The unemployment figures keep on rising and the government assure us that we have not seen the last of them yet.
Mr. Hare, the Minister of Labour, has blamed the weather for some of the unemployment and pleads that that is something which he cannot be expected to have foreseen.
The economic experts have sharpened their pencils and have swamped the government with their advice. The government, of course, has already plenty of its own experts with their schemes and advice; unemployment increases despite them.
Are the experts, then, so useless? Many of them have had a long and expensive education. They have access to all sorts of information which is supposed to help them in their planning to control capitalism.
It is fair to expect them to come up with something special when the problem demands it, as unemployment does.
Well, have they?
Consider, for one, the experts employed by The Guardian. We might have expected that newspaper, with its tradition of sometimes saying the unusual, to have some startling proposals on the out of work problem. And in a way that is what they did have. Here is what The Guardian's first leader proposed, among other similar suggestions, on January 25th:
Lastly, could the schools not be asked to take back all those pre-Christmas school-leavers who have still not found jobs? To lay on proper teaching might not be easy; but better that they should be in classrooms than waiting idly at home or on the street corners.
Read that again, slowly. Ask yourself whether sending back to school the youngsters who have only just left, whose parents are probably relying upon them to help the housekeeping budget, and for whom you know there are not enough teachers, is a solution to the unemployment problem—or even a sensible suggestion.
Then ask yourself if the experts can do anything about capitalism’s shortcomings. And wonder why you do not do something about them yourself.
The expense of cold weather
Most of us have had our grumble about the Arctic conditions which have had us in the grip since the end of last year. The weather itself is beyond anyone's control, but is there nothing that can be done about the effects of it?
Some of the electricity failures in the Big Freeze Up were caused by frozen insulators on the power lines. This problem could be avoided—and incidentally some lovely landscapes preserved—if the lines were carried underground. But the Central Electricity Generating Board claims that this would cost up to eighteen times more than hitching the lines up to pylons and would, therefore, not be worthwhile.
Some of the breakdowns and delays on the railways were the result of frozen points. This is something which could have been solved easily, in a number of ways long ago, but the railways were reluctant to invest in something which they might not want to use very often.
The efforts at clearing snowbound roads were simply pitiful. But the government reasons that there is no sense in keeping a lot of expensive snow clearing equipment which will probably lie idle for about eight years in every ten. And that seems to clinch the argument against having it.
Over here, in short, capitalism gambles on the weather; something it cannot do in other countries where extreme conditions happen more regularly. From the point of view of the British capitalist there is no sense in spending money preparing for something which is likely to come along very occasionally. That is why Britain is so often caught napping by severe cold or floods or some other vagary of the weather.
Anyway, it is only the working class who bear the brunt of the weather. It is only their houses which become draughty hell-holes in the winter. It is poor, working class pensioners who silently die of cold in their unheated rooms, cut off from the hurrying world outside,
It is the working class who have to face the added torture of the rush hour, on rail or road, in the icy spells.
Capitalism has always shown a ruthless concern for its own economic priorities. So can we expect it to spend money uneconomically to prevent such suffering? Not likely, we can't.
The Common Market
Well, it didn't come off.
Mr. Heath and his men came back defeated from Brussels and presented the British public with another bogy man who was yesterday’s friend. President de Gaulle is now the evil man of British capitalism.
The Beaverbrook press took a somewhat different view, implying hopefully that the British government had seen the light from the Express building and had themselves broken off the negotiations.
“And Now—Forward,” screamed the Express headlines. Forward, we may ask, to what? Whatever the Express, or the Government, or anyone else, has to offer can only be another of capitalism’s gambles.
When the British government decided, several years ago, against joining the European Common Market, they were gambling. When they decided that that gamble had failed they put their money on another—on the application to join Europe. They made it quite clear that that was a gamble, that they were not sure whether membership of the EEC would benefit them or not.
So it is with all capitalism's attempts to defeat its own problems.
President de Gaulle is gambling, now that Europe can unite as an independent capitalist power dominated by a Franco-German axis. But there have been plenty of other such gambles and plenty of other such pacts and many of them have failed even by capitalism's standards. There is no reason to assume that France and Germany, whatever their pact says, will not end up fighting one. another again.
Capitalism, in fact, is one big gamble. Since its fortunes hang on the tail of its unpredictable market, it can never be sure of what to do to secure its own interests.
The great tragedy is that the gambles are always paid off in working class lives and security.
Civil Disobedience
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, as it breaks up into its opposing factions, is displaying some typical symptoms of the dying reformist organisation.
One of the unilateralists’ arguments has been—and this applies especially to the Committee of 100—that nuclear weapons were such a threat to human society that anything was justified which helped to get rid of them.
Demonstrations and marches were justified. So was civil disobedience, like sitting down in the roadway. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, we were told, would be justified in forgetting about Socialism to campaign against the bomb. Recently, stirring up and exploiting social unrest at places like the LCC accommodation centres was justified on the same grounds.
This must have convinced many people that the unilateralists were prepared to go to any lengths to save us from nuclear annihilation.
It certainly seems to have convinced those soldiers who want to form an active CND group in the Services.
But the unilateralists will not touch this one with a barge-pole. Because what the soldiers are trying to do amounts to inciting troops to disaffection, and for that you can find yourself in jail for seven years.
That is too much for the campaigners, even for the reckless Committee of 100. So they have all officially disassociated themselves from any move which can be interpreted as stirring up disaffection in the Forces.
It was, of course, the unilateralists who first said that people should be prepared to face imprisonment in the cause of banning the bomb. But having urged this futile action on their followers, what sort of consistency is it which then shrinks from seven years in jail?
We know that the unilateralists are breaking up. Are they at the same time cooling down? Are they, as we said they might, becoming respectable?
Arms Budget
There are no surprises in the United States Budget for the coming year.
The American capitalist class expects to be spending a total of $98.8 billions during the twelve months up to June 30th, 1964, and of this well over half—$55.4 billions—will be spent on the armed forces and their weapons. In addition, $4.2 billions will go to space research and technology where, we fear, the weapons of the future will be conceived and designed.
This sort of expenditure has been rising steadily over the past few years; the USA now has an impressive nuclear arsenal to show for the money it has spent.
There are about 650 American bombers on a fifteen minute ground alert and more than 200 missiles ready to be fired from the ground. Apart from these, 114 missiles are in Polaris submarines, prowling beneath the seas.
Arms expenditure, then, is the first preoccupation of the Washington Budget just as it must be for any capitalist government which knows that its international interests are threatened by a rival.
Other things must take their place, lower down the queue. The USA will spend $0.3 billion on housing next year—less than in the current year—$5.6 billions on health, labour and welfare and $1.5 billion on education.
It is no coincidence that the very things which could make human life a little easier are the least likely to get any money spent on them, while the things which are meant to kill and destroy are lavished with funds.
Capitalism works that way.
