Letter: Workers' Control (1965)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the article “Workers’ Control”, in the January 1965 Socialist Standard, you appear to me to use the term “society” rather as an abstraction. After some not unfamiliar arguments, you conclude, rather arrogantly, by asserting that the workers in industry would be incapable of running affairs. It is so ‘‘incredibly complicated” that only “society" can do the job.

But in what does society consist but men and women, mostly the workers in industry, as asserted by the people you are criticising? And who runs “society” today but the “higher” echelons of the working class?

If they are considered incapable of assuming responsibility, who will do so?

John Adamson, 

Blackheath, S.E.3.

Reply:

We have never said that the working class, in industry or elsewhere, are incapable of running affairs. In fact one of the central points in the Socialist case is that, under capitalism, the working class run the world from top to bottom—only they do it not in their own interests but in the interests of the class who own the means of wealth production and distribution.

Socialism is the expropriation, of this owning class and the transfer of the means of wealth production to society as a whole. In other words men and women (no longer a working class since classes will have disappeared) will run affairs in their own interests; they will produce to satisfy their needs.

Nor does the Socialist Party regard society as an abstraction. Society is made up of men and women organised in a particular way. Today, production is social; the means of wealth production are complicated in the sense that they consist of a world-wide network of mines, factories, railways and the like.

The article “Workers’ Control” said, among other things, that since production is social, and not a collection of self-sufficient units, then the administration of the means of production must also be social. We did not suggest— and we do not think—that the reason for this is that the people who operate a particular part of this social productive apparatus are incompetent. It was merely a plea to those who accept the confused idea of “workers’ control” to face the facts of social life.

After all, a mine or a factory is not self-sufficient. Finally, we should mention that the whole idea of "workers’ control" is coloured by the conditions of capitalism, that it suggests that the centre of peoples' lives under Socialism will be the place where they happen to work under capitalism.

It ignores the fact that under Socialism men and women will no longer have to be tied to a particular job and a particular place of work, but will be able to use their various abilities in many different ways. This is what “from each according to his abilities" means.

Editorial Committee.

On 'Control'. (1921)

From the July 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Despite the open and covert ruling-class propaganda, the careful provision of spectacular demonstration, the frantic endeavour to interest the workers in these things that concern only the capitalist class (Irish ferment, Indian disaffection, and the like), the past few years have witnessed ever-increasing economic strife, ever increasing hostility on the part of the workers to the existing social order.

If we consider the struggles of the last five years, a time of trade boom and slump, it is plain that the gains do not balance the losses : the workers enjoy a reduced standard of living.

Current events show that the most powerful trade union organisation is weak compared to the might of the master class. All the trade union action we have witnessed has not sufficed to maintain the workers' pre-war standard of living. Yet it is proposed to oppose this paltry machinery to the organised force of the master class. How? In the industrial strife we have noted demands were backed up by the cessation of work. To enforce these new political demands some would stay in while others  would have a general strike to get "control," while on every hand we have schemes whereby the workers will progressively become dominant in the workshop.

Mr. John Hill, General Secy. United Society of Boilermakers and Iron and Steel Shipbuilders, outlines some such scheme in his monthly report to his members quoted by the "Labour Leader," 22.4.1921.

Dealing with the coal lock-out Mr. Hill lays down his scheme. "The miners," he says, "have met the first attack in the only honourable way when national negotiations were refused. In certain eventualities we may take the same course, and we may win ; but we can not beat the international capitalists by a strike here and there. We must get control of the workshops. We must get control of our municipalities. We must get control of the nation.

"This will take time and education and discipline.

"There is no need of machine guns to secure these things."

Our trade union official does not in any way elaborate his plan or inform us how it is to be established. The object of workshop control is to restrain or check the injurious effect of modern industry on the workers.

According to its advocates, workshop control can be established in two ways—

1. Bit by bit, following the policy of harassing the employers, or
2. "Taking and holding," following the policy of drastic action on the industrial field.

The fact is usually lost sight of that, at the present day, the entire running of industry is carried on by the workers.

Concerning those schemes that come under the first group the reader is reminded of an occurrence in Italy in August and September, 1920. The workers there seized many factories, the masters preferring to let things take their course rather than damage valuable property. Had the Italian masters so minded the factories and the workers in them would have been blown across the Rubicon.

The inevitable happened. No wages forthcoming, the affair fizzled out. The Government however, with an eye to the main chance promised to introduce a bill that would inaugurate workers control committees. This they afterwards did.

The Government bill laid down that the committees should function in practically all large concerns except those of State. 

  "Workers who are devoted to each category of the larger industries, and who have reached their majority, will elect on the proportional system a Commission of Control comprising nine members. Six of these members will be chosen by the rank-and-file, and the remaining three by the engineers, higher employees, and technical managers engaged in that particular industry." —("Daily Chronicle," 26.1.21.)

The "Daily Herald" (26.1.21), under the heading "Official Powers given to shop stewards," supplements the above. 

  "Employers in each industry will also elect a committee of nine members for the purpose of treating with the workers' committee . . . A workmen's committee has the right to have all information necessary to establish the cost of raw material, the cost of production, and the methods of administration and production. . . . also information concerning the salaries paid to workmen, how the capital is constituted, and details respecting mechanical equipment, as well as the manner in which the rules governing employment and discharge of workers are carried out."

In these Italian control committees the workers have a representation equal to that of their masters. How did the masters take it ?

  "From hurried enquiries I have made tonight, I find factory owners fiercely opposed to the extent of control outlined above. Many declare they will go into liquidation rather than submit to the provisions of the Bill."—("Daily Chronicle," 26.1,21.)

With such an extent of control and such opposition doubtless effects are far-reaching. But listen ! 

  "Its objects are explained as aiming at ameliorating the technical instruction of the workers, and their moral and economic status within the limits permitted by the conditions in which manufacturers carry on their tasks.
   "Ensuring the execution of the whole body of laws framed for the protection of the toiling classes.
  "Facilitating betterment in methods of production, with a view to making production itself more fruitful and economical.
   "Rendering more and more normal and peaceful the relations between the givers and undertakers of labour."—("Daily Chronicle," 26.1.21.)

The results of such control are painfully obvious. The "limits of the conditions in which manufacturers carry on their tasks" are the limits of production for profit. "Ameliorating the technical instruction of the workers" means more capable workmen; "more economical and fruitful production" implies a great increase in the army of unemployed The carrying out of factory laws, etc. is necessarily a protection of capitalism itself, quite as much as old age pensions, unemployment doles, and hospitals. As to the "peaceful relations," there have been strikes almost daily since.

With regard to those schemes that fall under the second heading, it is necessary for Mr. Hill or his apostles to show how it is possible for the would-be controllers to combat the forces that would be set in motion by those who have political power. "No need for machine guns"— but let Mr. Hill attempt to run the boiler-making industry against the will of the masters. The machine guns would be there, and so would the artillery, and the tanks, and the poison gas if required, prepared to proceed to any extreme at the behest of those who hold political power.

Workshop control schemes, like profit-sharing and bonus systems, will only be put into operation at the command and with the consent of the master class, and therefore only in their interests.

To secure the second proposition there is only one way. When anybody wishes to be represented in local government affairs it places its representatives before the electorate at the appointed times, and if returned in a majority, decides the course to be pursued in local affairs. The rub is here. Local government bodies are very much limited in their powers. Further, measures decided upon can be overturned, functions can be absolutely crippled by the severe restraint exercised by the central governing body—Parliament. Just one instance: "The Local Legislation Committee of the House of Commons have refused by a majority vote to allow the Wigan Corporation to establish a Municipal Savings Bank." ("Local Government Chronicle," 21.5.21.

What would be the fate of any local government measure that attempted to hinder production for profit ?

Of Mr. Hill's third proposition little need be said. How the workers are to get "control of the nation" our mentor does not tell us. He would have the workers concern themselves with local government, burial boards, and work houses. But that central government machinery that can decide control schemes, local government action, the action of the armed forces, etc. he contemptuously dismisses, grouping political action with religious bigotry as "dividing the workers."

Production for profit respects only the law of its own undivided sway. The wage slave can no more dictate to the capitalist the terms of wage slavery than the serf could dictate to the feudal lord the conditions of serfdom. The capitalist class own the instruments of wealth production. More than this, and with the consent of the workers, they have political power, and through this ensure their own dominance as a ruling class.

Political power enables the master class to preserve intact the vital structure, the vital functioning of this system. It enables them to say that the property less shall protect the means of production, the property of the master class, from any and every attack. Political power carries with it the control of that brute force usually hidden but so necessary to maintain class rule.

Workers control or any other reform that can possibly be mentioned, implies the continuance of capitalism, the continued dominance of the capitalist class. Workers' control is absolutely useless to the workers while the capitalist class OWN the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution.

The workers must wrest from the ruling class the political power, and wield it in their own interest. Only a revolutionary working class can do this, and can use this power to one end alone: the abolition of capitalism and the institution of Socialism.

Let us renounce, therefore, all thoughts of reforms, no matter by what alluring title they may be known; let us resolutely refuse to be beguiled by side issues, no matter by whom they may be displayed; let us work for the only thing that matters, the institution of that form of society wherein every man's labour shall belong to the community, every man's needs shall be the concern of the community, every mental and physical gift that history has given to the sons and daughters of man shall radiate to the happiness of the whole of the community and the fullness of human life.

A. H.

After nationalisation (1971)

From the January 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

A short time ago, when the Tories decided to kick out Lord Hall, Labour’s appointed Chairman of the Post Office, there was a series of strikes and demonstrations by Postal workers. The Press of course glorified in presenting this as issued by the telephone engineers ‘explained’, "We are not loyalty, even if mis-placed, to their boss, but as a leaflet a Lord Hall Fan Club . . ." They were really worried that this move pushed through by Chataway was indicative of other changes in the Post Office that they felt might threaten Union organisation and employment prospects.

Presumably in an effort to gain public support for their action the same leaflet was prominently headed “Hands Off. . . . Britain’s telephones belong to you’’, referring to the Tory plans to de-nationalise certain profitable sectors of State industry. The idea that industry should be run for the benefit of the community, instead of a small group of investors, is some advance in political thinking, but its attempted expression in support for nationalisation is in fact self-defeating, since none of the fundamental relationships in private industry are changed by nationalisation and all the old problems remain. One of the reasons some workers support nationalisation is that they falsely identify the capitalist state with the interests of the community as a whole. Their nationalisation is still stronger than class consciousness. The break-up of existing nationalised industries, would not be an advance, and might cause some dislocation and redundancy which justify the workers involved opposing such measures without their deceiving themselves as to the real nature of the organisation and ownership of the nationalised industries.

Failure of nationalisation (whether partial as in this country, or almost total as in Russia) to prevent competition, insecurity, destitution and other ills affecting workers has made some of its one-time advocates disillusioned and apathetic whilst others have searched for explanations and new formulas to apply. Emerging from this has been a renewed and extended interest in ‘Workers’ Control' and ‘Workers’ Self-Management'. This is against the grain of both national Bolshevik and Social-Democrat organisation and politics but it is still not a solution, it too will fail to deliver the expected results.

It is essential for socialists to show how these developments point to the practicability and need for Socialism. It would be irresponsible, however, to advocate either nationalisation or workers’ control in the name of “developing consciousness through struggle” as so many self-proclaimed revolutionaries do. To associate with the particular reforms demanded is to be associated with their failure. Since measures such as ‘nationalisation’ and ‘workers’ control,” although originally in the working class, are generally only enacted to the extent and in such a way that they benefit the capitalists, by supporting these measures socialists would be helping to delude our fellow workers into thinking that real gains had been made. When the coal mines were nationalised, the miners believed that a great victory had been won, the capitalist politicians thought otherwise. It took a lot of redundancies, wage reductions and strikes to convince the miners of the true position.

Democratic control over industry and society as a whole can only be achieved by the abolition of the capital-wage-labour relationship, by making all the world’s resources the common property of mankind. Anything short of this is at best a palliative, at worst a total failure even proving detrimental to workers’ interests.

Michael Bradley

Letter: Socialist Aims and Strategies (1966)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

An open-minded discussion of socialist aims and strategies seems to be badly needed in these days. The present impotence of the socialist movement in the western countries cannot possibly be overcome unless at least some unity in purpose and action is achieved.

There is already agreement on “common ownership and democratic control” of the means of production and distribution, but it still remains to be agreed upon the proper meaning of these words. Should they be understood as referring to a centralised economic system, administered by state-appointed officials, or rather to a decentralised system with scope for local initiatives?

In my opinion the latter alternative is more in accordance with the idea of democracy. State socialism inevitably leads to concentration of power in the hands of state or party bureaucrats, and there does not seem to be much sense in substituting one kind of privileged class for another.

A certain amount of central planning may be indispensable in a socialist society, but then it should be only structural, i.e., provide the general framework of the economy. If central planning is allowed to interfere with ordinary production and distribution, local initiatives will be paralyzed and democracy endangered.

To create a democratic socialist society it will be better to turn most companies into producers’ co-operatives rather than into state-owned property. This kind of decentralisation is especially valuable since it is based on the active participation of ordinary employees, while limiting the powers of company managers.

Workers’ control or self-management is the only remedy for the frustration and “alienation” felt by many workers in factories and offices today. In producers’ cooperatives they would be able to discuss matters of common interest, such as changes of working conditions, investment policies, etc., on the basis of personal experiences and preferences. Being entitled to participate when decisions concerning them are arrived at they would no longer be merely the hired tools of others but human beings with dignity and self-respect.

Abolition of capitalist privileges and introduction of a democratic socialist society could probably not be achieved at one stroke, least of all in countries where the press and other mass media are controlled by a handful of capitalists. A gradualist approach, however, requires a clear-cut parliamentary strategy.

As a first step on the road to socialism it will be necessary to confiscate the large private fortunes by means of death duties and a once-for-all capital levy. All property holdings above, say, £100,000 should be taxed one hundred per cent, and the confiscated assets used for nationalisation of the commercial banks.

The next step should be a transfer of the powers of the shareholders in all major companies to the employees. The latter should be given a majority representation in newly established Works Councils, responsible for the appointment of managers, control of management, disposal of capital assets, fixation of wages, etc.

The third step should be abolition of all unearned income and elimination of the enormous income gap now existing between highly salaried officials and under-paid wage-earners.

By adopting a radical and well defined strategy like this western socialists would leave nobody in doubt concerning their practical recommendations for the achievement of socialism. This is just as important as a clear definition of the ultimate aim: an economic system based on fair distribution and co-operation for mutual benefit instead of exploitation and accumulation of power in the hands of a few.

Sune Hjorth, 

Sundovall, Sweden

Reply

Mr. Hjorth bases his argument on the assumption that there is some common ground where the Socialist Party of Great Britain and other political parties (what he calls “the socialist movement in the western countries") can discuss aims and strategies.

In fact, the Socialist Party stands for something which is completely opposed to what the rest want. We alone advocate common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution; the other parties, whatever some of them may call themselves, support the capitalist social system of private ownership and control.

The Labour Party, for example, are now the government of Britain, for the second time since the war. Nothing they have done, or intend to do, has had any effect on society. The capitalist class are still in possession of the means of production; the Labour Party’s part in this has been to attack the living standards of the working class.

None of this has been caused by defects of Labour ministers, or a lack of discussion of aims. The Labour Party know perfectly well what they are doing. It is simply the inescapable result of running capitalism.

The great fault with the proposals put forward by Mr. Hjorth—producers’ cooperatives, workers’ control and so on—is that they are something less than Socialism. Co-operatives still produce for the market and it is the market that in the end rules. Many organisations (including the Labour Party) have dabbled in similar ideas. They have all come to nothing.

Socialists stand outside all this. The only way Socialism can be established is for the working class consciously to opt for it. When they have the necessary knowledge, they will end the privileges of capitalism and set up the new society in which men will stand as equals about the world’s wealth.

The Socialist Party exists to help in this process; it is our job to help the working class come to an understanding of Socialist ideas. Above all, this requires a clear, uncompromising stand. The worst thing we could do would be to confuse the issue by claiming to be a Socialist Party while getting involved in trifling reforms of capitalism—what Mr. Hjorth mentions as “changes of working conditions, investment policies . . . nationalisation of the commercial banks . . . death duty and capital levy . . ."

One final point. Mr. Hjorth mentions “State Socialism”. This is a contradiction in terms. There will be no state machine in a Socialist society; it will disappear along with the other organs of capitalist privilege and coercion. A better way of describing the policies our correspondent has in mind would be state capitalism—which is what the Labour Party and many other organisations stand for, and mean when they talk about Socialism.

Editorial Committee.

Bernie Sanders and Workers Control (2019)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

The idea of "workers' control" or "industrial democracy" is now being  discussed in American political circles. Even some of the more far-sighted employers now support the idea of "workers' participation” or “worker directors”. Bernie Sanders, the progressive presidential hopeful, is set to introduces plan that encourage employee-owner businesses and would require corporations to reserve a seat at the boardroom table for employees to extend work-place democracy ensure that the work-place have a say in decisions that affect their day-to-day lives. Of course this is not a particularly new proposal. The highly conservative British Civil Service incorporated employee consultation as far back as 1919 when it introduce what is called the Whitley system of management.

It is not the job of socialists to protect the profit advantage of any individual company but to support improvements in the conditions of the workers as a whole and to bring an end to the private profit system altogether. 

Workers control is only meaningful in terms of a socialist economy democratically determined and administered by not just work-places but local communities and larger society otherwise workers’ control means workers are deprived of all effective social control. This entails that ownership of industry cannot remain in the hands of the capitalists. Only common ownership would guarantee workers' management and workers' control in the individual plants. If by “workers’ control” it is meant control of the ownership and distribution of the wealth the workers produce, it obviously cannot be under capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on private ownership; so long as capitalists own, they control.

However, Bernie Sanders is engaged in the re-invention of the wheel, resurrecting ideas from the history of the labour movement and presenting those past ideas as something new. If Sanders wishes to be seen as a genuine socialist he should not be supporting capitalism regardless on how a nice a face has been put on it but rather he should be calling for the abolition of capitalism. Worker-owned enterprises and cooperatives are perfectly compatible with capitalism and operate  like any other business or institution which extracts surplus value and produces for exchange. As nice as Sanders make it sound at the end of the day they remain capitalist enterprises, and as socialists it is vital that we recognize this fact, because if we don't go after the heart of capitalist production then all we end up with is a capitalism-without-capitalists. Operating in a competitive market economy, workers have to exploit themselves as if they were exploited by capitalists. While this may be more palatable, it does change the fact of their subordination to economic processes beyond their control. Profit production and capital accumulation control behaviour and perpetuate the misery and insecurity bound up with it. While there cannot be socialism without workers’ control, neither can there be real workers’ control without socialism. 

To assert that gradual increase of workers’ control in capitalism is an actual possibility merely plays into the hands of the ruling class to disguise their class-rule by false social reforms.

ALJO

Workers’ Control (1965)

From the January 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The phrase “workers’ control” is today frequently used as if it were some sort of definition of socialism. In fact it is nothing of the kind, implying as it does the continued existence of a working class and control of the productive system by units less than society.

The origin of the idea can be found in the 19th century divisions between socialists and anarchists. These saw society from two completely opposed points of view. Socialists saw society and the individual as reciprocal terms; the one couldn’t exist without the other. The anarchists, on the other hand, as a caricature of bourgeois individualism, saw the individual as the important unit, as an isolated being. For them society was a restriction on the freedom of the individual. While socialists recognised the need for an organisation to arrange the affairs of society as a whole, the anarchists were for a free federation of local communities and as much decentralisation as possible.

Socialists did distinguish between society and the state. In their view the State, as a coercive instrument, only flourished in class societies and was the instrument whereby a ruling class controlled society. In the classless society of the future there would be no coercive government machine, central control would be purely administrative. Unfortunately many people, including some who called themselves socialists, overlooked this distinction between society and the state.

In Germany, for example, this was the period of the “cult of the state.” The state was Truth, Freedom and so on; its mission was to free mankind; to do this it must be made democratic. The anarchists, understandably, rejected this view though their view of the state was equally inadequate: for them it was the enemy and root of all evil, Kropotkin correctly labelled the views of the German Social Democrats of this period as state capitalism.

In opposition, Kropotkin put forward the idea that the basic unit of the future society should be the free commune; where necessary, as for running things like the railways, these communes should be linked in a loose federation. This is the doctrine of Anarcho-Communism; it should be contrasted with the socialist view, that the basic unit of future society can only be society itself.

The real origin of the idea of workers’ control comes from another anarchist trend, anarcho-syndicalism. The commune, of course, is a geographical unit. For the anarcho-syndicalists the basic unit was not to be geographical, but industrial, with industrial unions as the basis of the new society. The workers in a particular industry would own and control that industry through their union. Once again, the various unions were to be linked together in a federation. More elaborate plans envisaged an Industrial Republic, a world Federation of Labour. The syndicalists, who were particularly strong in France (whence their name, from the French word for trade union, syndicat), advocated that the workers should directly own and control the means of production. This was opposed to the socialist view, that under socialism the free producers would own and control the means of production as a whole through society. The slogans Workers’ Control, The Mines for the Miners, The Factories to the Workers, are all syndicalist in origin.

At the turn of the century the idea was taken up by the American Daniel De Leon. He put forward the idea of what he called Socialist Industrial Unionism. Under this scheme the means of production were to be collectively owned, but administered by the workers through Industrial Unions. De Leon, the leader of the Socialist Labor Party, was also one of the founders of the I.W.W., the Industrial Workers of the World.

De Leon’s conception of the future society was criticised because it didn’t recognise that society would be the unit, and because it allowed for conflicts of interest between the producers in different industries. Under Socialism, there could be no permanent conflict groups; society as a whole would exercise democratic control over the means of production.

The Russian Revolution was a further source of theories of workers’ control. It often happens that when the capitalist class temporarily lose control through the breakdown of the government machine and general anarchy is threatened, the workers do the obvious: they take over the factories and try to run them themselves. This happened in Russia in 1917-18, in Italy in 1921, in Spain in 1936 and in Hungary in 1956. In Italy and in Spain the experiments rapidly came to an end as soon as the capitalists had regained control. In Hungary the Red Army performed this task. In Russia the Bolsheviks were faced with a fait accompli: the workers had themselves seized the factories. All the Bolsheviks could do was to pass decrees recognising this.

These experiments in workers’ control failed, not least because of the inexperience of the workers, which was not surprising considering the backwardness of Russia at that time. In order to keep production, going the Bolsheviks had to institute one-man management. The idea of workers’ control and workers’ councils still lived on in the minds of dissident Bolsheviks, and some of these developed a coherent theory. These theories received more support in the general reaction against Stalinism after the second world war, when the bureaucratic State Capitalism of Russia was said to have its origins in the decision to end workers’ control in 1918. This was hardly an adequate explanation, of the excesses of Stalin’s rule, but, it did provide some sort of an answer for disillusioned ex-Stalinists.

Ideas of workers’ control became more popular in periods of disorder of the sort described above. The experiences of these periods have provided the basis for many theories’ of workers’ control and of spontaneous revolution without understanding or organisation. They have become part of a general mythology fostered by loose-thinking and an inadequate understanding of the nature of present-day society. These episodes in Russia, Italy and elsewhere have very little relevance for socialism; they were not socialist in character and could not have led to socialism, even if they hadn’t been suppressed.

A little thought shows them to be exceptional and isolated incidents occurring when the control of the capitalist class had been weakened. But workers imbued with capitalist prejudices before the collapse can be expected to keep them during and after it. Without socialist understanding there was bound to be a rapid return to normal capitalism as soon as order was restored. Unfortunately, clear thinking is uncommon on this whole question of workers’ control. It seems to be a slogan full of meaning. A closer examination discloses its inadequacy.

Basically it reflects the anarchist hostility to society and social control as such; it also reflects their naive insistence that everything should be done through voluntary associations rather than permanent machinery. Basically the demand for workers’ control is a demand that the workers on the shop-floor should control production through a workshop organisation rather than through society. Quite apart from the fact that there won’t be any “workers” under Socialism, this demand is unrealistic and Utopian. The productive system of today is incredibly complicated in its world-wide organisation. It could only be controlled by society as a whole through a fairly complex and permanent administrative apparatus. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the nature of the modern world with its large-scale industry.

Adam Buick

Letters: Workplace Democracy (2017)

Letters to the Editors from the September 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Workplace Democracy

Dear Editors

The essence of socialism is democracy within the workplace. That’s each employee having an equal say in the production and distribution of products, sourcing of raw materials, and everything else relevant to the business. Equating socialism with the former Soviet Union and countries with centrally-planned economies is just asinine and deliberately misleading. It’s the old chestnut of ‘Socialism has been tried and it has failed.’ What country ever had a majority of businesses where there was a democratic say for all the employees? It’s not about storming the Winter Palace either. The state will always prevail over those sort of tactics. Transitioning from our present economic system run by private tyrannies to one where democracy was extended into the workplace would be a real revolution. What we think of revolution is really a ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss’ type of conjuring trick. Democracy within the workplace is what the establishment fears most and for good reason.

Louis Shawcross, 

Hillsborough, Northern Ireland

Reply:

You make some goods points but the use of the word ’employee’ is misleading. Workplaces in socialism will be democratically organised, but those working there will no longer be ’employee’, i.e., will no longer be working for wages for an ’employer’. It sounds as if you might be advocating worker control of ‘businesses’ producing for sale on a market with a view to profit; which wouldn’t be socialism – Editors

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Deglobalization?

Dear Comrades

I read Stefan’s article ‘Deglobalization: Is globalization going in reverse?’ (Socialist Standard, May). Stefan’s treatment of this extremely complex phenomenon is thought-provoking.

Despite a weakening of intergovernmental institutions, are there not deeper structures of globalization – not necessarily in the political sphere – that remain intact?

There is an inherent carrot versus stick relationship introduced into the arena of international business by existing treaties on trade: ‘Profit’ v ‘Regulation’ however mild. The abandonment of international trade treaties would perhaps result in a more laissez-faire, colonial frontier type freedom of exploitation and expropriation. Down this turnpike the destination could be the hell of war.

At this juncture it would perhaps be unwise to rule out a come-back of globalization in the fairly near future or to assume that we are on the threshold of a long period of deglobalization.

Joe R. Hopkins, 

Florida, USA.

Reply:

Good point – in particular about ‘deep structures’. The crucial deep structure is that of capital itself, because a relentless drive to expand is intrinsic to capital as self-expanding value. Even protectionist governments are under constant pressure to accommodate this drive.

As Marx put it in Grundrisse: 

‘Capital is the endless and limitless drive to go beyond its limiting barrier. Every boundary is and has to be a barrier for it. Else it would cease to be capital – money as self-reproductive’ (Notebook III/IV).

And again:

‘Capital by its nature drives beyond every spatial barrier… Capital must strive to tear down every spatial barrier to intercourse, i.e. to exchange, and conquer the whole earth for its market’ (Notebook V). 

Nor is there any reason to expect capital to halt at the limits of the planet of its birth. – Editors

"The House of Industry." (1931)

Book Review from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The House of Industry by S. G. Hobson (Pub. P. S. King & Son, Ltd., price 1/-, 112 pages).

Mr. S. G. Hobson, who has in turn been a member of the I.L.P., a Fabian, and an advocate of Guild "Socialism" has written a book in which he advocates workers’ control. This is to become effective by superseding the House of Lords by a "House of Industry,” which will have full legal authority from the House of Commons to control "all industrial processes, including banking, finance, credit and insurance; and in which labour will have a permanent majority.” The members of the "House of Industry” are to be elected by economic groups and to be representative of all factors. Needless to say Mr. Hobson does not propose dispossessing the capitalist class. He proposes that shares should be changed into "some form of debentures” bearing a fixed rate of interest.

The problems of Capitalism are very simple matters to the "House of Industry.” Unemployment will be solved by "increasing wages, adjusting economic factors, by co-ordinating industry and controlling credit.” How it is going to be done or how the details will work themselves out we are not told. We are left to believe that the magical formulae, "Control of credit ” . . . "finance” . . . "co-ordination of industry,” etc., etc., which are repeated almost on every page, will perform the miracle.

The most interesting part of the book is perhaps the foreword contributed by two prominent Trades Council officials, A. M. Wall and A. A. Purcell. Concerned because the Labour Party has forsaken its policy of Nationalisation (see June S.S.) in favour of Public Utility Companies, they advocate support of Mr. Hobson’s proposals for "workers’ control” through a "House of Industry” as outlined in his book.

"The politicians,” they say, "are actively engaged at this moment in legislating away their control over industry . . .  We need only instance the creation of the Electricity Commission and the proposed new authority for the passenger transport system of London as illustrations of this tendency on the part of Parliament to give away its control of economic affairs.”

They continue:—

   The indications are that a decade of legislation under Labour Governments will give us a whole group of independent corporations of this type, administering railway and road transport, electricity supply, the cotton textile industry, and probably others. These concerns will not be, as the Post Office organisation is, under Parliamentary control, administered by Government departments, and with responsible Ministers at their head. If the proposed new transport authority in London is to be taken as a model, questions of wages and conditions of employment will be handled by these new bodies in exactly the same way as any powerfully organised capitalist-controlled industry handles them now. Trade Unions will negotiate with these boards of Commissioners as they now negotiate with employers' organisations; and the policy of the board in dealing with the Unions cannot be any more effectively challenged in Parliament than the policy of any capitalist organisation of employers can be challenged to-day. Labour members who are returned to the House of Commons at the expense of the Unions by working-class votes as Members of Parliament, will be as powerless to protect the interest's of their organisations whose members are employed under these corporations, as the group of miners' M.P.s are to protect the workers in the coalfields under capitalist ownership. Our Labour members, in fact, who are consenting to the creation of these corporations, are not only voting away their usefulness as Union watchdogs : they are legislating against the workers' control of industry. And if anybody alleges that the principle of workers' control will be safeguarded by the inclusion of one or two prominent trade unionists among the commissioners we can only say we do not agree. We take leave to say further that anybody who thinks the appointment of a Trade Union representative on one of these boards is a step towards workers' control understands neither the meaning of workers' control nor the purpose of Trade Unionism.

It will be seen that Mr. A, M. Wall and Mr. A. A. Purcell both vigorously denounce Mr. Morrison’s and the late Labour Government’s London Passenger Transport Bill. They represent it—quite truly—as the abandonment of the Labour Party’s old policy of Nationalisation. But is there any fundamental difference between these proposals? The difference is merely one of form. In the case of Nationalisation control is vested in a State Department; in the case of the Public Utility Trust in a Committee of business men who are responsible to a State Department. In the case of "workers' control,” on the lines of Mr. Hobson’s proposals, control would nominally be in the hands of elected officials. In each case, however, the capitalists still retain ownership, and perhaps more securely than ever. Instead of their shares being liable to considerable fluctuations in the open market and to possible complete loss, they are to receive a fixed rate of interest on bonds having Government backing.

Public ownership in any of these forms is capitalism in a new garb. The defect about these schemes is that they do not so much as touch the fundamental problem of the workers. What is the problem? It is that we live in a world where the means of production and distribution are the private property of the capitalist class. The workers produce everything that is necessary for the sustenance and continuance of society; the capitalist class own it. The workers receive wages based roughly on what it costs them to live and be efficient, and bring up families. The capitalist class keep the remainder. It has been calculated by a Liberal economist, Professor Henry Clay, that one-twentieth of the population own between them five-sixths of the accumulated property, land, buildings, shares, etc., and retain every year nearly half of the total product of industry. That is the workers’ problem. That is why they are poor. There lies the cause of unemployment and wars. The solution is that the means of production and distribution should be made the common property of society as a whole. When that has been done there will no longer be a working class, producing wealth but not owning it, and a propertied class owning-wealth but not producing it. That will be Socialism. Nationalisation, Public Utility Companies, etc., do not solve that problem. They leave the property owners still in possession of their property rights, still able to live at the expense of the producers.

The only difference is that they exchange shares in a private company for shares in a public utility company, or for Government securities. The workers are more or less where they were before, getting just enough to exist on, and faced with all the harrowing problems of how to make ends meet. Changing the form of capitalism from private companies to State-controlled concerns is a problem of interest to the capitalist class, the form of whose property is being changed, but it is not a question that is worth the attention of the workers.

Harry Waite

"Young Guard is Misguided" (1963)

From the November 1963 issue of the Young Guard

The purpose of this article is to show readers why the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain considers ‘Young Guard’ as just another well meaning but misguided group who aim, whether they realise it or not, to make the running of capitalism more efficient, or supporting various reforms which they misname socialism.

In contrast the SPGB holds that the present social system, capitalism, is the cause of working class poverty and will only be abolished when the majority of the international working class understands and wants socialism.

First must be explained what we mean by the two terms.

Capitalism is a system of buying and selling, where wealth is produced for sale on the market with the idea of producing a profit for those who own and control the means of production and distribution. Socialism on the other hand, is a system where wealth is produced for use, with the means of production and distribution being commonly owned and democratically controlled by the whole society.

Anything short of this—no matter how desirable it may seem—is not Socialism. For instance there will be no money in the socialist society, therefore no need of banks and insurance companies; no armed forces, for in society there will exist for the first time a harmony of interests: where the watchword will be— from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

We say that all reformists— whether so-called leftists or rightists—who tell the workers that their administration of capitalism is Socialism are directly retarding workers realising that Socialism is their interests. Thanks to the antics of Labour Parties the world over. Socialism is now equated with shortages, controls, high rates and taxes, nationalisation and so on.

Young Socialists and Young Guard in particular are perpetuating these myths by supporting the party which, during its last term of office, initiated the production of nuclear weapons in Britain, used troops to break strikes, imposed a wage freeze on trade unionists (and intends to do so again with your help no doubt) became the first party to impose conscription in peace time and started the germ warfare establishment at Porton although your contributor ‘Fianna!, seems to think this was a devilish Tory creation (see Y. G. Aug.).

No doubt Young Guardites hold the absurd view that they can help convert the Labour Party to Socialism, though they might just as well try doing this with the Catholic Church, but even if this were possible who are they to play the educators?

Take a look at the ‘aims’ of YG (which can be changed anytime!) to see what we mean. For example, nationalisation has nothing to do with Socialism and we challenge YG or anyone else to give just one example of nationalisation having benefited workers anywhere.

Again worker’s control is a meaningless term as the abolition of capitalism means the abolition of all classes, so where do these workers come in? Workers control is merely another method of running capitalism which even Mr. Khrushchev is now looking upon with favour. Indeed Mark Frankland, writing in the Observer (Sept. 1st) hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that Mr K’s recent speech to Yugoslav workers, on which he extolled the virtues of workers control, was a waste of breath as they—“Know quite well that their wages depend on profits from their factories.”

We also know that Young Guardites envisage profits under Socialism. Where will these come from? Will workers extract surplus-value from themselves?

To sum up; Young Guardites have as much idea of Socialism as any other reformist group. What they call ‘Socialism’ is merely a Utopian rag-bag of ideas none of which, if implemented, would fundamentally alter the wage slavery of the working class. The interests of that class lie in the abolition of capitalism and this, we repeat, they will do when and only when they understand and want Socialism.

“Fair enough” you may say, ‘But how will they get this understanding?” Our reply is that they certainly will not get it by being told that Labour administration of capitalism is Socialism. This simply draws the antagonism of the workers for the failures of that Party onto Socialism and produces a working class which, by its many disappointments at the hands of Labour, is disillusioned and more confused than ever as to what Socialism is, let alone how to achieve it.

The only way is for Socialists to preach Socialism and nothing else, at all times. The more the workers hear expounded a revolutionary alternative to the present set up, the quicker will they demonstrate that they are just as capable of latching-on as anyone else.

Vic Vanni

Ex-Secretary of Woodside Constituency Labour Party

Letter From Europe: The French Nationalisations (1982)

The Letter From Europe column from the March 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

President Mitterand and his PS/PC government were hoping that the nationalisation measures voted in December would be in force by the beginning of February, but an appeal to the Constitutional Council by the opposition parties in Parliament delayed matters. The Council ruled that, although the nationalisation measures in themselves were not unconstitutional, the compensation terms were not generous enough to comply with the rights of property as laid down in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man. The government was thus obliged to revise this, and certain other aspects of their proposals, and to resubmit them to Parliament. Hence the delay.

The original plan was to nationalise 36 banks, two financial holding companies (Paribas and Suez), the steel industry and five other industrial groups involved in' such fields as chemicals, electrical goods, telecommunications, electronics, glass and fertilisers. Previously, the state had already acquired by mutual agreement a 51 per cent holding in two armaments firms, Dassault (Mirage jets) and Matra. Three other, mainly foreign-owned, companies—Roussel Uclaf (chemicals), CI1-Honeywcll Bull (computers) and ITT France—are to be nationalised later. The state sector in France is thus being considerably extended.

The last wave of nationalisation in France took place in 1945-6 and was initiated by De Gaulle. It involved coal, gas, electricity, civil aviation, the Renault motor firm and parts of the aircraft and arms industries. A number of banks (BNP, Crédit Lyonnais and Société Générale) and insurance companies were also nationalised. The railways had been virtually nationalised before the war and the manufacture of matches and cigarettes has been a revenue-raising state monopoly since the time of Louis XIV. To this list can be added the state oil company, ELF, set up in 1965.

France will therefore have quite an array of state capitalist enterprises, most of them competing in their fields mainly against foreign-owned firms at home and abroad (as Renault has been doing, fairly successfully for years). Although in their internal documents the PS talks about nationalisation being “anti-capitalist" and part of their strategy of “rupture" with capitalism, before the general public these measures are being justified on quite other grounds. Mitterand, for instance, has said that they will provide France with an “economic strike force", both to compete on the world market and to “reconquer the home market” from foreign suppliers, so placing these measures squarely within the logic of capitalism. He has been echoed here by his Minister of Industry, Pierre Dreyfus, who speaks from experience since under De Gaulle he was a managing-director of the state capitalist car company Renault.

In a very real sense this is a continuation of the policy pursued by De Gaulle, after his return to power in 1958, and by his successor Pompidou to try to make France a leading industrial power. De Gaulle wanted to encourage the emergence of French-owned industry able to compete on equal terms with the foreign-owned multi-national corporations which were threatening to take over the French market. These enterprises, which remained in private ownership, were brought into being and survived with help from the government, particularly in the form of orders but also by generous loans. These companies (CGE, Rhone-Poulencc, PUK, St. Gobain, Thomson-Brandt) are now being nationalised; but their role is to remain unchanged: to be French capitalism’s “industrial champions" at home and abroad. The new state capitalist concerns that have been set up will join Renault, Elf, SNECMA (aircraft engines), SNIAS (aerospace, headed by the President's brother. General Jacques Mitterand) and the others—with the exception of the bankrupt steel industry—as pace-makers for technological innovation; at least that’s what the government hopes.

The French capitalist class is well aware that these nationalisations are in no way opposed to their interests; indeed, those facing nationalisation only fought a rearguard action to get the compensation terms increased. Thus the financial daily Les Echos (14 October) headlined its front page the day after the debate on the nationalisation proposals opened in Parliament: “Pierre Mauroy pleads the case for the nationalisations. STATE CAPITALISM AND Till STRATEGY OF PACE-MAKERS”. The accompanying article explained:

   The socialist government wants to apply the doctrine of State industrial capitalism in the name of the strategy of large technological pace-makers. Pace-makers for the reconquest of the internal market, for independence and influence. Not a punishment nationalisation, but a move to give more dynamism to the factories of the Hexagon (France).

Shades of Harold Wilson and his “white-hot technological revolution”!

When a company or an industry is nationalised all that is changed is that the top management is henceforth appointed by the state instead of as previously by the biggest private shareholders. Everything else remains unchanged: the workers remain wage-earners selling their labour-power and producing surplus-value; the former owners remain capitalists living off the income derived from the compensation they are paid; the industry continues to be run on capitalist lines, producing for profit.

As practised in the long-established Western capitalist countries, nationalisation does not affect the social standing of the former owners as capitalists living off the exploitation of the workers. For nationalisation takes place within a legal framework which protects the rights of existing property-owners. In France in fact the “rights of property” are enshrined in the Constitution which requires the state to pay a “fair” compensation when it nationalises an industry or a company—something reaffirmed by the Constitutional Court in its ruling on the first version of the current nationalisation law.

Nationalisation is a buying and selling transaction between the state and the former owners. The state buys the assets in question from their owners more or less at their value. The wealth of the former owners is not reduced at all; it merely changes form. Previously they were shareholders, now they become bondholders. This is precisely what is happening in France, as Le Monde (22 January) explains:

   The shareholders of the companies to be nationalised are going to have to exchange their property titles for State bonds. These will be redeemed capital and interest over 15 years. The interest on these bonds will be paid by two sinking funds, one for the banks and one for the industrial groups, which will be constituted by grants from the budget but also by “contributions” paid by the nationalised industries if they make any profits. Each year the State will lay down how much of the interest payments are to fall on the budget of the State and how much on the industries themselves.

For 1983 it has already been decided that, of the 5,000 million francs (about £460 million) that will be needed to pay that year’s interest on these bonds, 3,000 million francs will be provided by the Budget and 2,000 million francs from the profits of the nationalised industries. The rate of interest payable will be the same as that paid in other medium-term state bonds. As can be seen, the workers in the nationalised industries will continue to be exploited by the former owners, part of whose interest will come directly from the surplus value they produce. And this is supposed to be a step towards “socialism”!

Apart from continuing to receive a property income as interest, the former shareholders will also be getting their capital back. Each year from 1983 until 1998, when the operation will be completed, a number of bonds will be chosen by lot for redemption at their face-value. Most of the former shareholders are in fact expected to sell their compensation bonds fairly quickly so as to be able to re-invest in shares. Thus, the former shareholders will, after a brief period as government bondholders, go back to being shareholders again! The bonds will end up in the hands of those financial institutions which specialise in investing in government bonds.

It has been estimated that the government will have to pay out over the 15 years a total of about 40,000 million francs (about £3,670 million) as compensation—and this is only the cost of redeeming the bonds: the interest payments (another 40.000 million francs) are in addition to this. The government upped the compensation terms (the price the state is to pay to buy up the industries it wanted to take over) twice, once on its own initiative and then again following the ruling of the Constitutional Council. The capitalists concerned must be quite happy with the final terms for the sale of their industries to the state, helped considerably as they were by the obstructionist parliamentary tactics of the opposition Gaullist and Giscardian parties, many of whose members and leaders have close connections with the business world.

The other great change often promised (but never put into practice) in connection with nationalisation is what used to be called “industrial democracy”, now revived by Benn and the Labour Party under the name of “workers’ control”. In France the term is autogestion (“self-management”) and is the official policy of the PS. In fact it is their (mistaken) definition of socialism: a society where the most important means of production would be nationalised and run by management committees composed of representatives of the workers, consumers and the government. But this would not be socialism because production for sale on a market with a view to profit would continue and the management committees, however democratically chosen, would still have to run the industry in accordance with the logic of the capitalist economy: keeping costs, including wages, down so as to remain competitive, making profits, accumulating capital, and so on.

But in any event the Mitterand government is only taking a token step in this direction. The existing elected works councils will be consulted more often and will be given more information. A number of so-called “workers’ representatives” (trade union bosses) have been appointed to the boards of the new nationalised companies, but real power will be in the hands of the government-appointed managing directors.

Even if it wasn’t just a façade, such “participation” in the organisation of their own exploitation, dressed up as an extension of democracy, is something workers in France and elsewhere would be well advised to refuse even from a simple trade union point of view. It blurs and is in fact meant to blur—the fundamental conflict of interest between wage-labour and capital which is built into capitalism. As long as capitalism lasts workers and their trade unions should avoid getting involved in the management of industry and should stick to being a permanent opposition to "management” (i.e. the owners or their agents) over wages and working conditions.

Adam Buick (Luxemburg)

'Workers Control' in Yugoslavia (1965)

From the July 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the end of the war, the Yugoslav economy has been affected by a number of administrative changes, called by various names (not all of them complimentary). The ruling class have dubbed them “self-management”. To the Western economists they may be better known under the heading of decentralisation. How, when and why was self-management introduced? What does it mean to the working class? How does it work in practice? Is it really a way to Socialism? These are the questions I shall try to answer here.

To shed some light on the rather obscure and misleading interpretations of the term "Self-management”, you should really start your investigations around 1945, when large doses of state control were administered to the economy and misnamed “Communism". But to play down the uncomfortable reality of capitalism with its wages system, the swindle was justified simply by debasing the old Socialist slogan “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” so that it ran “from each according to his ability, to each according to his work," and calling it Marxism. The privileged class of non-producers existed and operated to a large extent through the state machine, which generally regulated and controlled production, and this seems to be an outstanding feature of some of the newer capitalist countries, taking their example from Soviet Russia.

But whatever the politicians chose to call it, the painful facts of capitalist life in Yugoslavia were what demanded their attention, for the usual signs of the class struggle were appearing. Workers were pushing for better wages and conditions, to be met with the usual dreary reply with which you in England will be all too familiar—that their claims could not be met unless production was increased, which in practice meant harder work and longer hours.

Now workers in Yugoslavia are no different from their brothers elsewhere in that they will support any particular method of running the system, regardless of its name, if they think it will give them a better life. As one writer confessed:

It was impossible to call upon the working class by promising a development of "Socialist" ideas; it was necessary to offer them a material incentive. (Social Self-management in Yugoslavia, by Stane Koneic. Belgrade, 1961)

So Belgrade took action to blunt the edge of workers' demands by setting up workers' councils in all firms, with the avowed aim of reducing and eventually abolishing state interference in production. By 1951 "Self-management” had arrived.

But before we go any further, let us see how the workers’ councils operate. They are elected through secret ballot of all members of a firm or organisation and their duties are varied. They decide what and how much to produce, and eventually the prices. They pay a part of the resulting profit (six percent of the whole turnover) to the State direct every month, and they have the authority to make decisions on investment of their capital. When necessary they can approach the Narodna Banka (state bank) for loans and these are credited according to the value of machinery and plant.

In the sphere of employment, the councils have the right to engage and dismiss workers, and to decide the magnitude of wages according to level of sales. But by present rules, wages must not fall below 75 per cent nor rise above 125 percent of the figure fixed in the wages books. Councils can also make rules about relations between management and men and fix the length of the working day. Finally, they have the right to decide on amalgamation with other firms or on liquidation. Liquidation is in any case compulsory when a firm no longer runs at a profit, and can be avoided only by presenting a report to the state chamber of commerce, with concrete proposals for the firm's recovery.

After fourteen years of operation, self-management is well on its way, but where to? This is doubtless a question which many a worker is asking himself, and the answer is that it is just another variation in the day-to-day running of the capitalist system. True it means that the workers are given a much wider direct responsibility for production, but the net result is no different from any other capitalist country. A small class of parasites still lives well on the surplus value extracted from workers. According to Statisticki Kalendar FNRJ, the total production has risen by 162 percent in the last ten years, but in the last seventeen years, the standard of living has risen by about seven percent.

Yugoslav workers do not have to consult any statistics to see the large difference between their humble homes and the luxury villas of the communist party bigshots. Yugoslav T.U.C. Chairman Vukmanuvic-Tempo has in fact complained bitterly in the daily paper Liberation (14/11/64) that "the standard of living is rising loo slowly and many promises made to the workers have never been kept.” To which Federal Parliament Chairman Edward Kardelj had the impudence to reply:—

The sharp difference between the increase in production and the standard of living is not due to self-management, but to not enough self-management.

This reply was also in the nature of a “strong recommendation" and as such, was taken up at the delegates’ conference of the Peoples' Republic of Slovenia. Croatia and Montenegro, held at the beginning of the year. On March 26th Belgrade Radio announced that similar decisions had been reached at the Macedonia delegates’ conference. At the lime of writing, the Serbia. Bosnia and Herzegovina conferences have yet to meet, but it’s a fair bet they will follow Mr. Kardelj’s “advice”.

These conferences are part of modern Yugoslavia’s machinery for shaping the pattern of its state capitalism. One does not have to be an expert to see who gets the lion's share of the cake. Just like their counterparts elsewhere. Yugoslav workers have a long way to go before they establish a life for themselves really worth living.

Remy Starc (Trieste, Italy).

The I.L.P. as the 'Open' Party (1972)

From the October 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

It would be impossible to describe within a single article of reasonable length the policies of the Independent Labour Party. They stand for just about everything. No cause is too small to merit their attention: Black Militancy; Irish Nationalism; Military Strategy; Liberation of Vietnam; and now, Workers’ Control. These are in addition to their almost unlimited stock of reforms in Housing, Education, Health. You name it, they’ve got it — that is, with the notable exception of a Socialist policy.

With such a universal platform the ILP continues to decay and is, in fact, a political joke. The reasons are that the big battalions of social reform, the Labour and Tory parties, have monopolised the field leaving the ILP and its associates in the position of the small shopkeepers opposing the supermarkets. Another reason is that the policies of the ILP have become so discredited over the years that it appears to them nothing less than a new approach based on new policies will stop the rot. 

At its 81st annual conference held at Scarborough earlier this year the new face-lift (third in its history) was performed. The conference made the discovery that they had been wrong all the time, and had a sectarian approach to politics. Sweeping changes in the constitution were made. By a large majority the delegates agreed that there was no value in participating in parliamentary or local elections at the present stage of the class struggle, and voted that no branch or division of the Party should put up candidates in the future, unless in exceptional circumstances. Coupled with this decision was support for “workers’ control” to subvert the organisation of the capitalist class (Socialist Leader, 8 April 1972), and also that members of the ILP would be free to join other political parties and work within them. (This ancient policy was advocated by the Communist Party forty-five years ago, and described as “boring from within”. It proved to be useless as well as dishonest, but this is lost on the ILP).

Confusion

Their position on Parliament, despite the conference decision, is confused. On page 3 of their pamphlet Towards Socialism they state:

There is little to be gained by relying on the procedures of Parliamentary Democracy. The ILP must therefore recruit members in local communities, in colleges and universities, and at the point of production, for organised subversion.

But on page 4:

Meanwhile the ILP advocates policies and initiates activity, including direct action and Parliamentary activity, designed to strengthen the institutions of the working class and subvert the organisations of the capitalist class.

This contradictory position is all things to all men, and is nothing more than political opportunism. The curious logic which impels the ILP to partly repudiate Parliament arises purely from the fact that they cannot get in there. Political power, which they have courted dearly and cannot have, now they regard as useless. The Parliamentary system is blamed for the failure of their policies. Forgotten is the fact that the first Labour government in 1924 largely consisted of ILP members, including 45 MPs. The second Labour government contained 111 members.

So we return to direct action and workers’ control — theories which are at least 150 years old. This is the “modern” ILP! These emotive policies, borrowed from other antiquated organisations (anarchists, Trotskyists, etc.) are dear to politically immature workers and students. They have that romantic ring, and are removed from a clear and objective appreciation of what makes capitalism work. Incidentally, they have never satisfactorily explained, and none of the organisations which support workers’ control has explained, how you get the capitalists to relinquish their control. 

Cartoon by Jack Gold.

Whose Power ?

The claim by the ILP “that real power exists outside Parliament and the Courts” (page 3, The Way to Workers' Control) is rubbish. This is based on the assumption that the workers have economic power and can use the strike weapon to enforce political reforms as well as wage demands. They are wrong on both counts. It is the capitalists who have economic power, it is they who can and do dictate the conditions under which they will produce, hire or fire. The economic power of the workers is restricted to fighting a series of rearguard actions through trade unions against the unending encroachments of capital. In the field of political reform, no strike action by unions over the past 150 years has produced any reform even in trade-union legislation. Political power and economic power is the prerogative of the capitalists. They dominate society, and the workers support them. Direct action could only be carried on by isolated minorities, and is doomed to failure as long as the majority of workers give their political support to capitalism.

The most recent example of the workers’ “economic power’’ and “control” was at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. This was inspired and led by Communists, supported by the ILP, Trotskyists, SLL, and IS. Viewed as the revolution they thought would be, it proved to be an utter fiasco. Based on the absurd principle that the workers work for nothing, being paid by other workers’ donations, they produced things for the capitalists to sell. No wonder the capitalists did not bring in the forces of law and order, having reaped the benefits of unpaid labour! It eventually deteriorated into a position where the militants led by Jimmy Reid, a prominent CP member, agreed to sit down with the new owners Marathon, a group of American capitalists, to discuss redundancies. Home-grown capitalists were evidently not good enough.

There are numerous instances which show that sporadic gestures of workers’ control are worse than useless. The ILP, SLL, CP, Trotskyists, etc. — the “militants” — are really the running dogs of capitalism. At election times they will come to heel and urge the workers to vote for the pro-capitalist Labour Party. The strange philosophy which impels these people is one which regards trade-union militancy and reform movements as permanent conditions of the workers’ existence. They see no way out.

None of these organisations understands Socialism, and they do their damnedest to make sure that the working class will not understand it either. They are fighting a losing battle, however. The policy and principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are easily understood, and we offer them to workers who are prepared to learn something new. Without the understanding of the Socialist Party’s policy and principles the workers cannot achieve Socialism. The Socialist Party of Great Britain will not repudiate Parliament — on the contrary, we aim at political power for the sole purpose of establishing Socialism.

Jim D'Arcy

International Socialists . . . the Tripe Factory (1974)

From the April 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The crisis which we have been predicting for the last 20 years is now upon us . . . Every single area of the organisation needs to be strengthened if we are to reply to Heath, Wilson and the union leaders with real Socialist answers” (Socialist Worker 5 January 1974).

Not at all a bad idea! If by “real” Socialist answers is meant sound, correct Socialist answers.

Unfortunately the International Socialists are not giving “real” Socialist answers; but very unreal mistaken ones.

Socialist Worker for 12 January includes a whole page of “replies to readers’ queries”, headlined by the statement that "the only answer” is not “Socialism” but “Workers' Control”.

Now the first point about so-called “Workers’ Control” is that there ain’t (and can’t be) any such animal. Workers’ control is a simple contradiction in terms. Those “in control” can never be the workers. Control of society comes from ownership backed by a Parliamentary majority. Even Chris Harman is forced to admit this. Lower down answering somebody else he writes: “What is needed is a mass movement of workers prepared to fight for control of every pit, dock, factory and office, replacing the present system by one run democratically by elected workers’ delegates.” But he adds (ruefully) “such a really massive movement does not yet exist. Most workers continue to take the existing system for granted and only want small gradual changes in it.” (Socialist Worker 12 January 1974).

Too true — only too true, Chris. But even supposing that friend Harman’s idea actually worked and a "massive movement” of workers fought for control of every factory — AND WON IT — WHAT THEN? Would it be Socialism? NO! On the same page we are told that the "problem of shortages” would be transformed by "dividing up the immense wealth in very few hands; enough to give the six million lower paid workers an extra ten pounds a week.”

Is this Socialism? NO! It’s the same old wages system. All it could do would be to perpetuate the same old class struggle. Even if every worker got ten pounds extra next Friday, nothing would be fundamentally changed. Capitalism would go its own sweet way and whittle away the "increases” by inflation, speed-up and all its other devices. As Tony Cliff rightly says (misquoting Lenin) "Capitalism always has a way out of the crisis if the workers are ready to pay the price” (Socialist Worker 5 January 1974).

The Socialist Worker actually writes that this "dividing up” would "pay the miners a decent wage so that they saw no reason to strike”. (What is a "decent” wage?)

This is definitely comical, seeing that the International Socialists spend most of their time fomenting strikes for political ends. Of course we are not quite so naive as not to know that the object of all the International Socialists’ hysteria about the present crisis is simply "the mixture as before”. It is a reprint of the old outmoded and discredited Communist Party tactics — calls for a Labour Government, new versions of the election of Soviets by the Trades Councils and establishment of "dual power” on the Petrograd model.

Its support of any and every strike, or potential riot, its absurd idea that any crowd breaking a few windows is preparation for the "revolutionary situation” and slavish idolatory of the Leninist “tactics” is the real reason for the formation of Rank and File (T.U.) movements, organization of fractions in the Trade Unions and factory branches. It’s all been tried before, ending with the virtual non-existence of the CPGB.

Behind the organization of strikes to overthrow Governments is the idea of seizure of power by “Workers’ Committees” backed by mutiny in favour of the workers by the armed forces! What a hope!

By their rejection of Parliamentary methods International Socialists show that they are confused on the method of establishing Socialism because they do not understand Socialism itself. Socialism is NOT control by the workers. Socialist society concerns every citizen in his capacity as a human being, not as a miner, bank clerk or whatever.

Cannot International Socialists see that if the massive movement they envisage was Socialist it would inevitably express itself politically at elections, capturing political power in the only way possible (which is not street fights or riots) by a majority vote?

By their hysterical and unthinking fomenting of disorder they discredit and besmirch Socialism, reducing it to the level of hooliganism and street brawling.

Will they never learn? It’s all been tried before and is foredoomed to disaster.

Horatio