Labour prepares for elections
The Labour Party bureaucracy in Britain is preparing has announced that it will switch away from electoral activity general election in 1983 by a swing to the right. It Wales miners have announced that they will strike from January wages, against the advice of their union executive - although there is still the prospect of a fierce struggle on jobs. South based on marches or demonstrations to basing it on televi- in defence of jobs and demanding that the National Coal Board sion appearances! This is despite the halfmillion strong demon- increase investment in the pits by 50%. British Leyland car strations that can be mobilised on at least workers also rejected a struggle
Labour's policy - nuclear disarmament. It is also despite the healthworkers dispute has essentially been abandoned by the of trade union struggles - even probable fact that 1982 saw an upturn one aspect of bureaucracy.
The months long on wages.
if most ended in defeats, and if there is even a small economic
Meanwhile unemployment continues to cut a swathe through upturn in 1983 this could strengthen this trend. An intensive the traditional strongholds of British industry. Despite their witch hunt has been launched within the Labour Party willingness to struggle British workers have so far been incapable the attempt to expel the
"Militant"
group (an ex-Trotskyist of checking this. There is a minority current within the British organisation). The right wing of the party led by deputy leader
Labour movement, but they have not been able to put forward
Denis Healey has gained firm control of the party executive for and gain majority support for an adequate response.
the first time for almost a decade.
These rightwing victories in the Labour Party have been
The Labour Party has come forward with its plan to save accompanied by major successes of the ruling
British industry'. This article from 'Socialist Challenge' looks at trade-union struggles. The miners voted to reject a strike on how far this provides an adequate workers response to the crisis.
Amid strong hints of a spring election,
Michael Foot and David Basnett have relaunched Labour's Programme with a promise to cut unemployment to one million
The policy, announced last week, was rounded out by Peter Shore on Tuesday.
Using that modern-day oracle. the Treasury computer, he says it can be done without the economic crisis the Tories confidently predict, by spending Labour's services and public sector investment - with an incomes policy.
There is no doubt that a spending programme would cut unemployment temporarily. But the 64,000 dollar question is: what next? It was one thing to march forward without drastic new measures but with radical reform programmes in the 1960s and 1970s when the economic crisis had not bitten so deeply.
Will such a programme work? Isn't it going to provoke massive inflation (as it did in 1974), a run on the pound (as it did in 1975), and a sharp U-turn (as it did
The answer turns around what Labour will do when the IMF and CBI put on the pressure. Will they cave in, as in 1975 - or will they take additional steps needed the banks and CBI
Labour's control, instead of vice versa.
omitted from Labour's programme which will be essential if the package by Michael Foot is to be achieved. These
- The nationalisation of the banks and
- Serious measure to mobilise workinvestment decisions by large-scale
The Labour leadership believes it will not need such measures because by borrowing to finance expansion it can produce a new boom. This isn't very convincing. If the election programme is to have credibility, therefore, the left will have to prove itself able to win the battle for these additional measures during the life of a Labour government, through a combination of extraparliamentary mobi struggle to Labour's right wing leaders.
John Harrison in 'Marxism Today', for July 1982, explains; despite the moneaim is to destroy working class resistance and shake out unproductive or uncompetitive capital, thus laying the basis for a substantial rise in productivity and isolin arions poind out: Output fell by more than in any other downturn for over half a century, including the crash of 1929-32... Manufacturing output fell by a colossal 15 percent in the twelve months from December 1979. This compares with a maximum fall in any single year of the 1930s of only (!)
A crash on this scale should make us cautious about simply carrying on where postwar probhas been poor competitiveness, provoked by underin-
But now there are not only not new machines - half the old ones have been broken up and even some of the newer ones too. John Harrison explains that despite the apparently sensational rise in productivity last year, almost entirely due to harder working, speed-up and so on, "British unit labour costs the conven-
500 35-40% reher toon 1979, and tre
was hardly a record-beater then.'
This low competitivity is not because the British workers are highly paid. On the contrary, they are now about eighth
Productivity is low fundamentally because we do not have modern ma-
If this is not corrected, governmentfinanced expansion can only result either in a flood of imports produced by better machines abroad, or in very high prices at home because workers are forced to buy badly-produced home goods.
Of course it could be corrected if the government, and the unions, took charge of investment. And if they drew up a plan of investment, geared to supply the needs created by Labour's spending on social meet new demand in a relatively smooth
So it is possible to implement Labour's programme using socialist means. It is, to say the least, much harder to do it by capitalist means. This involves guaranteeing profits for private capital. Capitalists are quite rational: they invest where they the highest profit. And for fifty years this has meant abroad.
in Labour's programme would make this worse. It would only become profitable to begin large-scale new investment at home if the working class's resistance was completely smashed. To put the figure on this, we need only study the demand advanced by the CBI: for a thirty per cent real wage cut. And Labour could never deliver such an attack successfully; indeed it is doubtful whether anything short of fascism could do so. So there will be no incentive for new invest-
Worse still, however, the banking sector - which has grown massively under bitterly resent the imposition of exchange controls which Labour would have to reestablish, and the loss of profits which would result from letting the pound sink.
It is geared to overseas investment and, as in 1975, would use every bit of influence it possessed to try and unseat the government.
Labour would thus face a combined issault from industry and bankers. which be unable to match unless l was prepared to take them over.
Thatcher has crashed the economy: and Peter Shore wants to uncrash it. But you can't put a crashed car back on the road without some drastic garage work. It isn't the same shape. And the sooner we have a Labour leadership that understands this the better.