Letter: Vote Labour? (1991)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

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.

Between the Lines: Land of Dopes and Tories (1990)

The Between the Lines column from the October 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Land of Dopes and Tories

Three cheers for Mark Elder, the conductor who refused to include Rule Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory in The Last Night of the Proms (shown on BBC1 and BBC2 on 15 September) Elder was of the view that:

"the words of those songs come from an age that was able and happy to celebrate Britain's irresistible march across the world. Now if we are actually engaged in combat I would not be happy to proceed. It would seem callous in the extreme. "

The Guardian 8 September

The BBC's response to Elder's sensitivity was in the best tradition of imperial callousness. They sacked him.

Elgar's Land of Hope and Glory, the words of which express English imperial arrogance in all of its declining folly, was first promoted by the British ruling class as workers were being slaughtered during tho First World War. At the time Elgar had issued a Manifesto of National Service which called for an:

"organised effort to carry on the war. Every fit man must be made available . . . for the fighting line or . . . for National Service at home."

Elgar himself spent tho war living in his mansion in Hampstoad, while at the same time German and Austrian musicians were being persecuted by the British state.

The Last Night at the Proms is a ridiculous, anachronistic celebration of a Great Britain, which was a land of no hope and little glory for the vast majority in its finest hour, and is now an appendage of American imperial foreign policy.

'The horror . . . the horror.'

Speaking of Dopes . . .

What is the most popular TV programme in Britain today? The twice daily Neighbours (BBC1. 1.35 pm and 5.35pm) which is brought to us by one Reg Watson, the man who 'created' Crossroads. It is staggeringly bad: awful acting, incredible plots, cliched scripts, a disgusting view of what human beings are all about. Millions of workers love to watch it. The BBC celebrated its one thousandth episode last month (BBC1 13 September).

It has been argued that Neighbours represents a poor man's wish for what it would be like to live in a real community, rather than the alienated heaps in which most of us find ourselves; a sort of late capitalist News From Nowhere. Others argue that the programme's success is the fresh good looks of its actors. Or maybe its success is thanks to its popularity with the under-twelves who regard it as truly great drama. Who knows?

But has anyone thought that a period of cultural history which will be remembered for the acting of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan is not one in which songs celebrating hope and glory are appropriate?

Speaking of Tories . . . 

By far the funniest TV moment of the last month was watching Enoch Powell (Talking to Myself, BBC2, 10.20pm. 7.9.90). This new series allows famous people to both ask and answer the questions in a ten-minute interview. Powell sounded like a dishwasher on the blink having a pompous talk with an air-raid siren Of course, he is not to be blamed for his strangely whining voice, even if it is hideously full of affectations.

One Powell is a slightly barmy fanatic in the cause of capitalism. Two Powells are totally round the bend. Powell told Powell that the greatest moment in his life had been when he had been asked to join the British army and give unqualified and unquestioning loyalty to the British Empire. We know what Powell will have been doing on The Last Night of the Proms — singing Rule Britannia! as a duet.

Speaking of Dopey Tories . . .

There are times when video machines come in very handy. A politician says something and you can't quite believe that anyone can be that stupid. And then you play it back and the wonder of technology allows you to see that you were wrong to doubt.

Such a moment came in The Walden Interview (ITV. 1pm. 9 September) when Walden asked William Waldergrave. the British Foreign Office Minister, when the government would consider that Iraq had been defeated.

The first requirement, said Waldergrave. is that "liberty must be restored in Kuwait". It was the "restored" that led my finger to the play-back button. Since when has there been "liberty" in Kuwait?

It is a country ruled by unelected, semi-feudal dictators, put in power by the British. It is a country where only 60,000 people out of a population of 2 million have the vote. It is a country where women have no political rights, including voting. Is that the "liberty" which Waldergrave seeks to restore? Is that why British and American workers in uniform will die? Land of hope and glory? Hang your heads in shame, those who have been foolish enough to fall for the absurdities of nationalism.

Steve Coleman

Caught In The Act: Relief for the Rich (1991)

The Caught In The Act Column from the August 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Relief for the Rich

Uncaring dole queues did not riot in sympathy with the Names at Lloyd's, even though the media tore at our heart-strings with sad stories of some of them being down to their last Rolls Royce, yacht and country estate. The same stories revealed the existence of something called the Lloyd's Hardship Committee (yes, the word is hardship) of which the chair is Mary Archer — she who had some grovelling judge at her millionaire husband's libel case drooling gormlessly about her "fragrance". In fact Names are people; in the world of insurance they are where the buck stops. Their status is rather beyond Social Security claimants because a Name has to be able to get their hands on £250,000 without delay and their obligation to slump up for insurance claims is unlimited. In good times they rake in a lot of profit but in bad — like the present — they stand to make heavy losses.

This sounds pretty perilous except that nobody will invest in a business which continually makes losses. Lloyd's has been very profitable for the last twenty years; in 1983 they made £509 million. Recent times have not been so good; in 1988 they lost about £500 million and the figure for 1989 is expected to be double that, as the bills come in for pollution claims, oil spills, natural disasters and unnatural ones like the Piper Alpha fire. Some Names have suffered more severely because they specialised in the high profit but high risk business of reinsurance. Some people may call them adventurous, the spirit that built the British Empire and so on. Others — especially if they are on the dole queue — are more likely to think it greedy, an opinion confirmed when the Names squealed for government help in financing their failed gambles.

What the Names suggested was a sort of rich person's outdoor relief — tax concessions. But this had implications which were what might be called delicate because about 60 Tory MPs are Names; what would the dole queues have thought if MPs were caught in the act of giving themselves a handout?

A factor with a more direct political interest was the Labour Party's "broad sympathy" (according to The Guardian) towards Lloyds's long-term problems, which did more than hint that there would be support from the opposition for tax concessions. Well naturally, Labour's Treasury team have been chomping their way through numerous heavy meals with the City's bankers, merchants and insurers in the cause of assuring them that they have nothing to fear from a Labour government. But even the present cowed and grovelling Labour Party thought this would be going too far so the idea had to be disowned, blamed onto the indiscretions of a very junior shadow minister whose career is thereby now uninsurable.

In theory the Names, whose history is rooted in the romance of the coffee houses of 17th century London, should be the very essence of free market dare-devilry, contemptuous of state intervention. In theory, too, the Labour Party should be the sworn enemy of an exclusive club for rich people who produce nothing and who have the nerve to say that social parasites can only be found in places like the dole queues.

Caught out

Not many people expected the England cricket team to make a fight of it against the West Indies, let alone actually pull off a victory. So when England won the first test at Headingley there was naturally some excited analysis of how and why it had happened and whether it was likely to happen again.

All rational observers agreed that it had something to do with batting (like Gooch's century), bowling (like DeFreitas taking eight wickets) and fielding (like Ramprakash's catches and run out). But rational thinking does not always guide every contribution to the deliberations of the House of Commons so there was only mild amusement when the stubbornly Thatcherite MP Gerald Howarth suggested that the House gave their thanks for the victory to not only the England team but also to John Major and sports minister Robert Atkins for the "inspiration". This sort of speech is called Making Political Capital Out Of Sport (it can also be made out of Religion. Human Suffering. Dumb Animals and the Royal Family, which is not to suggest that there are any links between them) but even at that Howarth was going a bit too far. It is not unusual for creeps in the House to attempt to ingratiate themselves with their leaders through grovelling interventions, dummy questions and the like. But to comment on Major's "inspiration" just when he is under a continuous battering from the media, his own party and the last occupant of Number Ten over his grey personality, disastrous speeches and policy dithering is evidence of a remarkable talent for bad timing.

Of course no one should take seriously an ambitious buffoon like Howarth. except that his motion caricatured a fact of life about parliament and those who occupy its benches. Honourable members live under the delusion that when they are in session they are doing something worthwhile. It seems to escape them, that they are at most scratching at the inconsequential superficialities of this society when there is a crying need to decide how to organise a basically different system. Fun and games on the green benches are all very well but they deny parliament's potential role in a change of society. So capitalism grinds on with its misery and destruction and its legislators who can be less relevant to our lives than a game of cricket.

If you have tears . . .

Real wet tears were shed in Finchley — and probably Tunbridge Wells and Bournemouth and the like — when Margaret Thatcher let it be known that she will not again stand for parliament. There may well have been some weeping among the House of Lords too, when she announced that she expects to be practising her verbal bludgeoning on their lordships. There seemed to be widespread agreement that of the many qualities for which she will be missed the most prominent were her staunch principles. All the more puzzling then, that someone so confident of their own correctness should have been so reluctant to face any disagreement or to allow even free discussion. In her prime the word was that Thatcher Rules and if that’s not OK by you then you have a one way ticket to the back benches followed by a re-assessment of your ministerial career and feeble political talent by the Bernard Ingham School of Character Assassination.

But it seems that Thatcher, who never had to change her mind because she was always right, has had second thoughts. On her recent lecture tour of America she informed an audience of New York's business élite that she now believes in open debate, that a bit of healthy difference of opinion is good for you. Of course the fee she was getting for each appearance élite variously put at £18.000 or £30,000 élite may have induced her to be what she would once have regarded as wildly controversial. But did she have to make so radical a U-turn as this:

I think that the decisions which have to be made on Europe are of enormous moment to the British people, to the whole future of our parliament, and the more openly we discuss them and the more thoroughly we discuss them the better.

It will be remembered that when she was Prime Minister her view was that the more important a decision the less discussion there should be. No excessively analytical mind is needed to perceive that Thatcher applied one set of rules when she is in command and another when she is in the ranks. Nor does it require a hugely retentive memory to recall the many other politicians who behaved in the same way. So what does it need for the electors to draw the obvious conclusion from this — that leaders are not to be trusted and that we should therefore trust ourselves to take our own decisions, solve our own problems and re arrange society in our own interests.

Ivan

Caught In The Act: Monmouth and after (1991)

The Caught In The Act Column from the June 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Monmouth and after

Losing gracefully is supposed lo be something that all Britishers are supposed to be good at. It has something to do with being properly brought up, going to a good school, being keen on cricket — rather like John Major, who has the added advantage, when it comes to behaving chivaloursly, of being a Tory. So there was some surprise, notably in the newspapers which usually support the government, when Major’s response to the Tory defeat in the Monmouth by-election was to lead a verbal assault on the Labour Party on the lines of "we wuz robbed" — that Labour had won the seat by telling a lie about hospitals opting out of NHS administration.

In fact there was hardly any need for the Labour Party to lie about this or about anything else because the government is in such a mess at present that they don’t know whether to have an election this month, or October, or next May, or never again.

In Monmouth the Labour Party ran what is for them now a typical campaign, masterminded from headquarters with a candidate featureless enough to fade into the wallpaper. The new MP Huw Edwards set out his stall as a political puppet when, at a press conference during the campaign, he replied to a question about one aspect of Labour policy: it was still being worked out but as soon as he was told what it was he would support it. There was no sign, among the celebratory Labour supporters at Monmouth, that any of them were wondering whether their victory was more a case of cynical manipulation than political principles.

Desperate

Meanwhile the Tories have two choices: they can panic, as they did after Monmouth or they can silently grit their teeth and wait for things to get better. Their attempts to replace the ill-fated Poll Tax with what they hoped would be the voter-friendly Council Tax has flopped. Many votes are won and lost on the issue of the size of the bills sent out by local authorities, whether under the old rates system or Poll Tax or the promised Council Tax. In fact this is a non issue because whatever the level of these charges it is not of significance or permanent concern to workers. When they designed the Council Tax the Tories were hoping to exploit the widespread misconception that lower local authority charges are in our interests. But the memories live on how the Poll Tax was pushed through against so much sound advice and the Tories are branded now as a party of muddle needlessly caused by dogmatism.

This has also been their problem over the NHS which, after Monmouth, will almost certainly be a central issue in the next general election. In Monmouth the Labour Party shrewdly focussed on two local hospitals which are considering opting out while they publicised evidence that the recent changes in the NHS mean medical care is a matter of what people can afford. This was powerful stuff to voters who were raised on the fallacy that the NHS provides the best possible treatment, freely and equally to everyone. In fact medical service has rather more than the two tiers which Labour made so much of. At the bottom is the NHS with its straight-jacketed resources, its overworked staff, its wailing lists and its patients organised like tiresome cattle. At the top is the kind of attention provided in the world's exclusive clinics with their expensively discreet rooms, squads of doctors and nurses and their assumption that the customer is always right provided they can pay enough. The NHS was designed for the working class, as a co-ordinated and economical get-you-back-to-work service. At the other extreme is the medical care, far removed from the scope of organisations like BUPA, reserved for the ruling class — the class who can afford the best of everything.

Orthodoxy

In the past much has been forgiven the Tories because they were assumed to be the party who could be trusted to run the economy. It all went with playing cricket, behaving correctly to ladies and losing gracefully. This has meant that Tory Chancellors of the Exchequer, however muddled and panicky their responses to capitalism's upheavals, have had an easier ride than those in a Labour government. It made little difference, that Chancellors from both sides carried out roughly the same policies, failed to the same degree to solve the same problems, made similar speeches after similar budgets. But when the cosy assumption that all Tory Chancellors are in control of the economy comes under serious challenge the result can be a severe destabilising of support for the government.

For a long time it has been an orthodoxy of capitalist economics that a booming economy and low unemployment could stimulate inflations — rising prices. Another orthodoxy has been that "inflation" is the enemy of civilisation; John Major is on record as one who "hates" inflation rather as one might "hate" a disease or a vicious animal. In the House of Commons he proclaimed that reducing "inflation" is the ". . .only stable and sure way to create and keep jobs".

But on the same day the Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont was telling the Commons that lower inflation does not create and keep jobs but destroys them: "Rising unemployment is the price we have to pay to get inflation down, and it is a price well worth paying”. In fact both Major and Lamont have either misunderstood the situation or distorted it. And when all the speeches have been made and the votes counted it is clear that either way working class interests are not involved.

Arrogance

There are some striking resemblances between Lamont and Nigel Lawson of much cursed memory, not least in the arrogance with which he delivers his lectures on the economy. Like Lawson, he has the knack of spouting memorable phrases which he must instantly hope will be quickly forgotten. Not only the unemployed were outraged by this overfed buffoon telling them that their suffering was all in the good cause of keeping the Tories in power and advancing Lamont's career.

Monmouth was a typical episode in the politics of capitalism, a smokescreen to obscure the reality of the politicians' impotence to control a vicious and inhumane social system. It is all a grisly, farcical game in which the parties of capitalism make the rules, appoint the referees and change the scoreboard. When will we blow the whistle on it all?

Ivan

Caught In The Act: At Issue (1992)

The Caught In The Act Column from the February 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Issue

Months before polling day the 1992 general election has got under way. Along with the frantic politician’s speeches, the polls and the press conferences we are being deluged with what Tony Benn would call "ishoos" — diverting and irrelevant matter which the politicians exploit in order to undermine their opponents and suck up votes for themselves.

One such issue is the argument about whether taxes would be higher under a Labour government than under the Tories. In this argument tradition is powerful: the Conservatives have always represented themselves as the party of low taxation, fixing Labour in the voters’ minds as the avaricious collector, and profligate spender of taxes. The Labour Party, skewered on this attack, have had a hard time pointing out that it is hardly justified by the evidence and that they are as prudent and stingy about the finances of British capitalism as any Tory could be.

What both parties ignore is that the whole issue is irrelevant because the majority of people — the working class — do not effectively pay taxes and indeed can't pay them. Our income is determined by what it takes to reproduce ourselves as wage labour, whatever apparent deductions are on our wage-slips at the end of the month or week.

Taxes are a charge on the class who can afford to pay them and in whose interests they are collected — the capitalist, employing class. The state machine in all of its manifestations exists to protect and maintain the position of the capitalist class and they pay for it to do that. Workers who allow themselves to be misled about this and who vote for one capitalist party or the other on the basis of whether they will raise or lower taxes are wasting their votes and denying their own political power.

Protection

Another point at which the Tories are making some powerful attacks is the Labour Party policy towards the armed forces. Their ease here is that a Labour government, influenced by the pacifists and nuclear disarmers who infest their party membership, would reduce the British forces to impotence and so leave us undefended. This is always a popular issue — after all we need "our" soldiers, sailors and airmen to prevent the Germans, Russians, French, Japanese or whichever group happens to be the enemy at the time from pouring into this country and raping our grandmothers while they generally defile the British Way Of Life. On the other hand the Tories, their ranks thick with ex-officers, can be trusted to protect All That We Hold Dear.

Reality is rather different. As we have seen under the present government Tory ministers do not shrink from slashing back the forces to what British capitalism can afford. While Labour has done the same thing in similar circumstances, they have always made it clear that in government they are quite unmoved by the woolier opinions of their membership: they have supported every one of British capitalism’s wars and they have maintained, protected and used British forces whenever they saw this as necessary, they could not have put it any clearer than in their 1989 Policy Review: "Labour is determined that in the 1990s and beyond, Britain shall be properly defended ..."

In any case, the people who will vote about this in their millions do not have a Britain to defend; all they have is their degraded status as workers. The issue of which party will keep the larger forces should not intrude into the polling booths.

Property

So is there no important issue? Is nothing at slake in the election? Well, as a start, we can say that whether the Labour or Tory party wins, the class structure of society will not be changed in any significant way. One effect of this will be that the inequalities in society — the existence of riches and poverty will continue to be something politicians promise to do something about.

A recent study by Inland Revenue, dealing with marketable wealth — goods which can be sold quickly as well as savings and investments — stated that in 1989 the richest ten per cent of the population owned 53 per cent — more than the other 90 per cent put together., the poorest 50 per cent owned just six per cent of the wealth. These figures will not surprise anyone who has been concerned to look behind the political sham fight to the real issues. They will come as no surprise to anyone who knows that poverty is basic to capitalism and will not be eradicated by voting for the parties who support capitalism's continuing.

New Image

In the run up to polling day the Tories have had to confront the problems of ridding themselves of the lingering image of what has been called Thatcherism. It is instructive to observe how they have set about this task. The object has been to wipe out the memory of our being subjected to the harsh but bracing winds of the market system and to convince us that we are now cossetted in the warmth and comfort of a new, caring Tory Party. It has been to replace Thatcher’s style as a strident, abrasive dictator with Major's image as the nice guy next door.

This has been done with a ruthless thoroughness of which the Tories, experienced as they are in political in-fighting, are the masters. It has been done with no regard to the fact that Thatcher's style and characteristics were once represented to us, by the very people who are now trying to eradicate them, as vitally necessary to our welfare and even our survival.

To some people — the Tories hope to a lot of voters — this will come as an easeful relief. But should we accept so easily that we can be manipulated in this way? Is a social system supportable when it requires such massive cynicism to defend its political representatives? What justifies all this investment in deceit? The answer is that elections are times when society can be up for grabs. The working class —the majority of the voters — do not have to choose between one bunch of cynical impotents and another, so that capitalism carries on. They can replace this social system with one based on human interests with all that that implies. That is the issue at the election — food for thought and for conscious political action.

Ivan

Caught In The Act: A Matter of Timing (1991)

The Caught In The Act Column from the May 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Matter of Timing

As if he has not got enough on his mind already, with all those unkind press comments about him being a vacillating nonentity, John Major has the additional pressing worry of when to call the next general election. From all sides he will be advised that the timing can be crucial in deciding who wins; a month or two either way can mean defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

Warning stories are told about Harold Wilson's mistake in 1970 and Jim Callaghan in 1979. Wilson assumed that Labour's position was impregnable and treated the election as a blip on the unruffled business of running British capitalism. If he had waited we might never have had Ted Heath as prime minister. Callaghan, on the other hand, should not have waited; he gambled that things were getting better for his government and would continue to do so. Instead they went on getting worse and the winter of discontent sealed Labour's fate. If Callaghan had not waited we would not have had Thatcher and life would have been a lot less interesting for the people who produce programmes like Spitting Image.

After Thatcher's victory the timing was, apparently, a lot simpler. According to Cecil Parkinson, who was Conservative Party chairman at the time, in 1983 it was so simple as to be a matter of common sense. All the opinion samples indicated that a sweeping Tory victory was in prospect. They had ridden over their crisis of unpopularity and had picked up a lot of support from the more seriously deluded workers over the Falklands War. To help them on their way the Labour Party had elected Michael Foot as their leader and then ran a campaign notable for the ineptitude of their attempts to mislead workers into voting for them. In 1987 the Labour Party ran a much craftier campaign but they had too much ground to make up. The local election results that year persuaded Thatcher that the Tory vote was holding so the time was ripe to allow the great British people to make their democratic choice — which actually means to have Saatchi and Saatchi unleashed upon them.

Mr Nice Guy

For John Major it is not so simple. He is in trouble. One Tory supporter recently wrote to the Daily Telegraph to complain about the prime minister abusing the sartorial standards of all British gentlemen by buttoning up his jacket as he steps out of the official limousine — and you can't get much deeper into trouble than that: Major's image as Mr Nice Guy, unbuttoned jacket and all, is all very well except when your party is hungry for a parliamentary Rambo. It is all very well except when it seems to paralyse your decision-making and reduces your party to a rabble of squabbling back benchers and rivals for your job. It is all very well except when it encourages your supporters to question whether they did the right thing when they got rid of your predecessor.

These things must weigh heavily with Major as he toys with his calendar, his slide rule and his crystal ball. If he decides on an election this summer — which probably means June — and the Tories do badly their conference in October is likely to be historic for the ferocity of the fighting behind the desperately played down smoke screens. It will be the Conservative Party in its element — scheming and intriguing about how to win, or hold onto, power. All gentlemen in attendance are advised to keep their jackets buttoned firmly into place.

One thing which is never mentioned is the presumption at the base of all the calculations about the best date for the election, that workers are particularly susceptible to political deception. In the ease of Callaghan, for example, it is argued that he should have gone to the poll in late 1978 because at that time the voters thought, in spite of all they had experienced, that Labour could control capitalism into a docile, caring and progressive system. After the strikes and disruptions of that winter they were not so sure — and the Labour leadership were not able to offer any bribes attractive enough to cover up their woeful failure. Callaghan is criticised, not because he deceived the working class but because he miscalculated about the best time to exploit their political naiveté.

Gruesome Reality 

Workers swing from one discredited party to another, under the unblinking observation of the opinion pollsters, because they lack a sound understanding of how this social system works and why. So they are deceived into giving a major importance to issues which are in fact trivial or irrelevant and it is on that basis that votes change from one side to another. Issues such as the poll tax or the level of state benefits or whether John Major is an irresolute wimp have no real effect on how capitalism operates or what the system does to its people. Subtle advertising campaigns — which is what elections really are — persuade millions of voters that such matters are history-forming and they go to the polls arguing about them, to emerge convinced that with their cross on the ballot paper they have changed things. It takes a little time for the truth — that nothing has changed — to sink in and so set the votes swinging again, to the excitement of the political experts.

In gruesome reality what the workers have done is to surrender their power to make a real change in society. They have made themselves vulnerable to the schemes and calculations of the politicians and they have encouraged the tricksters of the advertising world in the belief that the workers are pliable to the point of ignorance. If this is degrading and insulting to millions of people — well that is a fair description of capitalism and its cynical propaganda.

Questions

Meanwhile the people at the sharp end of all this — the voters — should ponder a few vital questions. Are they satisfied to have their votes, through which they could fashion a free and humane social system, treated with such cynicism? Are they content to put themselves at the disposal of a bunch of ruthless manipulators whose only object is political power? Are they really impressed by the succession of bribes dangled before them by parties who are desperate for their votes? Are they worried whether John Major got any O levels, treats his family well and does his jacket up properly? Are they happy as the world reels under the disasters of that "successful" war in the Gulf, that this should be the limit of their political involvement? And are they going to do anything to change it?

Ivan

Crises, booms and slumps (1991)

From the March 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Since its evolution out of feudalism, the capitalist system of society has ensured that there has been a long-term expansion in the productive capacity of the world. TVs, computers, weapons capable of mass wreckage at one stroke—all these things that were once unthinkable have become basic features of life, at least in the more developed areas of the planet where capitalism has been dominant for many decades, and in some instances, hundreds of years.  

  Although capitalism broke through the fetters placed upon production by the feudal system and has expanded the forces of production to an unprecedented degree in the years since, the expansion of productive capacity and output under capitalism has never proceeded in a straight line. Notions of steady growth and constantly increasing well-being owe more to the rhetoric of politicians than the actual reality of capitalist development.

As a system, capitalism grossly underuses the technology and potential for production that it has helped develop. On one level, this can be seen by the growth in employment of people who are not engaged in intrinsically useful activity—bankers, accountants, insurance workers, armed forces personnel and so on. But even when capitalism can be said to be working at “full capacity”, with expanding output, growing productivity and booming sales, a period of “under-use” is always around the corner.

Falling output
Capitalism in Britain has reached just such a turning point. The last few years have seen fairly steady growth, with rising productivity and increased investment in those expanding sectors of industry that were making the headlines in Thatcher’s last years in office—particularly microelectronics and information technology. Much of that growth and expansion has now been halted.

This has not, of course, prevented the present government from arguing that the downturn in economic performance is just a "blip”. Only in November 1990 was John Major (when Chancellor) prepared to admit tentatively that Britain is in recession. The government currently defines a recession as being a situation when there is a negative growth rate for two successive quarters, but this “official" definition hardly matters to the thousands being thrown on to the dole queue or the thousands of others forced into bankruptcy.

Britain, in common with a number of other countries, is now in a situation where industrial production is falling and unemployment is rising. Although the official unemployment statistics have been doctored to the extent that they have become virtually meaningless as a measure of the actual level of unemployment in Britain, they do at least indicate trends—and the current trend is up. Manufacturing production has been falling since April last year and in the three months to November fell by 2.7 percent compared with the previous three-month period (Independent on Sunday, 27 January).

So far as governments and politicians are concerned, falling rates of growth and high levels of unemployment are signs that something has “gone wrong". When things start to go wrong for capitalist governments they often look for a scapegoat— like some hapless (ex-)Minister whose irresponsibility and recklessness is blamed for having brought the period of growth to an end. In Britain this role has been allocated to former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, a man previously described as "quite brilliant" by Thatcher and Major. But governments taking the credit when output is expanding and unemployment is low, and finding a scapegoat when things get rough is based on the mistaken assumption that the capitalist business cycle results from the policies they pursue. They may like to think that they are in control of the economy and that when things go wrong they can put them right again with the correct policies, but this is a fantasy.

George Meddemmen

Over—expansion
What governments fail to realise is that an economic recession is not an example of capitalism “going wrong" because of some dreadful ministerial error. Economic recessions with stagnating production, growing unemployment and a further slide into poverty are entirely normal—and necessary—features of capitalist development. This is because of the inner logic of the capitalist system's drive towards expansion.

The conditions for the development of an economic recession are present even when the capitalist system is in a period of boom, or relative prosperity. One thing that is immediately noticeable is that the operations of capitalism are not planned at the level of the whole economy. Decisions about investment are made by thousands of competing enterprises operating independently without social control or regulation. This means that when business is booming and when profits and growth rates are high "over-investment" by some enterprises will inevitably occur. In pursuit of future profits they expand their productive capacity beyond what the market which they are producing for can absorb.

A particular industry over-investing and expanding its productive capacity beyond the limits of market demand in this way is the usual cause of an economic crisis and subsequent depression. If capitalist growth was to be achieved in a controlled manner, eliminating booms and slumps, then growth would have to be balanced in each sector of industry. But the growth of an industry is not linked to the demands of other industries—its growth is determined by the expectation of profit, and this inevitably leads to a disproportion in investment and a disproportionate expansion between the various branches of production.

When an industry has over-produced for its particular market, this will have a knock-on effect for firms operating in other sectors of the economy. For instance, if an enterprise is no longer able to sell the commodities it has produced on the market at a profit, production will be cut back thereby slowing output. This will provoke a chain reaction as the enterprises' suppliers will no longer be able to sell all their products either, which will in turn affect their suppliers and then their suppliers' suppliers, and so on. Such an overproduction for selective markets therefore only has to appear in a few key industries for a crisis to break out and spread—reducing overall growth rates and increasing unemployment. And it all arises out of the general anarchy of production inherent in the capitalist system.

Boom—slump cycle
After a period of generalised stagnation and high unemployment, capitalism will be able to move out of the slump phase of its trade cycle. Although a recession has devastating consequences for the working class, no slump is permanent and once many of the weaker capitals have gone to the wall—with their assets being sold off cheaply to their competitors—the prospects for investment and expansion improve again. Capital depreciation, coupled with reduced interest rates caused by reduced demand for money capital, and lower real wage rates in a recession, mean that the prospect for making profits improves and industries begin to expand once more, taking on more workers. The cycle then begins all over again. As Marx pointed out in the last century:

The factory system's tremendous capacity for expanding with sudden immense leaps, and its dependence on the world market, necessarily gives rise to the following cycle: feverish production, a consequent glut on the market, then a contraction of the market, which causes production to be crippled. The life of industry becomes a series of periods of moderate activity, prosperity, over-production, crisis and stagnation. (Capital. Volume I. page 580, Penguin edition).

Now that capitalism has become a world system the "sudden leaps" of production referred to by Marx are not nearly as immense as they were in the capitalist system's historical ascent when whole continents of the Earth still had to be brought into the "factory system" with its wage-labour and capital relationship. Indeed capitalism, having raised the forces of production to a level where a society of abundance is feasible, has outlived its usefulness for humankind, and its cycles of boom and slump are a testament to its inherent inability to utilise resources efficiently. Capitalism can only advance so long as there are periods of regression when workers are made redundant in increasing numbers. when growth stagnates and when poverty spreads—not merely in the "developed" areas of the world but in the weaker capitalist states also, where the effects of the capitalist trade cycle are often felt hardest.

Most importantly of all, there is nothing that politicians can do to eliminate the boom-slump cycle—it will be around as long as capitalism itself. Capitalism cannot be efficiently planned as anarchy of production and uneven development are at the very heart of the system. All attempts at planning capitalism have ended in disaster—most notably in state capitalist countries like Russia and China where production seems to be in an almost chronic state of stagnation and where unemployment has. at least until recently, been masked by overstaffing.

The only way to take the abundant resources of the Earth and use them in an efficient manner is to establish a system of society based on common ownership and democratic control, where articles of wealth will be produced solely for use and not for exchange on a market with a view to the profit of a minority. Only then will crises, booms and slumps be a thing of the past and only then can production be geared to satisfying the needs of the inhabitants of the Earth.

Dave Perrin

A quote from Gavyn Davies which accompanied the article:

  “Around July, companies began to complain in private that demand had suddenly fallen away without much warning . . . What we are now observing is the flip side of the boom in confidence which led to so much borrowing and investment from 1985 to 1989. In those years, output growth was persistently stronger than anyone expected, initially because consumers were so willing to dip into their savings . . . As consumers threw caution to the winds companies decided it was time to invest, and the level of capital formation rose to heights which had never been seen before, relative to GDP. Companies continued to press ahead with expansion long after consumers had started to rebuild their savings and for quite a while that kept employment rising, and the economy afloat.
  It was not until the middle of 1990 that companies suddenly realised their expansion plans were not supported by the prospects for demand . . . Companies are now in the full throes of a major adjustment which is designed to correct their over-borrowed condition. And the main casualty over several years is likely to be capital spending, since productive capacity has run ahead of demand."
—Gavyn Davies, currently chief UK economist at Goldman Sachs International, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, 27 January 1991.

An accountant's charter (1989)

From the November 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

In January the government published its White Paper Working for Patients which put forward its plan for reforming the National Health Service. The leaks and rumours of the previous year were shown to be substantially correct and the government spent £1m on presenting its controversial proposals in an attempt to allay public fears, gain acceptance for the changes, and lessen the hostility which the majority of doctors and nurses had expressed.

Although the Health Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has claimed that the White Paper puts patients' interests first it reads more like an accountants charter, with its emphasis on management restructuring and financial arrangements. The White Paper aims to provide a greater collaboration between the NHS and private medicine, with tax relief on private medical insurance for the over-60s and extensions of competitive tendering which would put more services in addition to laundering, portering and catering in the hands of private firms. There would also be leasing of hospital facilities for commercial ventures such as shops and advertising.

Cheltenham Health Authority has anticipated this trend and spent £15,000 persuading firms to support hospitals in the area in return for publicity such as wards being named after them. The district general manager, Jim Hammond, has not ruled out the possibility of nurses advertising companies on their uniforms, although existing rules may prevent this from happening (Nursing Times 10 May. 1989).

Opting Out

The Health Secretary will have wide powers of appointment on the new NHS policy board and this will extend right down to the general managers of large hospitals, ensuring that pressure can be applied, if necessary, to carry out the government's policies. The government hopes to see the majority of Britain's acute hospitals opting for self-government, with the establishment of NHS hospital trusts which would allow these hospitals to set their own rates of pay and conditions of service for staff and. within limits, to borrow money.

The government knows that if rates of pay are negotiated separately in each hospital it will be difficult for the trade unions to operate effectively. At the independent hospital of St. John of God, Richmond, for example, nursing staff are faced with pay cuts of up to £3,000 a year. A skill shortage has been forecast for the 1990s, and with hospitals competing against one another this strategy could rebound if pay rates are increased in some areas to attract skilled staff, causing pay rates to spiral upwards instead of being reduced.

It is significant that the larger acute hospitals should be encouraged to opt for self-governing status as these have the greatest potential for making a profit in private medical schemes. Long-stay hospitals for the elderly, which have a relatively poor profit potential, have not been included at this stage.

Hospital trusts, formed by the hospitals opting for self-government, will remain within the NHS but will be easier to privatise in the future, in much the same way as shares were introduced into the Trustees Savings Bank. Fifty such hospitals have been chosen to receive computers to monitor patient care systems, making it easier to calculate the costs of individual patient care.

Although Kenneth Clarke has stated that the self-governing hospitals will need consultants' co-operation to be involved in management, and that the applications seeking self-governing status are voluntary, he has pledged tough action against consultants who oppose his “reforms". It would seem that the only freedom of choice on offer is the freedom to accept the government's changes.

Two-tier System

Some of the changes in Working for Patients are unobjectionable. It is proposed that appointment times be reliable and that out-patient clinics have quiet and pleasant waiting areas. But these improvements are due to the fact that the present chaotic conditions in most out-patient clinics cause 3.5 million working days to be lost by people waiting for appointments in NHS hospitals and, therefore, it makes good economic sense to improve the system. Patients are to be given rapid notification of the results of diagnostic tests, clear information and sensitive explanations of what is happening to them. These changes are long overdue improvements in current practice, but there is nothing in the White Paper to solve the staffing shortage in pathology laboratories which causes delays, or the long hours and stressful conditions endured by junior doctors which can sometimes lead to a lack of sensitivity in dealing with patients. These reforms may be no more than platitudes to make the White Paper more acceptable to the general public.

The development of a range of optional extras such as single rooms, television and a choice of meals for those who wish to pay for them will create a two-tier system with basic amenities being provided for the poor and better services being provided for the wealthy. In addition, the improvements to hospital facilities will make future privatisation a more attractive proposition for investors.

All of this is in keeping with capitalism's aim of keeping state provision to a minimum because a centrally-funded health service represents a cost against production. The wealthy are able to avoid the hardship caused by the lack of an adequate health service by purchasing private care. The burden of ill-health and caring for dependent relatives falls upon the working class, who are unable to accumulate enough from their wages to afford expensive hospital treatment.

The provision of 100 new consultants' posts in acute specialities will help to reduce waiting lists for hospital treatment but has been added to the White Paper as an afterthought and is clearly designed to "buy off” the junior doctors, who will have a slightly better chance of gaining promotion. Doctors have become increasingly militant over the hours that they work. The average weekly hours worked by junior doctors in the UK is 83 compared with 72 hours in Austria and West Germany and 48 hours in Portugal and Italy, according to the British Medical Association. It is estimated that 140 deaths a year are related to doctor fatigue in surgery alone (Which? Way to Health, April, 1988.)

The exploitation of junior doctors has been increased as a result of the 1987 circular issued by the Department of Health which required health authorities to cut the amount of money spent on locum cover to replace doctors who were sick or on holiday. It is claimed that the new posts will reduce the hours worked by junior doctors but consultants tend to create work for their staff not lessen it.

But it is not just junior doctors who are threatened: some managers have been told that their future is at stake if they do not express an interest in self-government, claims Jimmy Johnson, a consultant surgeon at Halton hospital, Cheshire [The Independent, 16 June, 1989).

Internal Market

The White Paper will raise the proportion of pay which general practitioners earn from the number of patients that they have on their lists from 46 per cent to at least 60 per cent. This will force doctors to have larger practices if they do not wish to see their incomes decline. It will also make them less willing to take elderly patients who require a lot of attention, preferring larger numbers of younger patients who are less likely to be ill. There will also be reserve powers to allow the Department of Health to control the number of doctors in contract with the NHS, which could force some doctors to take up private practice or become unemployed.

From April 1991 large general practices of at least 11,000 patients will be able to hold their own budgets with which they can acquire hospital treatment for their patients. They will be able to improve their practices with the money they save on treatments, a temptation to avoid referring patients for more expensive forms of medical or surgical intervention.

Prescription costs will be reduced by the imposition of financial penalties for doctors who over-prescribe. While it may be beneficial to reduce the amount of drugs used, there is a risk that this heavy-handed approach will encourage doctors to prescribe cheaper alternatives rather than the best medicines available.

The most controversial change is the setting up of an internal market which will allow health authorities to buy care from each other. It will permit hospitals with expertise in particular fields, such as hip replacements or heart transplants, to sell their services to both NHS and private hospitals to earn revenue. Despite the government’s protestations to the contrary, this is a backdoor method of introducing privatisation. There is also the risk that hospitals will concentrate on the services that can earn them money to the detriment of less profitable branches of medicine like the care of the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped and the elderly. High-cost treatments, except for private patients able to pay large fees, will become unviable and this will accelerate the creation of a two-tier system of care.

As expected, the White Paper contributes nothing towards preventative medicine, but this is only to be expected as the state functions to protect and facilitate capitalism, which makes profits by selling goods and services to those who can afford them; there is no profit if they are not needed in the first place. The deprivation of the wage and salary working class which is inherent in capitalism is the main cause of ill-health. While capitalism lasts health care, whether state-funded or private, reformed or otherwise, cannot cure society’s ills.

Carl Pinel

Unions advance again (1989)

From the November 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since coming to power in 1979 the Conservative government has passed some of the most class-biased laws in the history of capitalism. Five acts of Parliament have been passed with a view to weakening working class organisation in trade unions. One of them, the 1982 Employment Act, made unions liable to damages and fines and unions have already had to pay in excess of £1.5 million in court actions alone, with more than 100 separate legal actions having been brought against them (Labour Research, May 1989).

Such damages arise out of “unlawful" action but, as recent events have shown, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hold lawful strikes. Several strikes have been termed illegal after court action or been subject to legal proceedings, even after ballots had shown large majorities in favour of strike action. These class laws have also made most secondary action illegal, limited picketing to the place of work, outlawed industrial action in support of a closed shop and prevented unions from disciplining members who refuse to abide by majority strike votes.

Part of the Conservatives' appeal in 1979 was their pledge to control the unions which had become unpopular owing mostly to the way the events of the so-called winter of discontent had been portrayed in the media and which the Tories claimed had acquired the power to bring down governments and hold the country to ransom. However, if the unions were tamed by the policies of the Conservatives in the early 1980s, the question must be asked as to why is union “power" re- emerging when the same government still committed to curbing that power remains in office?

Importance of Economic Conditions
While it would be wrong to argue that the legal framework has no effect on the effectiveness of trade unions, it needs to be pointed out that the impact this can have is constrained by economic conditions. The anti-union legislation proposed by the Labour government in 1969 (In Place of Strife) and that of the Heath Conservative administration in the early 1970s (the Industrial Relations Act) both failed because the unions were in a fairly strong position as unemployment was at a low level. In the period 1969-79 the proportion of the working population organised in trade unions rose by over 10 per cent and actual membership increased from around 10.5 million to over 13 million.

There are other periods which provide evidence that the strength of trade unionism is very much influenced by the economic conditions of capitalism. In the period 1910-20 unemployment never rose above 5 per cent and prices were rising faster than wages, another factor likely to spur union organisation. Union membership increased from just over 2.5 million to well over 8 million. In the period that followed, unions suffered drastic setbacks. Between 1920-22 unemployment rose from 2 to over 14 per cent and both prices and wages slumped dramatically. Union membership declined by almost 3 million. In the period 1920-33, as a whole one of severe economic depression, union membership declined from 8,348,000 to 4,392,000.

When the Thatcher administration first came to power in 1979 unemployment had already started to rise and continued to climb even more steeply in the early 1980s while at the same time many of those in employment saw a rise in their living standards. Under these conditions union membership slumped by just over 2 million between 1979-84. It was this that was the major reason for the defeats and setbacks the unions faced in this period.

In the last year or so unemployment has begun to fall and there are even labour shortages in some industries. Under these changed circumstances workers are more ready to take industrial action. The level of industrial discontent has not yet reached the scale it did in 1979 but the causes are the same—economic. In 1979 the cause was not a militancy that arose out of thin air but the continuation (by a Labour government) of a highly unpopular incomes policy at a time of rising prices. The recent disputes are the result of various groups of workers, many in the public sector, being offered rises below the rate of inflation so that living standards are once again threatened. Also involved are attempts by employers to dismantle national bargaining structures which at least offer all the workers concerned a minimum standard of wages and conditions. Dismantle this and weaker areas can be picked off and solidarity is threatened.

Not a Spent Force
There are still those who argue that trade unions are in the process of a long-term decline. This theory is supported by reference to the defeats in recent years for groups of workers such as printers, miners and dockers who were previously thought of as the backbone of the union movement. However, such defeats resulted rather from economic and technological changes in the industries concerned. The miners suffered from a falling demand for coal whilst the strength of the printers and dockers had been undermined by technological changes which resulted in a vast reduction in the numbers employed, so weakening their economic position.

There is evidence outside the recent wave of disputes to suggest that the trade union movement is far from being a spent force. The 1987 Annual report of ACAS showed that in that year 90 per cent of all ballots went in favour of the union position with high turnouts and votes of 75 per cent quite common (Labour Research, May 1989). In the year 1987-88 40 per cent of TUC-affiliated unions reported a rise in membership. More recently, returns from USDAW and COHSE have confirmed this trend. Public opinion is also much more favourable to trade unions. A Gallup poll in September 1988 showed 69 per cent of people sampled thought unions were a good thing and a Mori poll found that 88 per cent of union members regarded unions as essential for protecting their interests (Labour Research, June 1989).

The idea that ballots would result in a vast reduction in strikes has been proved wrong. It is economic conditions that determine the level of strike activity and its effectiveness. The government, however, still believes it can prevent strikes by legal enactments and is now planning fresh legislation. New proposals on ballots for strike action are outlined in a draft code of practice. If these proposals become law unions would face further obstacles in carrying out lawful industrial action. Firstly, in the run-up to the ballot they would have to provide an account of the employer's side of the dispute. Secondly, to call a strike they would have to obtain what is termed as a substantial majority in a turnout of at least 70 per cent. Thirdly, organising a legal ballot would be an extremely lengthy and cumbersome process as so many conditions are laid down. Since the outbreak of the recent industrial unrest further restraints have been announced. These include making unions responsible for their members who take part in unofficial strikes and the outlawing of all secondary action. The complete outlawing of strikes in what are termed essential services has also been under consideration.

Such new anti-union laws, however, will not suppress industrial conflict any more than those already on the statute book have done. Conflict is inherent in the system as it is in the interests of those who own and control the means of producing and distributing goods and services to extract as much surplus from workers as possible so as to increase their profits, whilst workers need to gain as high a price for the sale of their labour power as is possible since it is their only means of existence. So, as long as capitalism exists there will be conflict and the need for trade unions.

What Strikes Reveal
Strikes reveal several things about the society we live in. While employers and politicians engage in rhetoric about democracy, their only concern is in running an authoritarian industrial system. Proof of this fact was provided in the dispute on the docks. In a ballot the workers voted by a majority of 3:1 for a strike. The port employers’ reaction to this was not to accept the vote and enter into negotiations at a national level. Instead they used the law courts to get the strike declared illegal. The union eventually got that decision reversed but by that time the ballot was no longer valid and the Docks Labour Scheme at the centre of the dispute had been repealed by Parliament. Another vote was taken which resulted in the same majority for an indefinite strike. With the highest court having declared that the strike was legal, the employers turned instead to economic coercion. Port by port new contracts involving a deterioration of employment conditions were issued and workers were given an ultimatum to accept them or be sacked with the loss of their right to fairly substantial redundancy payments. The threat worked and the strike crumbled. Capitalism has nothing to do with democracy. Employers will use unelected judges, economic coercion and even the violent apparatus of the state where necessary.

Secondly, if strikes do cause disruption, which they do, this indicates who the useful members of society are. As we have seen in recent months when those who actually do the real work on the railways stop work, the whole rail system grinds to a halt. The same happened on the London underground and London buses. The working class—all those who have to sell their ability to work, manual or mental—produce all the goods, provide all the services and administer society from top to bottom.

What would have happened if Sir Robert Reid and the British Rail Board had gone on strike? The answer is quite simply that it would not have affected a single train. If Thatcher, Kinnock, all their followers in Parliament, the whole of the capitalist class and all the royal family went on strike, they would have to go round the whole country telling everybody they had stopped "work” for us to be any the wiser. These people make no useful contribution to society. The employers and their representatives need the working class as without us the whole system would grind to a halt. But we don't need them.

The message socialists have is quite simple. The producers and providers of services form an overwhelming majority of the world's population, so why do we put up with employers and politicians controlling our lives and telling us what we can and cannot have? Why do we accept the fact that the world is owned and controlled by a tiny minority of private and state capitalists?

Workers all over the world have considerable power if we unite and it is about time we organised not just in a defensive struggle over wages and conditions, necessary though this is while capitalism exists, but to take control of the Earth's resources. That end is worth organising and struggling for and we should not settle for anything less.

Ray Carr

The Tories and the closed shop (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Government's proposals for amending the law on the closed shop and other trade union matters will not be presented to Parliament until later in the year. In the meantime a ‘consultative’ document has been issued for discussion with the CBI and the TUC. Its suggestions on the closed shop closely follow the lines taken by the Secretary of State for Employment, James Prior, in an interview given to the Sunday Telegraph before the election — a secret ballot before the closed shop is introduced; a worker to have the right to refuse to join a union on grounds of deeply held personal conviction; dismissal for refusal to join a union to be ‘unfair dismissal’ against which he or she can appeal; and right of appeal to the High Court for damages against a union which unfairly refuses a union card.

What is interesting about this is its indication of how the Tories have changed their attitude on the closed shop (and on other trade union issues) away from their earlier sweeping condemnation.
This had already become evident in the closed shop clauses of the Tory Industrial Relations Act 1971 and in their attitude at the October 1974 general election, after the Labour government had repealed most of the Act’s provisions and enacted the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 in its place. The October 1974 Tory election programme announced that if they won the election they would not re-introduce their 1971 Act but would “accept the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act introduced by the present government and sensibly amended by Parliament as the basis for the law on trade union organisation”.

Change of Attitude
Prior in his interview stressed this change of attitude. While saying that new Tory legislation would “protect workers from dismissal because they refuse to join a union operating a closed shop”, he went on to reject demands from some of his own party for the complete banning of the closed shop.

  I am absolutely convinced that that would be the wrong way to proceed. It would be flying in the face of the evidence of the past few years of how industry works. Most firms want it because they are dealing with one group representing the whole work force. We are right to say that the closed shop is here to stay but we can modify it by law. (Sunday Telegraph 18 February 1979)

Mr. Prior’s line is the one taken in the Report of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions 1968. They rejected the idea of making the closed shop illegal on the grounds, among others, that such a law could not be made effective. This was shown while the 1971 Tory Act was in operation; many illegal closed shop arrangements continued to operate on the basis of an ‘understanding’ between employers and unions.

But the 1971 Act itself, while it laid down the principle that every worker should have the legal right to join a union or not to join a union, nevertheless provided for the establishment of certain forms of the closed shop including ‘agency shop’ agreements between unions and employers which (after a ballot) make union membership part of the terms and conditions of employment.

The clause about a worker’s right to refuse to join a union on ‘conscientious’ grounds was taken over by the Tories from the Labour government’s 1969 policy statement In Place Of Strife. This proposed that such workers be allowed to pay contributions to a charity instead of to the union, and if dismissed for not joining the union were to be entitled to compensation along with other workers ‘unfairly’ dismissed.

New Problem
Since the last legislation on the closed shop, a new problem has arisen. A railway worker sacked by British Rail for refusing to join a union took his case to the European Commission of Human Rights, claiming that “the closed shop laws violate fundamental freedoms”. The Tory Solicitor-General has attended the court but it has not been disclosed what submissions he made. If the outcome of the case is that the Commissioner rules in favour of the sacked worker being entitled to compensation and not to reinstatement, it would present no particular difficulty to Prior in his new legislation.

An early form of the closed shop was in the skilled craft occupations, in which workers had to serve apprenticeship before being regarded as qualified. A frequent dispute between the unions and employers was about the number of apprentices, the employers seeking to increase the number and the unions to restrict it.

Later the closed shop took other forms and became more widespread as the number of trade unions multiplied, including the more common form in which non-members can be employed but then have to join a union. The Royal Commission’s report estimated that two-fifths of trade union members were covered by closed shop agreements or ‘understandings’. The number has increased since 1968.

As far as the law is concerned, the issue came up half a century ago through the action of local councils under Labour Party control agreeing with the unions to employ only trade union members. This was prohibited by the Tory Trade Disputes Act 1927, which the Labour Party repealed in 1946.

One of the consequences of compulsory union membership is that workers who refuse to belong to a union, or who come into conflict with their union, may lose their jobs. In May 1978 machine minders who refused to return to work at The Observer were threatened by the National Graphical Association with disciplinary proceedings.

  Not only would other members of their union be summoned to do their work but they would also lose all casual employment in Fleet Street, which in some cases could mean entire loss of livelihood . . . (The Times 20 May 1978)

In a similar situation at British Leyland, members of the AEU on unofficial strike were threatened with expulsion and ordered to give assurances to return to work.

   If these assurances arc not received, the men will lose their jobs under Leyland’s closed shop agreement. (Daily Mail 4 September 1978)

In his interview in February last, Prior made a point of defending the action of the National Graphical Association in taking disciplinary action against its members on unofficial strike.

It only needs to be added that whatever may seem to be the advantages of compulsory trade union membership imposed by the union or the employer, the interests of the working class are best served by seeking to expand union membership on a voluntary basis only.

Edgar Hardcastle

Promises (1987)

From the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Anyone's better than that bloody woman", is a phrase that is often heard. It will be used a lot more in the coming months with the prospect of a general election, where Thatcher's Conservative party will be seeking another five-year term to run British capitalism. The argument behind the disgust is that the Tories are largely responsible for the many problems people in this country are facing, and that, despite the many inadequacies of Labour and the Alliance, anything has to be an improvement on Thatcher.

All shades of political opinion will be asking people to cast negative' votes. Most of the so-called left-wing parties will be urging you to vote Labour — supposedly the mass party of the working-class' — despite the fact that they spend much of their time criticising the Labour Party. Some people in the Communist Party will call for a broad anti-Thatcher alliance, seeing Thatcherism as a new, worse form of Tory rule. The tactical voters, people who vote for someone they disagree with to keep out someone they dislike even more, will be out in force.

The argument works the other way as well. Thatcher and Tebbit will be issuing stern warnings about how the opposition will ruin the economy and leave the nation defenceless. Disillusioned Tory voters will be warned not to vote for the Alliance and let Labour in by the back door. The scare stories the government put out will be designed to focus attention away from their own numerous shortcomings.

Life for most people in the last seven-and-a-half years of Conservative rule has certainly been no bed of roses. Before she was elected in 1979. Thatcher made a big deal about the doubling of unemployment under the last Labour government. Pictures were distributed of a long queue outside a dole office with the caption. "Labour Isn't Working". The bitter irony is that unemployment hasn't doubled under the Tories — it's trebled. The frustration and anger people feel at the humiliation of the dole queue can only intensify when the government apparently shows no concern for their plight. The poverty of existing on a giro can only feel worse when ministers show righteous indignation at the supposed large number of social security scroungers.

More recently the Tories have been worried that their uncaring image may be losing them votes. Lord Young, the (un)employment secretary, has been told to make the right kind of noises about caring, and to present the various cheap labour schemes, like YTS. as being indicative of the government's concern. This real social security scrounger is obviously in a position and of the right social background to sympathise with someone getting £30 a week supplementary benefit.

The Thatcher government has made cuts in health and education and the number of new houses being built has been drastically reduced, despite the fact that thousands of people are homeless and thousands of building workers are unemployed. In view of the poverty workers endure, these cuts seem callous, although welfare can never eliminate the basic impoverishment of working-class life in capitalism

The Tories have passed several laws designed to weaken the trade unions. They have made it harder for workers to go on strike, and made the unions open to court action if they don't follow certain procedures for striking. They have also 'toughened up' the law and eroded many of the civil liberties that people 'enjoyed'.

Thatcher's 'Iron Lady' image, her projection as a strong leader, also worries many people, who fear her enthusiasm for nuclear weapons. Her support for the American bombing of Libya last year plus the Falklands War makes her seem a dangerous warmonger. She and her government are certainly maintaining the long tradition of conservatism by endorsing the slaughter of millions of workers in the interests of British capitalism.

The Conservatives have shown once again that they stand for the dominance of the privileged few, the small number of people who effectively own and control this country. It may seem tempting to vote for some other party just to get them out — until you consider the alternatives.

The main alternative is the Labour Party. Many people still see them as the party of the working people, a party out for a fairer society which will tackle the problems mentioned above. A brief look at what the Labour Party does when it is in power shows that they are no different to the Tories.

The Labour Party makes a great noise about the evils of unemployment and how it is going to get people back to work. At the 1983 election they claimed that they would cut the dole queues to under a million in five years. However, this was seen to be too wild and extravagant, so they now claim they will reduce unemployment by one million in two years. However, every previous Labour government has left office with a higher level of unemployment than it faced when it entered office. The claim that Labour is the party to tackle unemployment is a lie. The level may rise or fall but it is beyond the power of any government to affect it significantly.

Despite its current opposition to the cuts in services the last Labour government also introduced drastic cuts in the health and social services and in education. It was also willing to impose wage restraint and break strikes, hardly the actions of a party anxious to redistribute wealth and create a fairer society. Its current concern with tackling poverty can also be seen for the lie that it is.

It is important to contrast what Labour (or any other party) say when they are in opposition, hunting for votes, and when they are in power, having to act in the only way they can. in the interests of capital. The most obnoxious and deadly contradiction between what Labour says and does is in the sphere of war and peace.

The Labour Party claims that it is the party of peace, and has promised to get rid of nuclear weapons and rely on conventional forces. These so-called conventional weapons have been used in wars where millions have been killed, wars which the Labour Party supported. They are prepared, just like the Tories, to use armed might to protect the interests of capitalism, the usual reason why wars are fought.

Apart from the rhetoric there is no real difference between Labour and the Tories. The argument that you should vote for one rather than the other is untenable. The Liberal/SDP alliance claim to be a real alternative, or at least they try to present themselves as a nice bunch of people, much more decent than the rotten old parties. The leaders of the SDP were senior ministers in the last Labour government. a regime they only now find convenient to criticise. Their objection to the other parties cannot be very deeply felt as they are continually going on about the conditions necessary for entering into a coalition with them in a 'hung' parliament (where there is no overall majority, not the more attractive meaning).

The Liberals can present themselves as political virgins, uncorrupted by power. They have not been in office since the days when Lloyd George was Prime Minister and thousands of troops were being sent to their deaths in the trenches of World War One. From 1977-79 they kept the last Labour government in power. David Steel said they were doing it to prevent the worst excesses of Labour. These excesses obviously did not include the wage cuts imposed and the strikes broken by troops in this period.

Whether the politicians seeking your votes are really committed to changing things for the better, or whether they are just power-hungry careerists is really irrelevant. Once they get into power they have to administer the system in the only way it can be run — against the interests of the vast majority, the working-class. Capitalism is a system of society where the means of life are owned by a small minority, and the majority of people have to work for them in return for a wage or a salary. This basic class division means that workers have only a limited access to society's wealth, that their needs must constantly be denied in the interests of profit.

Attempts to work within the system to make things fairer, to reform away the problems people have, ignore this harsh reality. A society based on the exploitation of the majority can never work in the interests of that majority, no matter how caring or well-meaning the reformers might be. Unemployment, poverty, bad housing and all these other problems are inevitable in this system.

The fact that the main parties work within these limitations results in the narrow, limited political debate that currently prevails. So we are confronted with arguments about the level of unemployment, but not why — in a world of potential abundance — people are poor as a result of class division; and arguments about how best to defend a country, not why workers should be prepared to lay down their lives defending their masters' interests.

The only real alternative is the Socialist alternative, a world of common ownership and democratic control, where everything on and in the earth is used solely to satisfy human needs, where people take control of their own lives. Arguments about 'doing something now', about choosing the lesser of the evils on offer, serve only to delay the achievement of Socialism, to prolong the life of this miserable society.

To achieve Socialism, workers must understand and desire it. and reject the insulting nonsense put out by these other parties. We must decide to work and vote for something really worth having, and not get lost in the muddy waters of capitalist politics, sifting through the shit for something worth voting for. At the next election, you will, as always, be faced with two alternatives: voting for Capitalism or Socialism. Make your choice!

Ian Ratcliffe