News in Review: Two classes (1963)

The News in Review column from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

Two classes

We are still, the government anxiously assured the voters in the recent by-elections, living in the Age of Affluence. Very well. As the Conservatives promise that their new government will bring in a more vital, more prosperous Britain, as the Labour Party bid for our votes with a vision of this country as a vast test-tube, what is the latest from the poverty and riches front?

The Co-operative Permanent Building Society reported that half the people who buy homes through them earn less than twenty pounds a week and that a quarter earn less than sixteen pounds a week. Two-thirds of the houses bought through the Co-op. cost less than £3,000. Anyone who has lowered himself into the perilous pit of working class house ownership will appreciate what these figures mean in terms of size and quality of houses and of struggle to pay off the loan on them. House owners are supposed to be among the most affluent of the working class but the Co-op's report shows that none of them live in a castle and that buying a house relieves nobody of the usual working class battle to get by.

Housing of another sort cropped in one more of those conferences—this time of the National Housing and Town Planning Council. Dr. Eric M. Sigsworth, lecturer in economic history at the University of York, said that there will be three million unfit houses or slums in this country by 1973. Now this is after the promised speed up in slum clearance. Perhaps they would clear more if they slowed down?

Many workers think that the road out of poverty, bad housing and the like, is one of loyal obedience to their employer. Among other firms, the Ford Motor Company have encouraged this idea. They give silver and gold badges to the men who have done long service, and who have kept essential machinery going when there was a strike on. They also give these men certain staff and pension privileges. But Fords are now in the midst of another efficiency drive and what account does that take of loyalty? The drive has meant that four of the gold and silver badge men have been sent back to the factory floor, which means that they have been demoted and that they have lost their privileges. If they did not like the way the company was repaying their long service, the lour men could have accepted dismissal. Which must have caused some hard, rueful, thinking in the loyal heads of Dagenham.

Everything very normal, in other words, for the working class. Nothing changing, either, for their social betters. The will of Sir George Usher, an industrialist who died last October, showed that he was worth over £2 million at the end of his life. Each of his sons inherited over a million pounds which must have come from somebody's hard work, but not theirs.

The Finance Accounts for the United Kingdom 1962-3 showed that it is still a paying business to be a figurehead for British capitalism. Annuities paid to the Royal Family amounted to £166,000 during the year. Not bad for reading out speeches which somebody else has written for you, shaking hands and generally doing as you are told.

Will the household budgets of any readers of the Socialist Standard be affected by the increase in the fees of Eton? Anyway, it is instructive to hear about them and to ask whether every child really has the equal chance in education the politicians are always promising. Eton has gone up to £554 a year. If you can't run to that you can try for Harrow or Winchester (both £498) or Charterhouse (£492). Or there is always the local Council Primary, which costs a little less and has other differences besides.

Getting to know you

It is a common fallacy that a Minister who is familiar with the problems which his department has to deal with is able to solve them that much more easily. And, of course, it gives a boost to people's morale if a Minister appears in their midst, looks at their conditions and clicks his tongue in sympathy. They forget that when he gets back to Whitehall he is so often quite powerless to do anything about the conditions.

So it has come about that successive Ministers of Housing have always made an early tour of the worst of the slums as if looking at them would make the slums go away instead of increasing, as they in fact do. And so it was that Lord Hailsham (as he then was), when he was put in charge of the unemployment problem in the North East, went straight off to tour the area—cloth cap and all. But any personal experience which Hailsham might have gained about the North East was wasted, because Douglas-Home replaced him with Edward Heath.

Now Mr. Heath is supposed to be a very astute man. Did he, then, abandon the pretence about the usefulness of a personal appearance? One of his first appointments was to fly off to the North East to see for himself what unemployed men and their families, and idle shipyards and factories, look like.

Labour and the TSR2

One of the latest babies of British capitalism, proudly wheeled out by its doting parents, is the TSR-2.

This aircraft, it is claimed, can do almost anything by way of airborne destruction. In its ability to perform the most horrifying deeds, in the range of its destructive power, in its diabolical versatility, the TSR-2 is something like a precocious, delinquent child.

These horrors are going to cost something like a couple of million pounds each. Commenting on this, Mr. Denis Healey, the Labour M.P. (who put the cost at £20 million each), asked what this sum represented in terms of schools, hospitals, and so on. This is a common complaint, whenever the amount of money which capitalism spends upon weapons is discussed. Yet what do the Healeys expect? Capitalism has a list of priorities to which it allocates its resources and human comfort is not near the top of it. This was as true under the Labour government which Mr. Healey supported as under the Tory one which he attacks.

Indeed, Mr. Healey showed how small are the differences between his own party and the Tories on the issue of armaments when he went on to say that the TSR-2 is a waste of money, which could better be spent on military helicopters and other transport aircraft and on the Buccaneer, a naval strike ’plane which is already in service.

The best, then, that the Labour Party offers us on the matter of armaments policy is to look after the purse strings more carefully than the Conservatives have done. They will try to make sure that every penny the British ruling class spend on their weapons gets value for money.

And perhaps they will succeed. Perhaps, under Labour, there will be no more Blue Streak fiascos. British capitalism will still have fearfully destructive armaments, the waste of human knowledge and resources will go on, but it will all be presided over by a Labour M mister of Defence who will make sure that it is done at the market price and not a penny over. Does this encourage us to believe the hypocritical Labour claim to stand for peace and progress? It does not.

Abroad

Guiana must wait

It was by something like a slick trick that Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandys brought the recent British Guiana constitutional conference, which was supposed to discuss ways of granting the colony independence, to a close.

The British government has rejected the idea of early independence for British Guiana. Instead, another conference will take place after fresh elections next year. The significant thing about the election is that they will be run on a proportional representation scheme which will probably break up the present party groupings. At the last elections the Peoples' Progressive Party, led by Doctor Jagan, got 43 per cent. of the votes, but 60 per cent. of the seats, while the opposition Peoples' National Congress, with 41.5 per cent. of the votes, got just over 36 per cent. of the seats.

This sort of result is common in the direct electoral system which British Guiana, and this country, has worked to. The fact that Mr. Sandys thinks that proportional representation is a good idea for British Guiana does not mean that he is thinking about advocating the same thing for Great Britain. The two big British parties do too well out of the present system for that.

The latest Sandys plan was, bluntly, a tongue-in-the-cheek trick lo impose Whitehall's own wishes upon British Guyana. Dr. Jagan described it as “ dastardly and unprincipled," which is just the expression which other people might have used about the Doctor's own action last year, when he called in British troops to suppress a rising in the colony.

In spite of Jagan's fulminating, the people of British Guiana seemed to have taken the news quietly. It would be good news indeed if this meant that they have come to understand that capitalism is full of diplomatic double-crossing and that in any case the Guianese working people have no more to hope for from independence than they had under British rule.

Sadly, this is unlikely at the present.

Jews in Russia

From the Soviet Union comes more indications of the recent trend there of persecution of the Jews.

The latest example comes in the October 20 edition of Izvestia which reports, and comments, upon the alleged crimes of a number of men but most prominently upon two called Shakerman and Roifman, both of whom are Jews.

These men are accused of embezzlement and bribery, of setting up a profitable racket in the produce of State factories and farms. The full story reminds us of the vast enterprise of Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22; they are said to nave been running a knitwear factory which embezzled machinery and with wool which they had diverted from collective farms. The produce, say the prosecution, was sold on the black market.

Izvestia is furious about these allegations, and raves that the men had amassed thirty million roubles in cash and a hundredweight of gold, diamonds and platinum. The paper has also assumed that the accused are guilty before their trial is complete.

Whether these men are criminals or not, there is mounting evidence of a campaign in Russia to use the Jews as scapegoats to excuse the country’s recent economic difficulties. This is a nasty subterfuge which has often been used in the past. Ignorant workers who are suffering the brunt of capitalism's problems are usually only too ready to blame some racial or religious minority for their troubles.

There need, then, be no surprise that this is happening in Russia. In any case, how is it that economic crimes arc possible in a country which is supposed to be Socialist? How can a country where everyone stands equally offer the chance for a criminal to amass enormous wealth while the rest of the people suffer hunger and other hardships? How can a society where wealth is owned in common have any sort of a market, black or white?

It is impossible to answer these questions, and to explain anti-Semitism in Russia, unless we face the facts. The Soviet Union is not a Socialist country—even supposing that such a thing as Socialism in one country were possible. It is a capitalist country and one where precious little democracy exists at that.

When we have got that straight, every thing else about the USSR falls neatly into place.

Business

Investment, profit, wages

The big mergers in Top Industry continue. Imperial Chemical Industries, who last May put up £10 million with Courtaulds to finance the acquisition of Tootal, have now lashed out another £13 million on Viyella International Ltd. Viyella have interests in spinning, weaving, dyeing and printing.

Viyella were not planning on any big capital investment in the near future but will obviously be able to use ICI’s money. ICI are probably interested in Viyella’s use of synthetic fibres, which now account for about half of its business. Industry is always seeking for ways of safeguarding its interests, but capitalism upsets its plans. Even a giant like ICI is no exception to this.

J. Lyons & Co. Ltd., the teashop firm, is another in the merger field. Its latest venture is in frozen food, the home market for which is estimated to be worth about 72 million a year.

Lyons are tying up their frozen food branch (Frood) with that of Associated Fisheries (Eskimo) and Union International (Fropax). This merger, it is hoped, will result in a combine which will initially command 16 per cent. of the market.

The move is presumably aimed against Unilever’s Birds Eye group, which at present claims two-thirds of the British retail market.

Capitalism is described, by its defenders. as an efficient social system. Yet it would be dillicult for them to find anything efficient or beneficial in the waste of the continual war which rival companies must carry on against each other over the carve up of a market.

The object of it all is, of course, bigger and bigger profits. A company which has succeeded in this past many expectations is Marks and Spencers, which since the war has been transformed from a rather dull chain store group into a bright, hard selling, and very profitable, concern. The very epitome, with its staff welfare schemes and its split second, split penny operation, of a “progressive’’ capitalist company.

The sales of M&S rose to £95.5 millions in the six months up to September this year. This was a record and with the Christmas rush to come, sales are expected to reach £200 million for the year —for the first time in the company’s history. To mark the occasion, shareholders got an extra 1¼ per cent, on their interim dividend.

And what about the people who make these sales, and mergers, and profits, possible? What do they get out of it? The wages of the working class are a constant worry to their employers, for the simple reason that higher wages mean lower profits, and vice versa.

That is why governments are always trying to control wages. Usually this control is described by a smooth phrase which is meant to persuade the workers that their wages are not being held down, and that nobody is trying to do so. Some industrialists, although they recognise their need for wage restraint, think that it should be done more subtly than has been the case in the past. This is what Lord Robens, Chairman of the National Coal Board, said on the subject when he spoke at last month’s Annual Conference of the Institute of Directors:

Whether we like it or not, the most sensitive spot in all our industrial relations is the size of Friday’s pay packet. That is why I deplore the continual use since the war of such phrases as "wage restraint,” "wage freeze,” and "pay pause" . . . .

A national productivity drive hasn't a hope of success if it is accompanied by phrases like that.

Their very sound puts a chill down a workman’s spine and they merely create ill-feeling and bitterness between management and men . . . 

Some sort of "guiding light” is essential if we are to rationalise the present chaos of wages settlement.

Inevitably, we must ask whether Lord Robens, when he was an M.P. supporting the 1945-51 Labour government—and later a member of that government—ever expressed so freely his dislike of the term ‘‘wage freeze”. He had plenty of chances too; it was the Labour government which invented it. Presumably, in the days when the Labour government was fighting to check wages, and using every euphemism in the book to do so, Alf Robens preferred to hold his peace.

Blogger's Note:

The aforementioned novel, Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, was reviewed in the November 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard by 'Ivan' (Ralph Critchfield).

The Passing Show: Agitators (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Agitators

It has been an accepted ruling-class myth for a long time now that strikes are caused by people called agitators. Whenever industrial trouble breaks out, the management’s bloodhounds set out to track down “the agitators”, the sinister background figures who are at the bottom of it all. The papers try to convince us that the workers concerned are perfectly happy with whatever wages and conditions the management sees fit to grant them, and that they would work away at their benches making ever greater profits for their masters without a single complaint — were it not for “the agitators". This must be one of the least convincing theories ever produced, even by a ruling class. It received another severe blow recently, at Ford’s Dagenham works. Here, as at many other factories, these powerful agitators who bring the men out on strike when they don’t really want to stop work are usually identified as the shop stewards. At the end of May the Ford Motor Company rejected outright a pay claim, not offering even sixpence a week more. So the shop stewards, ”the agitators”, called a one-day token strike in protest. But the men simply turned down this proposal, and continued work.

With the band in front

This underlined still further the obvious fact that workers come out on strike when they want to come out on strike, and not merely at the behest of agitators. No agitator in the world could make men strike if they didn't want to. Shop stewards, men who serve on strike committees, and so on, simply march with the band in front. Children love to run to the head of processions, and march in front of them, to pretend that they are the leaders. But if the band turns off down a side street, the “leader” has to go with it or be left marching on his own, a general without an army. And there is no sadder sight than that.

All day and every day

We are often treated in the press to learned articles about “the real reasons” for the trouble at any industrial plant where there have been a number of stoppages. But there is no need to go beyond the fact that the workers are exploited, plus the methods adopted by managements to screw out ever more surplus value. It is now agreed by almost everybody that the tasks which the workers have to do to stay alive are boring, monotonous, repetitive, soul-destroying, and offer no opportunity whatever for them to satisfy their basic human creative instincts, their need to do a job in which they can take a pride. The correspondent of the Observer (3-6-62) quoted one of the men at Dagenham:

The monotony of the work is another thing that gets you down. You take the Anglia handbrake. Putting it in involves turning four screws, 30 handbrakes an hour, all day and every day.

This particular job consists of putting in 120 screws every hour in every working day throughout the foreseeable future. The worker has to do every two minutes exactly what he did in the last two minutes. These newspaper articles, surely, are tackling the problem from the wrong angle. What causes astonishment to the impartial observer is not that there should be so much trouble at Ford’s, but that there should be so little elsewhere.

Salvation of souls

There is so little beauty in the lives of people living under capitalism, and such a large proportion of the few beautiful buildings remaining to us from earlier ages is destroyed every time we have a war, that one would think what we have is worth preserving. But some authorities in the Church of England believe otherwise, Not long ago the President of the Society of Antiquaries of London was protesting that the Chancellor of the Diocese of Ely had decided to demolish three ancient parish churches — Denton, built largely in the seventeenth century, and Woolley and Islington (Norfolk) which are mediaeval. In reply to this protest, a reverend gentleman from Worcester said that the purpose of the Church “is the salvation of souls and not the provision and upkeep of museums and ancient monuments.”

It is as if the worshippers of Athena Parthenos decided to knock down the Parthenon which was built as a temple for Athena, on the grounds that nobody now wants to pray to Athena in it—which of course nobody does. The fact that a particular superstition was once practised in a particular building doesn't make it any the less beautiful, but obviously the diocese of Ely sets more store upon the preservation of superstition than of beauty.

Cloisters

A similar instance of the benefits of private ownership is the case of William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish cloisters. Hearst, it appears, never even saw the cloisters, which dated from the twelfth century; but he heard that the monks in a remote part of Spain were prepared to sell their cloisters, so he sent along one of his employees to buy them. He then had to assuage the anger of the local villagers (real or pretended) at the removal of this relic by further large payments to them. Next he hired workmen to dismantle the cloisters stone by stone, had a sawmill built to make the cases to pack the stones in, and then had an extra twenty-one miles of railway constructed to transport the stones when they had been packed. They were taken all the way to Hearst’s gigantic fake castle at San Simeon in the United States, and there stored in enormous warehouses along with other art treasures which Hearst had bought from every corner of the world. This vast collection, not even unpacked, was still there when Hearst died years later.

Amber fountains

The next actor in this tragic farce is George Huntingdon Hartford II, an American multi-millionaire who has bought Hog Island near Nassau in the Bahamas, re-christened it Paradise Island, and is now at a cost of twenty-five million dollars turning it into a fantastically luxurious kind of Super-Cinerama playground for other multi-millionaires. A double room at the Ocean Club is said 'continued bottom left to cost up to £50 a day. It is not yet finished. Above the Ocean Club a “gently rising succession of terraces" is to be constructed, and at the summit, above the illuminated swimming pool, the purple creepers and the amber fountains, there will be erected, and floodlit, William Randolph Hearst’s twelfth-century Spanish cloisters. Huntingdon Hartford bought it. complete with packing-cases, from Hearst’s estate. But there is one small fly in the ointment. The plans for the cloister cannot now be found, and no-one knows how the stones are supposed to go together.

It seems that everything that capitalism touches, it defiles.

Alwyn Edgar

So They Say: The Reason Why (1977)

The So They Say Column from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Reason Why

A bewildered assistant is no assistant at all; the Conservatives have got one of theirs, Margot Lawrence, “flummoxed”. Judging by her contribution to the columns of the Daily Telegraph on the 30th August, this is probably no difficult achievement in any event. She became concerned to clarify the “highly emotive phrase” “production for use, not profit”, which some dastardly Socialists argue from time to time. Writing under the title “Isn’t production for profit?” she is puzzled why the Conservatives are “failing to use the strongest argument in their own book”:

That production for use is production for profit, the two are intertwined and inseparable.

Notwithstanding Margot Lawrence’s view that “almost all people do have enough money for what they really need”, we suggest that one of the reasons the rest of the Conservative Party does not argue along the lines she proposes is that such a contention could not be sustained.

Production in capitalist society is carried on because the owners of the means of production realize a profit from selling their commodities. All of these commodities are considered useful by the purchaser, whether they be the lawn-mowers used as an illustration in the article or weapons of mass destruction used in war. When production in certain fields would be unprofitable however, no owner will advance capital for such production. Vast numbers of the world’s population do not starve because food would not be “useful”, they starve because it is unprofitable to feed them.

When the Socialist says “production for use”, he is saying: abandon the form of society in which society’s needs are assessed in terms of the minority’s requirement for profit.

Problems and . . . More Problems

We give below two excerpts from newspapers which illustrate this particular point. Capitalism has an apparently uncanny ability to produce social problems. A study of the foundations on which it is based show in fact that it cannot fail to do otherwise. Although it would be naive to suggest that Socialist society will not face problems, we will be able to devote our fullest efforts towards solving them and preventing new problems from arising.

In capitalism we have surely reached a pinnacle of absurdity when the means are available to solve, for instance, the problem of starvation, but the possible avenues for tackling the first problem, through only partial application, create a “problem” of precisely the opposite nature. We are sometimes asked what Socialism will be like: we can predict now that the newspapers of Socialism will not need to carry items like these.

The Community [EECJ is being chased by an ever-increasing milk surplus. It is about to operate what is described in the jargon of Brussels as a “corresponsibility levy”, in other words a penalty against farmers for producing too much milk . . . Milk is a tiresome commodity for the EEC to handle since it is expensive to store and difficult to sell to anybody else . . . the official intervention stores are often the only outlet for it.

The Times, 5th September 77

Asia’s major hope for future development, the “green revolution”, is now failing to keep pace with the rapid growth ir. population, and this will condemn a quarter of mankind to continued poverty,, hunger, malnutrition and unemployment.

The Times, 6th September 77

First Things First

The well known Conservative bull-frog, Reginald Maudling, has been croaking on the difficulties faced by industrialists because of the governing consideration of profitability. The aforementioned Margot Lawrence would do well to note his passionate comments. Mr. Maudling, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, had this to say in a published letter:

With the possible exception of the strike-ridden motor car industry, it seems to me clear that potential supply is far greater than existing demand. Maybe potential supply has been reduced by discouraging investment, but there is no doubt whatsoever from every bit of evidence that emerges from industry, that what is holding back supply at the moment is not capacity, but inadequate demand.

The Times, 2nd September 77

He was writing a week before Ford Motor Company’s decision to build an £180m engine plant in South Wales, but even so his comments do not seem so wide of the mark, as Ford is making it clear “that the new plant did not point to plans for a huge increase in total car production”.

The problem of “inadequate demand" seems an odd one at first glance. Can this be anything other than a campaign of stubbornness by members of the working class? Why, at the present moment the majority are forced to live in circumstances where the watchword is Cheapness; one-and-a-half million of the blighters are out of work entirely. You would think they were able to make plenty of “adequate” demands for the sake of the frustrated industrialists. “Ah, but wait a minute,” will say the latter. "They may have plenty of demands —but have they got the money to go with them?”

Miracle Man

It may not be the second coming, but it is a present-day equivalent. When the Associated Television Corporation began making their fiction-film Jesus of Nazareth, we recall Lew Grade, the group chairman and chief executive, muttering about it being made because it would be meaningful, important and so on. Some may have mistakenly imagined these comments related to the content of the film.

Zeffirelli’s majestic production of ‘Jesus of Nazareth" was first shown in this country on Palm Sunday, 3rd April 1977. It achieved immediate success both at home and abroad. In Britain, the audiences amounted to 21 million viewers; in the USA to over 91 million and in Italy 84 per cent saw the film. I have no hesitation in saying that this film, representing ATV's largest single film-production investment, will prove an asset of inestimable wealth to the company and provide a valuable annuity over the years to come.

The Times 8th September 1977

Lord Grade (as he is now called) had taken a full page advertisement to publicise ATV’s results. Although he refers to the “inestimable wealth” resulting from the film, share-holders like to have their information in more precise terms.

The results speak from themselves. The pre-tax profit figure is £11,161,000, the highest in the 22 years history of the company, and shows an increase of 81 per cent over 1976.

Thus we learn, in the words of the good book, exactly what it shall profit a man.

Tony D'Arcy

British Motor Car Industry (1967)

From the October 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Professor Buchanan once described cars as “adored” by their owners— a sharp comment on the fact that, of all the symbols of working class life in the Sixties, few are the object of such pride and care as the motor car.

Behind this rather neurotic pride, which gives the car sellers their chance, there often lies something less agreeable. Tests carried out by the Consumers’ Association regularly confirm the disappointment experienced by many owners of new cars. Here are some typical comments, from the CA magazine Which? with the price of the car: 

“persistent engine oil leaks” (£998) 

“failure of exhaust system” (£1048) 

“left wheel badly out of balance and slightly buckled” (£609) 

One British car, costing £789, had no fewer than thirty two faults on delivery three of which, said CA, were “probably serious”.

The plain fact is that, as the motor industry has developed greater combines, and as it has intensified the methods of mass production, many of its quality standards have declined in ways which cannot be compensated for by greater technical knowledge and some improved materials. Very few modern cars, for example, have the sort of chassis, bodywork or upholstery to compare with a pre-war model.

The reason is that, just like any other industry, the car firms are chasing their economic tails. They have tens of millions of pounds invested in their production lines and to get a return on this they have to see the cars streaming out of the factory. A Rootes car takes about two and a half hours to build once the basic components are gathered together; Fords of Britain makes about three thousand vehicles a day. As a rough guide, compare this to the fact that at Rolls Royce they will take between two and three months to build a car, and at Jaguar ten weeks.

The Ford Motor Company says all that needs to be said, by way of explanation of this difference:

Quality and service problems. Industry spends vast amounts in trying to cope with these, but mass production and price competition make them inevitable to some extent.” (Notes On British Motor Industry)

What sort of industry is it, which stands behind the mass-produced dream and which can so frankly confess that quality problems are inevitable? About a million men are engaged in the manufacture, sale and service of vehicles in the U.K., about 600,000 of them in manufacture. The car industry is the top British exporting industry, sending out about £750 million worth a year and is important also on the home market; more than two thirds of the national hire purchase debt is for cars.

In the main the industry consists of five big firms—British Motor Holdings (BMH); Ford; Vauxhall; Rootes; Standard Triumph. (Figure One shows the standing of these companies in the British market.) This Big Five account for almost the entire British production of cars ; up to just over a year ago the independent Rover and Jaguar were responsible for almost three per cent of sales but now both these firms have joined one of the big combines. Mergers are now an established part of the industry ; the big firms often take over one or other of their suppliers, or of their rivals, heaping one merger upon another into a massive and intricate combine. (Figure Two shows something of the set-up at B.M.H.)

The car industry’s work is in some part a matter of assembling components which have been produced outside, some by big concerns (electrical equipment by Lucas, propellor shafts by Hardy-Spicer) and some by small family firms (leather by Connolly Bros., cylinder head studs by M.V. Engineering). The economics of mass production force the car firms to store the very minimum of components; B.M.H. at Longbridge hold at most a day’s stock of major production items, Rootes enough trimmed and painted bodies for only one shift. This makes the industry heavily reliant on the dependability of its suppliers—and exceedingly vulnerable to labour disputes.

Strikes are another of the car firms’ big problems. Persistent labour trouble at Ford’s have caused two official inquiries into staff relations there—by Lord Cameron in 1957 and by Mr. D. T. Jack in 1963. Both investigations went over the same ground but neither did the impossible ; neither produced a solution to the problems it was investigating.

But one thing the inquiries did make clear and that was the government’s concern at the importance of the car industry to the economy of British capitalism. When Dagenham sneezes, it is said, the British economy will catch a cold. At the moment Dagenham, and all the other car towns, are exhibiting the symptoms of a prolonged sickness.

In 1966, Vauxhall’s pre-tax profits were £3,666,898—compared to £17,735,372 the year before. In the same period, Ford’s profits before tax fell from £8.9 million to £7.4 million. Most spectacular of them all B.M.H., whose accounting year is timed so that they reported on the full effects of the 1966 car slump, announced a loss of £7.52 million during the first six months of their financial year compared to a pre-tax profit of £5.785 million in the first half of the previous year.

There is an abundance of ominous figures to record the current slump in cars: new car registrations up to July 103,000 down on last year’s; production running about ten per cent lower than in 1966, when sales were in any case 87,000 lower than in 1965. Over the past couple of months sales have picked up but the car makers are not rejoicing; they may be in for their worst winter for over twenty years.

The motor industry has had many such ups and downs (see Figure Three). What is worrying the car firms now is the abundant evidence that they are in for a long period of decline and that any further pressure on their profits will force them to cut down on the capital investment which is so important to their competitive existence. Typical of their comments amid the gloom are:

Success in the motor industry demands a sustained and high level of investment and a vigilant control of costs. Without adequate returns, neither is possible. (Ford’s).

… it is imperative that the Government should take the very first opportunity of permitting our industry to find its natural level, thus allowing it to stabilise production and generate the capital so urgently needed to keep abreast of its foreign competitors. (B.M.H.)

The government’s remedy for this situation has been the by-now classical one of easing hire purchase controls; in June they cut the minimum deposit on H.P. car sales from 40 to 30 per cent and increased the maximum repayment period from 24 to 30 months. In August there was another relaxation; deposit down to 25 per cent, repayment period up to 36 months. The car makers gave a cautious welcome to these measures, although their own suggestions are no more fundamental.

It is instructive now to remember the forecast made in Ford’s 1959 Report, which came out a couple of years before the car industry hit a slump, that the next ten years would be a “decade of opportunity for the motor industry”. Such optimism is common in all capitalism’s industries; only occasionally does one of their spokesmen put his finger on the essential problem, and reveal how hopeless all their remedies are. In the Sunday Times of May 14 last Henry Ford II said it: “We have not yet discovered the secret of making anybody buy our products”.

Ivan

Crisis in the motor industry (1981)

From the May 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Set-backs in the car industry are not new. Like other industries, it gets into difficulties each time there is a world depression. This time, however, special factors have combined with the depression to bring many well-established companies to the verge of ruin, and to throw an abnormal number of motor workers out of their jobs. First was the enormous rise in the price of petrol. This reduced overall demand for cars and called for new models more economical in petrol consumption. a change-over to which some companies, including Chryslers, failed to adjust themselves. The whole world pattern of car production and export has been reshaped by the spectacular rise of the Japanese motor industry, challenging the supremacy of the American companies.

In 1960 passenger car production in Japan was a mere 165,000, compared to 6,675,000 in America and 1.359,000 in Britain. Between 1960 and 1974, world production doubled, but output in America rose by only 10 per cent. and their share of the world total fell from 53 to 28 per cent. But in Japan output had jumped to nearly 4 million, putting their car industry in second place to America’s 7,332.000 Now. seven years later. Japan is on the way to being the world’s leading producer of passenger cars, and is already by far the biggest exporter. This happened because output in Japan has gone on growing in the depression while in the rest of the world it has fallen. In 1980 the output of the American company. General Motors, dropped by 26 per cent. and Toyota now challenges General Motors for first place in the world. (The course of events in commercial load vehicles is much the same as in passenger cars.)

The Japanese companies have won their success by invading the home markets of the rest of the world, forcing the local-based companies to compete by reducing prices and often selling at a loss. In spite of motor workers’ wages having been kept below the rise in prices (and in some cases reduced) most of the world’s motor companies are losing money. In America in 1980 the losses were: General Motors £500 million, Fords £677 million, American Motors (owned by Renault) £88 million and Chryslers £767 million — the biggest loss of any company in American history In Britain British Leyland lost £535 million, yet the big Japanese companies all made a profit, for example Toyota £568 million. The number of motor workers has gone on increasing in Japan, but in America 25 per cent have been laid off and the loss of jobs in the British industry is on the way to 100.000. In an earlier setback in 1965-7, the production of motors in Britain fell 10 per cent. Since 1977 output has dropped by 30 per cent.

As far as the world depression is concerned, with its consequent reduction of sales of motor vehicles world-wide (except in Japan), the companies can count on capitalism reversing the downward trend and expanding again some time or other. Many companies (including British Leyland) are investing in new models with that in view. But none of the governments has discovered a method of bringing about recovery and preventing further depressions in the future. Capitalism goes its own way whatever policies governments follow. This ineffectiveness of government policy was highlighted in Britain by the manifesto of 364 economists declaring that the Thatcher government policies are wrong and will not bring about "sustained economic recovery”. There is no policy that will do this, but if the 364 think there is, why have they not let us into the secret? After two centuries of capitalism and a score of depressions during which every possible variation of government policy has been and failed, all they can offer us is that "the time has come . . . to consider urgently which alternative offers the most hope". In other words, the 364, many of them responsible for advising past failed policies, cannot even agree among themselves on what to do.

In all the countries invaded by the cheap Japanese motor vehicles, the companies and the Unions have responded by urging their governments to curb imports; in the first place by agreement with Japan, and failing that, by imposing import restrictions. Officials of the Transport and General Workers’ Union told MPs at a meeting in the House of Commons: “The British car industry will be dead within five years without import controls” (The Times 4/3/81). The demand for import restrictions does not even pretend to be a policy for protecting the world's car workers against unemployment. It would merely reduce unemployment in some countries and increase it in Japan The Japanese companies estimate that a 15 per cent cut in their exports would put 70,000 Japanese workers out of their jobs (The Times 31/3/81).

Japanese motors are not the only ones being sold in the British market. The countries of origin include America, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and a Rumanian car is to be on sale here in the autumn. There is, of course, a reverse movement. British Leyland (along with car firms in Europe and America) is hoping to get into the Japanese market, and is planning to export its cars to Europe. Jointly with Peugeot they are to assemble and market a Peugeot car in Australia.

In several countries the hard-pressed motor companies have succeeded in getting government subsidies or loans. Contrary to declared government policy, British Leyland recently received £990 million and Chrysler of America have been saved, at least temporarily, from bankruptcy by a US government-backed loan of £360 million last year and £180 million this year. President Reagan’s statement: “This does not imply that this government approves of baling out private companies in difficulties”, sounds like Sir Keith Joseph telling MPs how it comes about that the Thatcher government has reluctantly adopted the same policy.

Having exploited to the full the direct export of cars to foreign markets, Japanese companies are now planning to set up plants inside these markets. They are negotiating to manufacture in Britain, thereby gaining unrestricted access to the whole EEC market, providing they use materials that are 80 per cent EEC origin.

One of these companies is Nissan, makers of the Datsun. They plan to invest £275 million, to produce 200,000 cars a year, subject to finding a site of the right size and location, and reaching agreement with the components companies and the trade unions. Nissan already has. or is planning, car plants in America, Mexico, Spain. Italy, Australia and Taiwan, and plans to manufacture motor components in Ireland. Toyota, Japan's largest motor company, has so far not favoured setting up plants abroad, but it is reported (Sunday Times 22/3/81) that they are considering joint production with Fords in America.

British Leyland has reached agreement to build a Honda-designed car in Britain and discussions are reported to have reached agreement on joint production of the Mini-Metro in Japan. Japanese cars dominate world exports because they are competitive in price and quality. The Chairman and Managing Director of Fords in Britain said:— "The Japanese, more than anyone, have the ability to produce high quality vehicles on a massive scale at low cost." (Daily Mail 4/4/81). (He also said that Nissan’s plan to set up a plant in Britain “could be catastrophic for this country’s motor industry”.)

Whatever may have been true in the past, it is not because wages in Japan are lower. Car workers’ wages in Japan are now higher than the British. The Japanese companies score because their productivity (output per worker) is higher. Their plants are all new, or relatively new, and all use the latest and most efficient machinery and techniques. They have developed more efficient methods of management and work organisation, avoiding costly production hold-ups through delays in the chain of processes, and using fewer staff in supervision and control. Having succeeded in getting continuous strike-free production in motor plants in Japan, the managements are looking for the same in Britain. According to an article in the Financial Times (25.2.81) the Nissan Company in its search for the right site will not look at plants or districts with a record of frequent strikes.

A problem British motor companies have had to handle is the multiplicity of unions. Lord Scanlon said in 1972, when he was President of the Engineering Union, that it takes members of 38 separate unions to make a motor car (Sunday Times 9/4/72).

The Nissan Company is insisting as one of the conditions for setting up its plant in Britain that there must be agreement for only one union to represent all the workers. Whether and how this obstacle can be overcome with the unions remains to be seen. The company is also insisting on the abolition of union demarcation practices. The Japanese style of manning is already being copied to a limited extent by Fords at Dagenham, with a proposal to abolish the whole grade of General Foreman.

As regards the future of American and European motor companies, an article in the Financial Times (23/2/81) takes the line that their only way to survive is to equal the high productivity and quality control of the Japanese companies, by learning to apply Japanese techniques in their factories. Those who fail to do so will go under, as happened in the American television industry, when it was faced with an onslaught from Japanese exporters similar to that in the motor industry.

British Leyland hopes to reduce its losses in 1981-2, but expects to take from five to ten years to achieve “business results of a standard which will attract external funds on normal commercial terms". (Financial Times 20/3/81). Some observers think that it will never pay its way and is doomed to founder.

In the all-pervading gloom that overhangs the British motor industry, there is one small corner in which the sun still shines. The Financial Times (20/3/81) reported: “Sir Michael Edwards. B.L. Chairman, has almost completed arrangements to sign his first contract with the company. This is expected to raise his salary to about £100,000 a year".

Editorial: Who can buck the market? (2000)

Editorial from the June 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent turmoil surrounding the future of the Rover car plant at Longbridge and of Ford at Dagenham has once more brought into sharp focus the fundamental rule of economic life in the market system—no profit, no production.

Despite the concerted pleas of the government, the trade unions and even Ken Livingstone, Ford looks set to pull out of Dagenham causing over 2,000 jobs to be lost directly and more still indirectly. At Longbridge, BMW was no longer prepared to subsidise a loss-making plant by creaming off the profits from its more successful operations elsewhere and decided to cut and run. After a period of uncertainty when it looked like the entire plant would close, BMW now appears to have done a deal with the Phoenix consortium led by former Rover chief executive John Towers, a deal which the unions and the government hope will keep redundancies down to manageable levels.

But whether Rover ultimately survives at Longbridge will have little to do with any emotional attachment executives at Phoenix may have about Rover or whether workers at the plant work diligently in an attempt to ensure its survival. What will ultimately determine Rover’s future will be the ability of its new owners to sell Rover cars at a sufficient profit on the world market. Unfortunately for them, this is a market place where monetary demand for automobiles (the only sort of demand that counts) is already at near saturation point, with cutbacks in production and plant closures taking place not just in Britain but in the US, across Europe and in the Pacific Rim.

Margaret Thatcher was not right about many things in life but she rarely spoke truer words than when she said you can’t buck the market”. As workers in car plants all over the world discover the wisdom of this particular remark the hard way we would add only one caveat to it—”you can’t buck the market by working within the market system”. The only real way to buck the market is to chuck it altogether, and thereby create a future we could all look forward to without apprehension.

A Socialist Survey. (1927)

From the January 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Effects of Re-Organisation.

Labour Leaders, Miners’ Leaders, Liberal and Tory Leaders have all been talking on the need for reorganisation in the working of the mining industry. In fact, the miners’ leaders have insisted upon immediate reorganisation as a method by which the industry could be put “upon its feet.” Now we have the I.L.P. journal, Forward, admitting the effects of reorganisation under capitalism is to worsen the workers’ lot. This is true whether the reorganisation takes place by Trusts or under Nationalisation.

This is Forward’s confession taken from their front page, signed by Thos. Johnston, M.P. (Dec. 11th, 1926) :

“Every proposal we make for the reorganisation of industry means more unemployment.

The Daily Mail justifies the reorganisation of our electrical supplies, on the ground that it will save the labours of 300,000 colliers.

Reorganisation of the coal industry means the discharge of 100,000 colliers.

And we have already a permanent standing army—the coal stoppage apart—of well over 1,000,000 fellow-citizens who can find no employer.”

Unemployment Insurance as a Narcotic.

After commenting on the decline of unemployment agitation compared with pre-war days, Forward (same issue) says : “Unemployment insurance of course is responsible for dulling the edge of the agitation.” Mr. Johnston, M.P., who writes this, forgets to state that the Labour Party was one of the parties to the passing of the Unemployment Insurance Act. He complains of the effect of their work, but his “remedy” is to set up a Select Committee of the House of Commons to examine unemployment relief proposals ! Such is the Capitalist policy of the advanced Clyde !

The Rich Labourites !

Commander Kenworthy has won Hull for Capitalism under a Labour label. He has boasted of the support of big business men locally who saw “no change” in his “Labour” programme from his Liberal policy. Now the wealthy Oswald Mosley has won Smethwick with a policy to suit the moderate Liberal. To show the “proletarian” character of the Labour Party let us quote Philip Snowden, their “Chancellor” (Forward, December 11th, 1926):

“A few cases have happened lately where a candidate has been put up to auction by the local Labour Party and sold to the highest bidder.

New recruits to the party, who happened to be wealthy, have bought favourable constituencies. They have no record of service in the movement, and they know little or nothing about its principles. Men with long years of service in the party have been put aside because they were poor. Such incidents demoralise the local party, and put it on a level with the capitalist parties.”

The article is headed, “Who Pays, Rules.” Snowden says “Those who pay the piper call the tune.”

Is the Marxian Theory of Value out of Date ?

A writer (John Smith) in the Canadian One Big Union Bulletin (November 18th, 1926), writing on “Marx and Super-Capitalism,” says that Marx’s theory of value is not true under large scale production in America.

The essence of his statement is in the following extracts :

“Most of the European capitalistic countries are still producing on the basis of nineteenth century social machinery, whereas America is sailing under the flag of super-capitalism. Principles of Economics that still hold true on the European Continent and in England are no longer applicable to the economic conditions of North America.

Super-capitalism has changed some of these “economic truths,” considerably. With the elimination of competition, cartels for price-fixing and control of production and distribution have effectively done away with the principle of “socially necessary labour power” as the basic unit of commodity prices. Industries controlled by such cartels and falling within the “mass production” class are regulated at the will of the industrial magnates whose wish is the law in the economic field as well as in the political.”

The Will Power of the Capitalists.

Like most critics of Marx who allege that Marx is out of date, this Winnipeg writer does not attempt to show what has taken the place of Marx’s labour theory of value. His only claim is that the will of the Capitalist determines prices. Marx has already dealt with the alleged free will of the Capitalist in “Value, Price, and Profit.” Like all so-called wills and decisions, the Capitalists’ will is conditioned by circumstances. We might ask with Marx how is the power of the Capitalists’ will determined? What are its limits? This writer, who says “economic laws are conveniently thrust aside” by these super-Capitalists, might tell us why these magnates whose “wish is law” don’t charge twice as much as they do for their goods. Is it modesty? Or self-denial?

The Truth of the Labour Law of Value.

The real fact is that the super-Capitalists and trusts are aware of the truth of the labour law of value. Every worker in the Ford Plant at River Rouge, or even in the assembling plant at Winnipeg, can tell our Winnipeg writer that continual and unceasing efforts are made to reduce the time taken to produce the articles. The same truth applies to all large scale production, especially in the country named by our writer—the United States of America. The continual reduction of prices of Ford cars, for example, took place after (as Ford admitted) the time taken to produce cars had been greatly lessened.

It is not the will to charge higher prices that we see at work specially in the trust. It is the scheming and planning to so increase output per man that less labour is embodied in each article, thus enabling them to outsell their rivals and increase their profits. The secret of Ford’s and all similar firms is that with tremendous capital laid out in modern machines the work can be so divided up and simplified that more goods can be produced in the same time. Every modern manufacturer knows the truth of Marx, and hence the employment of the latest devices and systems. The firms who cannot invest enough capital to lay down the most up-to-date plant cannot compete with the efficiency and labour-saving methods of the Trust. If it was simply a matter of will to charge higher prices there would be nothing new or modern about the super-Capitalists. All sellers have the will to get the highest price the market will bear, but to-day, as well as a century ago, the seller’s will depends upon suitable conditions for its gratification.

The Power of the Trust.

The rings, trusts and huge firms find the way to wipe out their rivals is to produce cheaply. The way to produce cheaply is to reduce the amount of labour involved in producing each article. Hence the trust erects modern large plants and installs the latest machines and speeds up their workers to the last pitch. As an illustration of the truth that trusts can sell cheaper, take Canada and U.S.A. Most articles produced in Canada are higher in price than in U.S.A. Canada has smaller workshops and fewer self-contained industrial plants than U.S.A. and more time on the average is taken to produce Canadian goods. Does our critic explain the continuous decline in price of Ford’s Cars since 1910 as a constant change in Mr. Ford’s will?

The combines’ power to charge higher prices is limited by—

1. the purchasing power of its customers ;
2. the similar goods to be obtained from rival firms ;
3. the use of substitutes when price is too high;
4. the decline in amount sold of these commodities if price is higher than market will bear.

Even mighty Ford finds himself faced with the rivalry of the greater combine backed by Morgan and Wall Street Bankers—the General Motors Co. This firm in its turn adopts the same methods of reduction in time taken to produce each car, with the result that a number of cars are offered in competition with Ford’s price.

To-day, as when Marx wrote his address on Free Trade—cheapness is the battering ram that breaks down the barriers of competition.

Where the Workers are Robbed.

The worst use of articles like that we have criticised is that attacks on “monopoly prices” lead the workers to look at things from the point of view of consumers of commodities.

Actually the workers are the smallest consumers of the total national production. Their purchasing power is limited to the amount of their wages. The Capitalists are able to buy the largest quantity because their “share” of the total output is largest in the shape of rent, interest and profit.

The workers must view matters as producers, being the only class engaged in production. It is where they produce that they are exploited. The demand then must not be “Lower Prices,” but the “abolition of exploitation.”

The Fool Programme of the Communists.

The alleged revolutionary Communist Party offers another Red Programme for its vote catchers to work on.

The following is what they demand as a “full Socialist Programme” ! (“Communism is Commonsense,” p. 18.) :

1. Nationalisation of mines, railways and large-scale industries without compensation and with workers’ control.
2. Nationalisation of the land and the banks in the same way.
3. State control of foreign trade.
4. Capital levy on all fortunes over £5,000, and no interest to be paid on National Debt holdings over that figure.
5. A steeply graduated income tax on all incomes over £250.
6. National minimum of £4 per week for all who work, and a minimum 44-hour working week.
7. Maintenance of the unemployed at trade union rates by the State, under control of the Trade unions.
8. Repeal of all anti-Labour laws (E.P.A., etc.)
9. Wiping out of all Reparations and War Debts.
10. Declaration of independence of the Colonies and withdrawal of British troops.
11. Credits to and friendly relations with the workers’ government of the Union of Soviet Republics.”

None of these demands, from Nationalisation to 44-hour weeks, touch the cause of working class slavery, nor do they offer any solution to the “social evils” of to-day. They are Communist idiocy.

The ”Savings” of the Workers !

Once again we are treated to the story of huge savings of the workers ! A writer in the Burton Daily Mail for December 15th complains of the Socialist statement of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, and gives the usual figures of the savings, “mostly of the working classes.” He quotes the Chairman of the National Savings Committee on October 20th stating the following increase from 1916 to 1926 :

Even accepting these figures as correct and ignoring the obvious duplication of funds in different kinds of institutions—what evidence do they offer of being working class savings? We challenge the writer to show that they are mainly workers’ investments. It is well known that small business people, shopkeepers and others of similar position, use these institutions very largely. The writer also forgets to state the number of different persons holding these apparently huge sums. If these figures offer evidence of increasing luxury of the workers—what striking evidence on the other side is shown by the mounting cost of poor law relief and unemployment “relief”? If we are so well off why the united cry of decline in prosperity? In reality bank returns clearly show the prosperity of the employers in a world of working class poverty.

Adolph Kohn

Henry Ford or Karl Marx? (1926)

From the August 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Sunday Observer (11.7.26) Mr. J. L. Garvin wrote an article headed “Ford or Marx.” The inspiration for the article was Norman. Angell’s book, “Must Britain Travel the Moscow Road,” which professes to be a reply to Trotsky’s book, “Where Britain is going.”

Times out of number we have balanced accounts with the Russians, and incurred much odium by pointing out that Bolshevism was not Socialism, and that Bolshevik policy was entirely opposed to the principle set forth by Marx. But it pleases the opponents of the workers to confuse the two positions in order the better to resist the spread of Socialism.

For this purpose any stick is good enough. Mr. Garvin brings forward the once execrable, but now quite respectable, Bernard Shaw, and even the ghost of the honest and delightful old dreamer William Morris.

A single article is not sufficient to deal fully with the collection of false suggestions put forward by Mr. Garvin, so I will confine myself to a brief examination of one or two of his leading points.

The first point to clear up is the confusion between Bolshevik policy and the principles laid down by Marx.

Briefly the Bolshevik policy was as follows :—

The conversion of Russian industry from a culture that was overwhelmingly a backward peasant culture into a communistic culture at one bound, without the intervention of capitalist methods of organisation. The capture of power was to be accomplished by a small minority who were to lead the backward masses. Parliament was taboo and armed street risings the method of procedure. The providing of suitable “slogans” with which to play upon the emotions of the ignorant majority was an important part of the policy. The final futility of the Bolshevik programme has been amply proved by subsequent Russian history. The peasants were too backward to grasp the meaning of communism, and to get out of their own insular way of looking at things. A small group of quarrelling partners rule Russia at present, but are compelled to rule in accordance with the needs and wishes of the vast mass of the population—the backward peasants. It is the peasant that, in the main, determines Bolshevik policy to-day, and will do so for a long time to come.

What was Marx’s views on the above methods? In the preface to Capital he states in unequivocal language :

“One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement. … it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth-pangs.” (“Capital,” Vol. 4, p. xix.)

Marx’s collaborator, and “other self,” Engels, stated, in the last thing he wrote, the introduction to “The Class Struggles in France,” that:—

“The time is past for resolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake, and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But so that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is required, and it is this work that we are now performing with results that drive our enemies to despair.”

The Bolsheviks took the leap, and have landed in a quagmire.

The above quotations on Marx’s point of view are sufficient to dissociate it from Bolshevism.

The next point we come to is Mr. Garvin’s statement that:—

“Mr. Shaw could do more than any man in Europe to destroy the antiquated Marxist superstition which hinders or paralyses the progress of labour on this side of the Atlantic.”

Mr. Garvin gives us no information about this “superstition,” nor does he point out how it hinders. This is a convenient method of arguing, as it knocks the object down without the trouble of hitting it.

Farther on he says :—

”Marx egregiously over-estimated the importance of manual labour by itself. The single person with the original idea is more important economically than the thousands of workers whose employment never would have existed if he had not created it. When Henry Ford in 1914 had the idea of a minimum wage of a pound a day for his workers with profit-sharing on a large scale—terms improved since then—he knocked the bottom out of abstract Marxism deduced front studies in the British Museum.”

The opening sentence is false; the second is a joke. Marx examined the way in which the wealth of capitalism (commodities) was produced and analysed the part played by capitalist and worker. Up to the present no one has been able to show any essential fault in this analysis, although hundreds of professors of political economy have attempted the task. In the course of his analysis Marx showed the respective places of the so-called “manual” and “mental” workers and demonstrated that each was a member of the working class, and had identical interests as opposed to the interests of capital. It has been a common charge against Marx that he ignored the so-called “intellectual” worker. The charge has been levelled by the professional intellectuals, who feel their importance acutely, and would like to think that they are in a class apart, and distinct, from the “common working man” and the wealthy idler. Many years ago Paul Lafargue, in his brilliant essay entitled “The Intellectuals,” reduced their dignity to the level of carrots and potatoes.

Mr. Garvin, however, makes a variation, and puts Henry Ford among the band of economic giants. The argument is a joke.

Taking it at its face value Henry Ford introduced more economical methods of production. The result of improvement in methods is the production of a given quantity of goods with the employment of less workers, and the more rapid satisfaction of the demand for goods. Carried out on a sufficiently extensive scale this means that relatively fewer and fewer workers are required to meet the international demand for goods, an increase in the number of workers seeking jobs ‘that have ceased to exist. The final El Dorado is a small number of workers enjoying high wages and producing all the world requires to meet its needs, and a vast number of workers without employment or the means to purchase goods so lavishly produced ! Not long ago Mr. Ford himself experienced the effect of his methods. So rapidly had motor cars been produced by his system that the market was glutted and he had to close down his works ! A curious way of providing employment !

Another aspect of the question is given by the following quotation from the American Appeal, June 5th, 1926 :—

“Labour’s share of the automobile dollar is shrinking under large-scale mass production, as revealed in the United States census of manufactures for 1925. These figures show that last year only 32.4 per cent. of the value created in the industry went to wages, compared with 40 per cent. in 1923 and 38.6 per cent. in 1919. In 1899, the first year in which automobile production appears in the census, the workers received 44.8 per cent. of the value they created.

“In 1925, according to the figures, automobile manufacturers received $3,371,855,805 for their output, an increase of $208,257,931 over 1923. Deducting the cost of materials leaves the actual value created by manufacture at $1,168,868,466, an increase of $153,003,944 over 1923. In 1925, however, those who actually produced the motor vehicles received only $379,284,935, a decrease of $27,445,343 from 1923. While employer receipts increased 15 per cent. in 2 years, labour’s receipts for operating the industry decreased nearly 7 per cent.” (“American Appeal,” 5/6/1926.)

The above figures show clearly the object and result of the Ford method—more profit for the employers and less return to the workers for the energy they use up.

Mr. Garvin concludes his article with the statement that:—

“Karl Marx, the mid-Victorian Calvin of economics, is as dead as a dodo. That practical, original, Henry Ford—as the epoch-making symbol of high wages and profit-sharing—is the real spirit of the morning.”

In the land in which Henry Ford is a financial king the Federal Trade Commission reports that:—

“One per cent. of the population of the United States owns 59 per cent. of the wealth.

“Thirteen per cent. of the population own 90 per cent. of the wealth.

“Eighty-seven per cent. of the population own 10 per cent. of the wealth.” (“Labour,” June 5th, 1926.)

So much for the land of high wages and profit sharing !

Finally the following quotation may help to dispel any delusion as to who benefits by the prosperity of Ford industries :—

“Last year’s profits of the Ford Motor Company, which started business in 1903 with a capital of $28,000, amounted to $145,000,000, approximately $23,000,000, according to reports filed by the company yesterday.

“Only three persons, Mr. Ford, his wife, and his son, own the stock of the company. On the basis of the published figures it is estimated that every vehicle manufactured by the Ford works brings in a profit of 44.90 dollars (£9), to the shareholders.” (“Daily News,” 9th May, 1926.)

If Marx is “antiquated,” and “is dead as the dodo,” why all the excitement? We have been reading for years that he was “dead,” but he seems to be a pretty lively corpse, and a pretty awkward one.

The facts are he ruthlessly exposed the groundwork of capitalism, and correctly foreshadowed the general methods of its future development. The main propositions he laid down are as true, but more obvious, to-day, as when he wrote. The worker is poor because he is robbed of the product of his mental and manual labours. He is kept in a subject condition by a class that lives like a leech on his back. The means of subjection are the public coercive powers that are centred in Parliament. By preaching “brotherly love” between capitalist and workman the emissaries of the masters seek to disarm the worker’s growing suspicions and induce him to send to Parliament representatives whose object is either to conserve the power of capital or to mislead and make futile any real attempts of the workers to remove wage-slavery.

When Mr. Garvin and Mr. Ford are as dead as a dodo the people of future generations will be celebrating the memory of one of the greatest thinkers of all times— Karl Marx.

Gilmac.

Single union deals (1988)

From the June 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ford's decision not to go ahead with a new plant in Dundee was based, so most of the media would have us believe, on the controversy that surrounded the single union deal they had agreed with the AEU. The guilty party we were told was the TGWU who opposed the deal. So here we have the unlikely picture presented to us of the big bad TGWU scaring off the little Ford corporation who only had the good intentions of "creating employment" in the Dundee area. Of course the more likely truth is that Ford withdrew because investment in Dundee was less advantageous than it had previously seemed. What the issue did do was to bring the discussion of single union deals out into the open once again.

However as usual under capitalism, misrepresentation has replaced clear information and the debate surrounding this issue has tended to be distorted. To discuss single union deals in a clear light we need to look beneath the surface arguments. By doing this we will find that it is not so much single union deals that are in dispute as the contents of some of these agreements. Secondly we need to analyse the type of environment in which employers have found it more advantageous to sign agreements with a single union. The point here is that the issue cannot be isolated from conditions that exist within modern capitalism.

The first point to be made is that a single union having sole negotiating rights with a particular company is not something which is without precedent. Nevertheless it is true that in British industrial relations multi-union recognition, with each union representing a separate grade of workers, has been the norm. However in the past few years we have seen the growth of single union agreements and many of these have included provisions which have brought about a changed union-management relationship. Some of the earliest single union deals included the ones signed by the EETPU with Hitachi and Toshiba and the AEU's agreement with Nissan. More recently the EETPU have reached a similar agreement with Brother Industries, a Japanese-owned company based in North Wales, whilst the AEU have signed such a deal with Dunlop on Tyneside and the GMB have agreed to a single union deal with British Cable Services owned by Robert Maxwell. In 1985 the TGWU was manoeuvred into accepting a single union agreements at the Norsk Hydro Plant at Immingham on Humberside where the company had previously recognised the EETPU, AEU and ASTMS. [1] 

Ford in Dundee

The growth of single union deals is thus undeniable. But the controversy over them is not, as the media would have us believe, merely over the concept of single unionism but has more to do with the contents of some of these agreements and the way in which they are concluded. This fact stands out particularly in relation to the AEU's agreement with Ford at the proposed plant for Dundee. What precisely was it about the deal that the TGWU objected to? Whilst of course it could be pointed out that had the TGWU been the union chosen their attitude might have been different there is evidence to suggest that the TGWU would not have accepted the agreement as it stood. Firstly, the leadership of the two unions stand far apart on the issue of single union deals and also with the current balance on the TGWU national executive favouring the left it is unlikely that such an agreement could or would have been accepted. Secondly it seems likely that Ford chose the AEU because they were more likely to agree to a package that undercut the existing national agreement between the company and the unions covering pay and conditions for 44,000 workers at 22 plants. Furthermore the leadership of the AEU and the EETPU have been the most willing to organise plants and companies not by recruiting members but by approaching top management of the companies concerned. For example in the deal agreed to between the EETPU and Brother Industries, whilst the TGWU were attempting to recruit workers at that company the EETPU negotiated a deal with the company to gain sole negotiating rights for all employees at the company's electronic typewriter plant at Wrexham and its microwave oven plant at Ruabon, seemingly without the agreement of the employees concerned.

Certainly the TGWU's criticism of the AEU 's deal with Ford seems justified from a trade union point of view. Ron Todd, General Secretary of the TGWU, highlighted the dangers of the deal in the following way.

Ford planned to exploit Dundee's need for investment by setting up a low pay wedge there.

The point of this was to undermine the pay and conditions won through years of struggle. The danger was, Todd continued:

That the company would close down their plants and transfer their work to Dundee at sub standard wages.

Once Ford had been allowed to locate the plant without honouring national agreements how long would it be. Todd asked, before it "decides to try the same trick again?" The point is. then, that the content of the agreement is the stumbling block and not the fact that only a single union is involved. Furthermore one of the most important aspects is how the company or plant is organised. Is it to be on the basis of recruitment of the workers concerned or by negotiations with the company over the heads of the employees? The latter is no basis for solid trade union organisation.

No-strike agreements 

Several single union deals contain "no-strike" provisions. For example most, if not all, of the agreements involving the EETPU include no-strike clauses and several of these make use of pendulum arbitration. Under this method if the two sides reach deadlock on a certain issue then it is resolved by an outside and so-called independent arbitrator who is bound to decide in favour of either the company or the union there being no possibility of a compromise solution. The argument in favour of such a method is that the two sides will be encouraged to reach a negotiated settlement due to the danger that the arbitrator may decide against them. The problem from a trade union viewpoint is that being unable to take any industrial action they will be unable to put any pressure on the arbitrator. In a situation where the company is determined to force through a change it is unlikely that the arbitrator's decision will be reached on the basis of neutrality. Whilst this system may provide some benefit to workers' organisations when they are in a weak bargaining position, unions tied to such agreements will be unable to use their full might when they are in a stronger bargaining position. It is this longer term goal, the ability to constrain union bargaining power when it is at its height, that lies behind the desire of employers for no-strike agreements as part of single union deals. It could of course be pointed out that such agreements are not as yet legally binding but action could be taken against any employees who engage in industrial action on an individual basis in breach of contract.

Not all of the single union deals signed in recent years include no-strike provisions. For example the agreements between the GMB and British Cable Services and between Dunlop's Tyneside plant and the AEU do not include such a clause. The agreement involving the GMB stipulates that both sides should not take any industrial action while a dispute is in procedure. The AEU's deal with Dunlop states that if management and the union cannot resolve a dispute they will mutually accept ACAS conciliation. The agreement between the TGWU and Norsk includes a six stage procedure for the resolution of collective issues. Stage six. if reached, allows for the matter to be put to a secret ballot, with the wording on the ballot form subject to joint agreement. The clause relating to the overall dispute procedure states that during all stages of the procedure:

  It is clearly understood that there will be no deviation from normal working by way of coercion or disruptive action by individuals or groups etc. in any circumstances . . . The company in return will not invoke any form of lockout.

It goes on to warn workers that.

should any individual or group of employees wish to challenge this practice he/she or they will be severely disciplined 

Trade union representation 

Some single union deals also include the type of communication mechanisms that exist in many of the more sophisticated non-union companies. For example, in many of the EETPU deals and in the TGWU's agreement with Norsk, there exists a Company Advisory Board or in the latter case a council. The agreement between the EETPU and Toshiba includes a provision for the establishment of a Company Advisory Board (CoAB). In many ways the function of this body limits the traditional role of the trade unions. The CoAB at Toshiba includes the following provisions. Regarding the election of employee representatives to sit on this body it states that in areas where trade union representation exists the candidate may be either a unionist or non-unionist. Regarding the role of a CoAB member it stipulates that a person should come to a meeting with an open mind and should not be mandated. In addition the member must not be committed to a trade union line. Furthermore the rules accepted by the EETPU state:

  The EETPU. recognises that all collective issues will be raised at CoAB in the first instance and will only be taken up by the trade union if they cannot be resolved by CoAB advice. [3]

The CoAB thus reduces trade union involvement; union representation is not welcomed and where it has trade union representatives on it they are constrained in representing either the interests of their members or union policy.

New technology

The movement in recent years to single union deals is in many ways connected to the demands and possibilities that new technology makes on, and offers to, the representatives of capital. Implicit in the following is the limitations of trade unionism as it is pulled along with, and can only respond in a defensive manner to. the dictates of capital. Here we can also see how technology under capitalism is used not to free but to chain workers to the demands of capital. For one of the most important issues for management in the 1980s is the need to be able to use labour in a flexible way so as to keep expensive production systems flowing and to meet rapid changes in market demand. Many companies who have negotiated single union deals and many others who have pursued a non-union strategy, operate in high technology industries where the need to have a flexible labour force is especially important. Where a union does exist it is obviously easier to move people from job to job in an environment where there are not separate unions representing different crafts and occupations. A flexible labour force means workers being trained in a variety of skills (cross skill training) so they can be moved around as the productive needs of the company dictate. Thus, in many high technology companies, there is a movement to single status employment conditions, common wages and conditions for both blue and white collar workers. Flexibility of labour and single status objectives, two concepts that go hand in hand, are included in most single union deals. It has in fact been noted that one of the major reasons why Nissan rejected a multi-union deal was because it was felt that this would have led to an erosion of the company's flexibility and single status objectives.

The section in the agreement between Norsk and the TGWU on flexibility states that it is the company's policy that workers will have no rigid job demarcations. It goes on to state:

  The whole objective is to achieve a level of flexibility on site so that any employee will, when the need arises, be prepared and willing to do any job regardless of status, function or position provided that the work to be done is within the individual's ability and competence level. In order to achieve this degree of flexibility the company acknowledges the need for extra training to which all employees are expected to be committed, whether it be to be trained themselves or to train others. [4]

The above objective is obviously easier in a single union rather than a multi-union environment.

The point should also be made that new technology not only creates new demands on employers which are passed on to the workforce, it also creates new opportunities for the representatives of capital in their struggle with organised labour. In the environment of the 1980s changes in technology, combined with anti-union legislation and an economic recession, have enabled employers to curtail or even end craft control and to initiate procedures to curb union bargaining power. A prime example of this was the print industry. In this situation unions have been powerless to offer much resistance.

The socialist view

What should be the attitude of a socialist or trade unionist to the type of issues we have focused on here? Firstly a pessimistic view of the future of the trade union movement in Britain can be over-emphasised. As indicated. even if single union deals continue to grow as many argue they will, it is the content of the deal that needs to be examined. One vital feature is that trade union organisation needs to be based on recruitment of employees not on agreements with top management over workers' heads. Secondly such setbacks that have occurred for unions have taken place in a hostile environment that the history of capitalism indicates will not last forever. Thirdly the type of setbacks suffered by trade unions in America where trade union density has declined to somewhere around 18 per cent from a figure of over 35 per cent in 1945, seems unlikely to be repeated in Britain. Unions in Britain in many industries have become too deeply enmeshed in the collective bargaining mechanisms to be easily removed. This factor and the new found ability of well organised groups to use secret ballots to their own advantage was evident in the recent Ford dispute as well as in other recent disputes in the motor industry in particular.

On the other hand there are many problems to overcome. The anti-democratic antiunion laws of the present government are still causing major problems as the NUS's dispute with P&O has indicated. In response to changes in new technology, a change in union structure and tactics may be required. This could perhaps develop at workplace level. For example unions at Shell have accepted more flexible working arrangements but have been able to maintain a multi-union situation. To help achieve this they have reformed their shop steward representative constituencies.

Unions are, of course, necessary and vital organisations for the working class so long as capitalism remains in operation. Any member of the working class who believes that his or her interests can be served by company consultative committees or the like has little understanding of the class struggle that takes place daily within capitalism, based as it is on the irreconcilable interests of those who produce but do not possess and those who possess but do not produce. Certainly what makes a person a socialist is an understanding of the history of working class struggle against a class with opposing interests. A reading and understanding of that history shows us that the only solution is the building of a movement which is capable of creating a society which is not divided into employers and employed or state versus people. Furthermore the society that replaces capitalism will not be based on production for exchange by means of economically coerced labour, but on production for use through understanding and voluntary co-operation. The basis of such a society is the common ownership of the means of production which will replace private or state ownership. With no class divisions based on a clash of economic interest, trade unions will no longer be necessary.

However whilst current divisions remain it is in the interests of the working class to organise themselves in trade unions, become active in them and undertake the defensive struggle within capitalism. Furthermore trade unionists should campaign for a movement free from any attachments to a political party that stands for capitalism and this of course includes the Labour Party. But trade unions have their limitations — they can only react to capitalism; they cannot end it. So trade unionists, and indeed all members of the working class, need to go further and help build a movement capable of ending the capitalist system.

Ray Carr

[1] Details of this can be found in a pamphlet produced by Northern College in co-operation with TGWU Region 10 — I. Linn. Single Union Deals. This is a case study of the Norsk Hydro Plant, at Immingham. Humberside.

[2]  I. Linn — Single Union Deals, p. 16

[3] Agreement between EETPU and Toshiba on CoAB

[4]  Linn, op. cit. p. 16