Vote Labour?
Dear Editors.
As a paid-up member of the Labour Party, I agree with “Anti-Capitalist", of Seaham. in regard to ending the capitalist system (Socialist Standard, December 1990), but I believe he is rather short-sighted in his view that without capitalism there would be no poll tax, rent, gas and electricity bills, etc, because unfortunately they are a necessity of life.
What is required to be controlled is the immorality and hypocrisy of this Tory government which makes the rich richer and at the same time—if there were no trade unions—would impose on the already low-paid working class families a 6½ percent wage rise, as they tried to impose on the NHS ambulance crews and failed.
So it is my honest working man’s belief, as one who worked from the age of 14 in 1939, who fought for his country from the age of 17 in 1943, that capitalism be legally controlled, the denationalised industries now in private hands be returned to public ownership, the profits from all the industries accounted for to ensure that the workers get a fair return coupled to productivity and inflation. Also that the government ensure that working class families have decent housing with all mod cons, and good bus services, shopping centres, sports facilities and entertainment facilities, decent hospitals, doctors’ surgeries.etc.
Isn’t this only what we deserve as the “factory fodder" in peace and the close combat “cannon fodder” during the wars every generation endures? That way we get a fair return for the hours we need to work to give us the pride in working for a living, a wage to pay for the necessities of life. gas. electricity, an acceptable rent and rates system based on the ability to pay. a decent education for our children.
We need a socialist Labour government to ensure that Britain returns to having a truly democratic government, which this lava-tory government can’t claim to be because it has sacked loyal British citizens at GCHO because those working class men were not prepared to surrender their democratic right to belong to an accredited trades union. That act of fascism was the first "goose-step” on British soil by a British government claiming to be democratic but creating the stench of nazism in England’s fresh and. so far, free air (until it gets privatised).
There is one light at the end of this dark gory Tory tunnel and it is this. The millions of good honest working class families, of all political persuasions, who thought that they could afford to vote Conservative because of the false promises of Margaret H. (for "Hypocrite" not “Hilda") Thatcher's dreams have found that these turned into nightmares. Inflation, mortgage interest rates, freezing of family allowances, and—most disgusting of all— the freezing of the old age pensioners’ £10 Xmas gift, plus additional charges for eye tests, dental checks, transport costs to get to work, and the effects of the poll tax making the rich even richer and working class families poorer—all the above have taught the working class young lads and lasses a very hard lesson: that the Tories, as they have always done, only look after their own. the fat cat families.
This is why at the next General Election all those who thought they could afford to vote Conservative and did so to their ever-lasting regret (yes, they were the ones who voted the Tories into power) will be the ones to vote them out. out. out.
George Ellis
Timperley, Cheshire
Reply:
You are probably right. Hundreds of thousands of workers will be voting Labour at the next General Election for the reasons you give. Since the Tories really have done all the things you list, we can understand why no worker with the slightest inkling of class consciousness would even consider voting Tory. But is that a reason for voting Labour?
It might be if it was governments that caused the problems and miseries that workers face under capitalism. But they don't: governments merely preside over the capitalist system while it works in the only way it can. as a profit-making system in the interests of the profit-takers and against those of the wage and salary workers.They have to carry out what the continuing profitable operation of the system demands.
Changing the government doesn’t change this. All this does is to change the individuals who make up the government. Different individuals can of course have different attitudes and we freely acknowledge that Labour politicians, for various reasons, don’t have the same desire to make the rich richer and to bash the working class as theirTory counterparts. But what counts in the end is not what government ministers may or may not want to do, but what they will be forced to do as administrators of the capitalist system.
Capitalism forces all governments, including Labour ones, to dance to its tune. Have we not seen Labour governments cut benefits, freeze wages, impose health charges, break strikes and preside over the rich getting richer and unemployment going up? There is no reason to suppose that a Kinnock government would be any different. No government of capitalism can give workers the sort of "fair" deal you outline—and make no mistake about it: a Kinnock government, like all previous Labour governments will be a government of capitalism. A "socialist Labour government" is an absurd contradiction in terms, but this is not even what Kinnock is promising as he has openly proclaimed that the aim of the next Labour government will merely be to try to make the market economy—capitalism—work better than the Tories.
Since it is capitalism that is the cause of working class problems, to solve them what is required is not a change of government but a change of economic and social system— from one based on class property and the profit motive to one based on common ownership, democratic control and production for use: and. yes. this will mean that electricity, gas and housing will be provided, like everything else, as free public services.
Editors.
