PAYE is a method governments use to regulate wages, and they do this on behalf of the employers. The Labour government, far from being an exception, is a pioneer in telling the workers that a reduction in wages is for their own good. This is the kind of metaphysics Denis Healey and other Labour leaders habitually produce at Labour Party Conferences. The 1977 Conference proved no exception.
Healey, their Chancellor, has promised the trade unions that if they are good boys he will cut PAYE tax by 1 per cent. — a theoretical 2p in the £. “Back-me-or-sack-me” Callaghan, who has promised prosperity within the next twenty years, put on a show for this mildewed carrot at the Conference, having previously had a trial run at the TUC Conference a few weeks earlier. Playing with tax levels can be advantageous to governments, but helps to perpetuate the myth that taxes are a working-class issue—which they are not.
It is not our purpose to deal in detail with the boring assembly known as the Labour Party Conference. Suffice to say that the capitalists will sleep soundly in their beds secure in the knowledge that their interests are being well looked after. TV pictures of earnest spouters, militant muddlers and rostrum rousers; a few learned comments from professional flanellers is all that they can offer. The mantle of state falls naturally on this variegated collection whose chief claim to posterity will lie in the fact that they have done more to impede the development of socialist ideas than any other organization.
But still they are not satisfied, and with good reason. The cup of political success seems never to quench the thirst of these institutionalised reformers. There is undoubtedly many a slip ’twixt cup and lip.
What you may ask has gone wrong? The speeches were well up to the standard of repetitive performances over sixty years. A lot of time could be saved were these to be numbered, and were the Chairman to announce, for example, that speech No 1 on Unemployment, No 2 on houses and slums, No 3 on Defence, etc., should be taken as heard. All the delegates need do would be to ascend the rostrum and announce the number. The delegates could then spend their time attending church, or propping up the Brighton bars.
What has gone wrong is the view held by the Labour Party that they could introduce Socialism behind the backs of the workers. That they could lead and the workers would follow without any ideas about what Socialism involves. Coupled with this is the unsound view about the nature of Socialism and its implications held by the so-called theorists of the Labour Party itself. Social experiments in nationalization, reforms, state control or the variety of public ownership schemes so much in favour with Labour supporters have hardly touched the surface of capitalism. Well might they vent their frustration on their elected government. The Conference, for example, asks for cuts in defence expenditure; Mr. Mulley Minister of Defence says “No”. Conference asks for increased expenditure on housing and public services: Mr. Freeson, Minister for Housing and Construction says “No”. Conference asks for improvements in the National Health Service, education, social services, reduced taxation, and the respective Ministers say No, adding that the time is not opportune and that the country cannot afford it. In fact, all the things promised in their Election Manifesto go by the board when the Minister says No, because the Minister has to study the needs of capitalism’s economic situation, and this is of over-riding importance—and the Conference swallows this.
It took an old fakir like Lord Shinwell, who has seen sixty conferences, to tell the delegates that they should take Keir Hardie’s advice and concentrate on abolishing unemployment, slums and poverty instead of (Shinwell’s remark) “wasting time abolishing the House of Lords”. We dare say Shinwell will remember the Vote of Censure moved by the Party on 21st October 1920: That this House views with regret the growing volume of unemployment, recognising the responsibility of the State towards members of the community who are bereft of the means of livelihood, is of the opinion that every possible step should be taken to arrest the decline in trade and industry and to provide work or, in default, adequate maintenance for those whose labour is not required in the ordinary market. (Hansard Vol. 133,1115).
Today unemployment is approx. 1.7 million, about the same figure as in 1920. This is after sixty years of Labour in and out of government with the stated intention of abolishing it. Should the workers waste another sixty years on this Tower of Babel which has produced nothing but reaction and confusion, and might as well be called a conservative party, because it seeks to conserve wage-labour and capital?
Jim D'Arcy
No comments:
Post a Comment