employers.
How silly can newspapers get? If the Americans who own Chryslers are anxious to give jobs to America’s four million unemployed, why are they putting their £12 million into a firm in Britain instead of in a firm in America?
And if the Herald believes that British investors invest here for the good of British workers, how would they square it with Mr. Harold Wilson’s statement about Conservatives generally that “their interest is not in production. They are too busy drooling at the mouth at the prospect of increased share values which benefit the investors or speculators and bear no relation to national needs.” (Sunday Telegraph, June 7, 1964).
The whole thing is nonsensical. The capitalist, British, American, or any other, invests in order to make profit. He does not care whether he sells motor cars (or anything else) at home or abroad. He is equally willing to sell whole factories for erection abroad—and up to this point the Labour Party protestors about the Rootes deal say it is a very good thing; but it suddenly in their eyes becomes a very bad thing if the motor car or other article is made in Britain to the order of an employing company in America.
The Wilsons will tell us that “our” motor firm is passing under foreign control, as did Fords of Dagenham, but as far as the workers are concerned it is not “our” motor firm, whether control is located at Dagenham or Detroit: it just makes no difference. And Rootes does not belong to the British workers and they therefore cannot be deprived of the ownership they do not have.
The capitalist nature of the world is not changed, is not made better or worse, by changes of ownership of companies, or by changes from private capitalism to state capitalism (nationalisation). Those who claim that these are issues of “moment to the workers” are simply misleading them.
Edgar Hardcastle
No comments:
Post a Comment