National Government, socialist government and the spectre of James Ramsay MacDonald
Looking at the political situation, I disagree with Martin Kettle about the possibility of another National Government. Politics is more than just simple analogy, despite Kettle’s best pretences to the contrary; economic crisis and a threat from the far right do not make for consensus government. The tone of Kettle’s article is tentatively welcoming, a drowning man grasping at straws, and it reflects the failure of the liberal-left, based around the Guardian, to enunciate potential alternatives to capitalist crisis.
There are a few things which speak against a National Government from the point of view of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, in the aftermath of the next election. Firstly, Labour is headed for an election of cataclysmic proportions. The polls are not reflecting the shift in marginal constituencies and the collapse of the vote in Labour-as-second-party seats. As in 1983, Labour will be reduced to the core constituencies – except now with a challenge from the Welsh and Scottish nationalists.
Such a collapse would most likely result in the Tories shunning any potential coalition. Up until the election, certain sections of the Tory party may still be apprehensive that Labour might pull a win or a hung parliament out of a hat, but afterwards all doubt will be removed. As for the Lib Dems, this election is going to see them squeezed, south of the Severn-Wash line, and potentially Labour could gets its act together in seats like Liverpool to deny them inroads there.
The first Lab-Con national government, formed in 1931, was created as the result of mass unemployment but also against a backdrop of working class organisation and world revolution and counter-revolution. Though it is tempting to see in the Lindsey strikers the first drums of Holst’s Mars, the bright flash of spontaneous strike action is only bright because more rigorous, organised industrial action is limited – and is often defeated or demoralised well before it can achieve a victory such as at Lindsey. I was reading recently that strike action is decreasing at the moment, year on year, though I can’t remember where.
On this basis, then, a Conservative move towards a National Government, with barely a year left in the life of this Parliament, makes little sense. There is no need for a J.R. MacDonald as a shield against the working class, and it’s unlikely that Labour would be much of a shield anyway. This is a curious situation, representing almost a complete reversal of the process which finally broke the back of the Liberal Party in the early 20th century. The only difference is that the unions are constitutionally bound to Labour, whereas they only supported the Liberals out of convenience.
In my view, no potential National Government has any answers. Those familiar with the history of the concept will know that Conservatives tend to dominate, since both mainstream Labour and Liberal thinking enshrine the capitalist genesis of Tory thought. In narrative terms this Labour government may be a failure, but there are plenty of small advances in redistribution which the Tories would see overturned, to claw back the massive expenditure on nationalisation.
Public services haven’t been cut or privatised so far that they can’t be cut and privatised still further. As unappealing as a desperate rearguard action sounds, it must include whatever rump is left of Labour, preferrably with the entire staff of New Labour dumped into the Thames by their constituents. In discussing alternatives to this de-funding of services, however, we can’t afford to mince words. On the basis of state-led action, the future is very, very bleak.
When Clement Attlee’s government arrived in Downing St after the 1945 election, the country was nearly bankrupt. The only thing that saved the Labour government was a loan, backed and guaranteed by the United States. Any potential government is going to face similar problems when taking control of “Britain plc” as some have taken to calling it. For this reason, we need to diverge from the road that a recent John McDonnell article points towards, in calling for full funding, re-nationalised public services.
This risks ignoring the witty retort of Harold Wilson, “Whatever government is in power, the Treasury is in power.”
Of course, we should put forth demands for those things, but we shouldn’t hide from the fact that to do so will bankrupt the country. Instead, now is the time to begin work on the transitional economy, from capitalism to socialism. Friends of ours might scoff that this is utopian, and that Labour needs a healthy capitalism to make any possible transition to socialism whilst still being democratic, but I think that actually the opposite is the case.
Far from being a “jam-tomorrow” socialist, who views bankruptcy and pauperisation with glee, both things concern me. However, capitalism expropriates a surplus value from workers, leaves them no control over that surplus and it requires – no matter how sophisticated systems of social mobility – a large pool of cheap labour. In organising that cheap labour, we’re striking body blows at the capitalist system, the result of which is (among other things) inflationary trends.
The creation of a united working class, organised and capable of retaining democratic control of its political and industrial arms, will destroy capitalism whatever the government of the day does. The question, therefore, is not what is the government to do, or what will a Labour Left government do, but what will workers do? The creation and sustenance of a socialist economy, where workers set and control the surplus value, will require sacrifice and, not unlikely, a return to rationing for a while.
Britain can supply about 60% of its food needs using 1.4% of the labour force, so we’re unlikely to face the same turmoil as the early Russian Soviet Republic, which practically starved to death. Nevertheless, there will be plenty of work to be done; house construction for the homeless, ensuring food is distributed to supermarkets, ensuring supplies reach NHS distribution centres, that transport infrastructure continues to function in high-density population areas and so forth.
The task of building a democratically controlled, planned economy will be vast – but it will not solely be the work of government. Far from being ecstatic about this potential for rationing after the final breakdown of capitalism, communists should recognise that they will be called on to give of themselves – not in monetary terms, but in being the first to give a few extra hours’ labour per day, or working on their rest days. But equally, it would be wrong to blame this on socialist activism.
Once workers take control of the surplus of production, and can democratically regulate it, the capitalist method of exchange is gone. If we think that system unjust, and if we think it directly underpins every undemocratic influence in our society, then we must abolish it. We must be free to take the consequences of that, and one of those will be economic readjustment; workers’ soviets will assess what production facilities are available and will decide what the best use of those will be.
Naturally this is not likely to be a solely national process and the economy will eventually return to normal as international trade resumes – the exchange of different commodities from their production centres, the gradual diffusion of those production centres to make transport more efficient and so forth. But in the short term there will be disruption. This is part of the choice which we must openly present to workers and socialist activists in a time of capitalist crisis.
The alternative is mass unemployment while capital reorganises itself, continuing hunger for many anyway (whether in the UK or not), the extraction of ever greater amounts of surplus from the working class and the use of that to bulwark the capitalist system and its undemocratic, parliamentary organs. Where one stands politically, regardless of party affiliation, ultimately comes down to a choice between these two alternatives.
Some might maintain that capitalism is more democratic than a democratic-planned economy because it allows a free choice of lifestyle and so forth, but that is a free choice within preset parameters. Socialism is the total democratisation of all aspects of society, the economy and use of capital included – and that is my choice: no National Government, no parliamentary Labour Left government, but revolutionary transitional government.
“Once workers take control of the surplus of production, and can democratically regulate it, the capitalist method of exchange is gone.”
I’m interested as to whether this would have to be regulated from a ‘planned economy’ level, or whether you’d ever embrace more localist, syndicalist or mutual-based ways of planning production and distribution.
You would have to be more specific in what you mean by “localist” or “syndicalist” since neither refer to a specific economic concept.
As for mutuals, if by that you simply mean in general an organisation run by and for the benefit of service users then I see no reason why not. The abolition of capitalism will not mean the end of the service industries, and these service industries need to remain responsive to the needs of the people who use them, not to a bureaucrat in London.
A series of interlocking mutuals to provide things like public transport interest me, though I’d like to investigate methods of capital creation beyond individual wages before I say for definite where I stand.
Interesting that you face up to ‘bankruptcy’ of the country. One ‘line of enquiry’ that needs following, I suggest, is how that terms is defined and how it is part of the overall appropriation of the capitalist way of being.
I wrote a tremendously dull article questioning some of the unspoken but widely accepted assumptions about the financial system, and part of that article was an assessment of what the money supply actaully means, and has meant ever since the Bank of England Act of 1844 gave way to early capitalism’s defacto (technically illegal pre-1844)rupture’ of the actual-money-for-trade-linked-to-gold and made money, to all intents and purposes, whatever the capitalists said it was. That, I contend, was the real bankrupture.
Much more relevant and up to date would be an anlaysis of how lots of Icelanders feel about the whole basis of money now that most of them are bankrupt in the appropriated sense.
These can be difficult concepts both to get my head round and put on paper, but I think challenging the very root of money supply/credit crunch is an important aspect of opening up the argument about the injustice of surplus value skimmed of oil refinery builders via the various sub-contracts etc.
In an era of mass produced information-communication technology, any necessity for – or possiblity of – Gosplan-style bureaucracy is eliminated.
Under capitalism and in the transition to socialism, cooperatives should be strongly supported and advertised as an alternative way of doing business. Interestingly, the economies that with the largest cooperative sectors were the “really existing” socialist countries…
I wouldn’t say the need for central planning is eliminated Charlie; after all, how to construct and sustain cities requires central planning. Even capitalist corporations, whom libertarians champion as being better, more open, than the state involve central planning.
The trick is not to balance central and decentralised planning, and to leave both open to democratic approval and constant review both in planning and implementation. In an era of mass information and communications, that is made infinitely possible and potentially efficient.
That’s fair enough. Phrases like ‘planned economy’ always sound a bit off to me because I associate them with a sort of top-down take on things… which them leaves you asking what exactly, or indeed who you are planning for.
A planned economy is no less planned for being bottom up, but it’s important to use the word because it is the only valid alternative (rather than parecon and other such nonsense) to market exchange.
I wasn’t doubting the need for centralisation as well as decentralisation, David. But the distinction between the blind forces of the market and the procedure of democratic decision-making is an important one that the term “planned economy” sometimes fails to convey. Would a better term be “democratic economy”?
The key difference between the two models in co-ordination. Long-term decision-making in capitalist enterprises is made difficult by the absence of planning between enterprises. (We’re seeing this problem of this at the moment – investment drying up because of the uncertain future that all businesses face.)