[page 3]
The crisis of hatcherism By Alan Woods "We've got to go in an agreed and clear direction. As Prime Minister I could not waste time having any internal arguments."
Margaret Thatcher, February 1979 "We are suffering from "A'-level Julian Critchley, Tory MP, February 1980 "The dogs may bark, but the caravan marches on."
Lord Norman, Governor of the Bank of England at the time of the general strike, 1926 The Thatcher government is in crisis. Throughout the month of January, the the Cabinet, occasionally spilling out in leaks to the press. Finally, in February, it broke. An anonymous article by a Tory MP delivered a stinging attack on the government's 'A' level economics in "The Observer'.
James Prior at a 'private' function initially called for the resignation of Sir Charles Villiers, head of British Steel, and the 'Iron Lady' herself entered the affray, publicly admonishing her factious Minister before millions of people on television in much the same language as headmistress upbraiding a trouble- the camp of "their betters.' Like a some schoolboy.
rift in the upper echelons of the Tory Party, despite all attempts on the part of the press to play it down, presenting it as something normal, is an event of enormous symptomatic importance. It is absolutely unprecedented in the Tory Party that attacks of such an obviously venomous character emerge only nine months after the government has been in office.
Many years ago, Trotsky pointed out that the British ruling class always took extreme care to avoid the of division. Its politicappearance ians, especially those of the Tory Party, always strove to present a united image and avoid unseemly public brawls and criticism of the leader. And this for a very sound reason.
The political representatives of capital were for ever conscious of the presence of a powerful 'third party' keenly observing their every word and movement-the working class. An open split in the Tory leadership, by making manifest the inner weaknesses within the ruling class, would act as a powerful spur to the self-confidence of 'the lower orders.' And in this belief, they were not mistaken. The public display of the Tory Party divisions within hierarchy has given fresh heart to millions of workers who draw their own conclusions from the disarray in
[page 4]
heavy stone dropped on surface of a pond, the leadership sends ripples all directions.
Commenting on the state of mind of Tory backbenchers after the revolt in the House of Commons, Hugh Stevenson wrote in "The Times' (19 February): "If as current forecasts quite credibly have it, earnings are rising by 20% a year, output is stagnant or contracting, and unemployment next year is going over the two million mark, Mrs Thatcher will be a one-term Prime Minister. The troops clearly sense these things and are restive."
The discontent of 'the troops' is not difficult to understand. Many Tory MPs find themselves beleagured by middle-class Tory voters affected by the cuts, the raising of the minimum lending rate to 17%, the introduction of charges for school transport and rate increases.
Even the normally docile Tory Women's Advisory Committee, in an uncharacteristic act of Bolshevik defiance, has called for an increase in child benefits this year, while Lord Thorneycroft, the Party chairman appeals desperately to the back benches to "hold steady" and attempts to rally support for the local government elections with the slogan "Keep Britain out of the red."
But the prestige of the Tory leadership has plummetted to an all-time low. In the corridors of Westminster, senior Ministers and civil servants grumble about the abrasive manner of 'Attilla the Hen" and the mad monk's clumsy handling of the steel strike. glimpse into the way Cabinet meetings is run is afforded by the following extract from Fred Emery in "The Times' (23 February):
"The fact is-astonishing though it seems-there has been no formal Cabinet decision about what to do in the steel strike. That is what non-intervention means. The full Cabinet looks on, hears reports, while what responsibility there is is left to ministers in Cabinet committees."
All this serves to demonstrate the degree to which the political representatives of the ruling class have "lost their touch.' The senile
the smooth row in the speeding in
decay of British capitalism is faithfully reflected in the leadership of the Tory Party, once the most far-sighted strategists of capital, now
second childhood and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
The calculated gamble of the steel strike proved to be a costly mistake. The steelworkers were not at all the 'soft option' that Sir Keith and his cronies had imagined.
The magnificent counter-offensive of the steelworkes, in their first national official strike since 1926, had the government and its BSC stooges reeling under a rain of body-blows inflicted by the mass flying pickets which threatened to paralyse industry and bring the government to its knees.
The ruling class looked on, horrified, at the consequences of the actions of its representatives. A clear note of panic crept into the leader writers of such sober-minded organs of big business as The Sunday Times':
"A moderate union has been transformed into a group of determined militants, " sobbed the editorial of February 24, "Innocent manufacturing companies (!) face imminent bankruptcy. Any settlement will be much higher than what was negotiable two months ago.
STRIKE
STEEL
At this moment of writing, the final outcome of the steel strike is undecided. But one thing is absolutely clear. With proper leadership and adequate backing from the TUC general council, the heroic struggle of the steelworkers would have rapidly ended in a complete success, forcing the government to back down, not only on the wages issue
but on the all-important question of closures.
The pressure from below led to the call for a general strike in Wales, which was only headed off by the activities of the general council of the TUC. The South Wales miners, finding themselves isolated and in an exposed position, decided for the time being to beat a tactical retreat.
But there can be no doubt that when the issue of pit closures is posed in a more concrete way, the South Wales miners will be at the forefront of the struggle once again, but with a difference. This time the heat will be on the national leadership to organise effective national action.
In the same way, the opposition of Len Murray and Co. to the strike action in Wales will place them under increasing pressure to take national action against the government. The impressive demonstration of 140,000 on March 9, despite the almost total lack of preparation by the leadeship is just a small warning of what Thatcher can expect in the coming months.
This was the biggest demonstration since the monster demonstration against the Heath government's Industrial Relations Bill. And now the TUC has been obliged to call a national day of action in May, with Len Murray indirectly calling for strike action. A one-day general strike, combined with meetings and demonstrations all over the country would shake the government to its roots and give the workers an idea of the colossal power which they hold in their hands. It would be a decisive stage in the development of the workers' movement in Britain, opening up an entirely new situation fraught with dangerous and unforseen consequences for the ruling class.
The policies of Thatcherism are increasingly costly and dangerous to the ruling class. The insane attempt of this mindless middle-class upstart to push through a short bill to outlaw secondary picketing during the steel strike was defeated by Cabinet opposition. But it revealed once more the extent to which the ruling camarilla are removed from reality.
They are like the Bourbons before
[page 5]
the French Revolution. They learn nothing and forget nothing. The whole experience of the Heath government and the ill-fated Industrial Relations Act is a book sealed with seven seals to Thatcher and 'the mad monk.'
Yet this showed clearly decisive factor in industrial
that the relations
is not book, forces.
The steel strike itself corroborates this fact. After the mass picketing of Hadfields, the private steel company, a senior police officer told 'The Sunday Times':
"There was never any question of making mass arrests...if we locked up 500 or 1,000, none of us had much doubt that there would be 5,000 there the next day and probably 10,000 the day after that. With mass arrests the scene would have turned very ugly."
"A delegation of Chief Constables in a discussion with Whitelaw during the strike stated that "They are not prepared to treat pickets in the same way as, for instance, student demonstrators outside the American embassy. 'we have to live with these people once the strike is over,' said ime Sheffield officer.
The more thinking elements in the
what laws are on the statute but the correlation of class
Tory Party have grasped this fact, as shown by the comments of Richard Needham, Tory MP for Chippenham, on the present government's intended policies on industrial relations:
"If all these proposals were enforced, not only would there be no strikes, not only would the law be back to 1850 rather than 1906, but one of the fundamental democratic rights of the British people, the right to withdraw one's labour, would have been rendered virtually unusable. The law would be flouted on a massive scale and its enforcibility would become even more impossible." (Our emphasis-AW)
Left: James Prio Right: Thatcher Joseph
r, Tory "wet"
and her "mad
It is, of course the latter consideration, and not any sentimental regard for the 'democratic rights of the British people which most concerns this spokesmen of the less lunatic brand of Toryism.
Given the present balance of forces, with over twelve million organised workers in trade unions, 300,000 shop stewards and six million members and affiliated members of the Labour Party, any attempt to take away the democratic rights conquered by the working class through generations of struggle would provoke massive resistance and lead to an open clash of the forces of organised labour with the capitalist state.
It is this prospect which makes the blood run cold in the veins of the strategists of capital. In the course of struggle, their friends within the ranks of the labour movement, the so-called "moderates' and rightwingers would either be compelled to lead or be pushed to one side and replaced by new and more representative sections of the class.
The workers would draw revolutionary conclusions from their experiences and the whole delicate equilibrium between the classes, carefully established and nurtured by the far-sighted representatives of capital
5
in the past, would be destroyed.
It is a prospect which fills the more intelligent members of the ruling
class with fear and dismay.
Prior and his allies in the Cabinet represent that wing of the Tory Party who have not completely lost sight of the elementary facts of life.
Their objectives are ultimately identical with those of Thatcher, Joseph, Biffen and Howe. But they want to tread more cautiously, testing the ground to try to avoid provoking an untimely explosion.
Realising their weakness, they understand that one false step could bring the whole edifice thundering down around their ears.
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As Prior expresses it: "This is 1974 there has been an assumption should have had civil war long ago." 6 about the last time Britain is going to of placing opportunity reasonably civilised changes in industrial relations on the statute There is the same fateful echo about these words as the well-known phrase of Louis XIV: "After me-the flood."
Mr James Prior is justifiably anxious not to burn his bridges with the trade union leaders. He is, we are assured, a 'reasonable' man. Len Murray, who stands at the head of an army of twelve million organised workers, is also a reasonable man, who spends a great deal of time trying to engage in a discourse with the deaf.
"The government," he complains with bitterness, "spends half its time accusing us of irresponsibility and the other half denying us any responsibility."
All the reasonableness in the world does not prevent Len Murray having the door of Number 10 slammed in his face.
The government is not interested in the TUC's pleas for "co-operation instead of confrontation."
Len Murray and his colleagues tend to attribute all this to Mrs Thatcher's "dogmatism"
"inflexibility." In Keith Joseph's reality, it is the terrible crisis of British capitalism which compels the ruling class towards confrontation with the unions in a desperate attempt to make the workers and their families pay for the decades of waste, mismanagement and misrule by which they have transformed the former workshop of the world into a vast industrial wasteland. Why did the Tories behave the way they did towards the steelmen? Let them speak for themelves: "They (the government) need a victory in this dispute, not from any sense of vanity and bravado-even though they may be tempted to indulge in such sentiments, because it is necessary to the logic of their policy." (our emphasis) Thus the editorial of March 10, of that semi-official organ of the ruling class, "The Times'. And with brutal frankness it goes on:
"Ever since the miners' strike of that no government could afford to get into a major conflict with a leading union. If the outcome of the steel strike can change that assumption, it will be all to the good because it will have to change if the discipline that is the essence of the government's policy is to work." In order to solve' the crisis of British capitalism, living standards must be cut to the bone and all the social and economic gains painfully won by organised labour over the last 150 years will have to be destroyed. The one great obstacle standing in the way of the ruling class is the That is why, despite all the risks the capitalists will and dangers, strive time and again to eliminate this obstacle in their path, by one 'Reason becomes unreason'
That is why the old policies of 'consensus' have completely broken down and all attempts to restore them to life are doomed to failure in The lunacy of Thatcher and Co. is not just their personal madness but the madness of a social system which has outlived its usefulness, become entangled in a web of contradictions and has no way out except by tearing itself to pieces and in the process rending the very foundations of technique and indsutry, science, culture upon which modern civilisation is based.
"Reason becomes unreason." The mask of smiling tolerance and humantiy has fallen away to reveal the ferocious and bestial nature of capitalism fighting to preserve its power and privileges in a period of economic downswing. Harold MacMillan, the last Tory leader with any pretence to political stature, could write in his biography that: "If capitalism had been conducted all along as if the theorv of private enterprise were a matter of principle," and all intervention of the state resisted, "we Britain's industrial base completely. These words were quoted approv- Tory "moderate"
ingly by Gilmour in his Cambridge lecture when he warned the government that "there is a limit to how much change the public can accept and understand, especially if it is forced through at too fast a pace." However, Gilmour's appeal to the MacMillan tradition leaves one vital factor out of account: the terrible decay of British capitalism over the past 25 years.
of "consensus" and The policy "Butskellism" was predicated on a long period of economic upswing and a steady increase in living standards. Now, the world crisis has fully revealed the extent of the decay of British capitalism. The most recent economic surveys present an unrelievably bleak landscape. Two years of severe recession with 2-3 million unemployed annual inflation rate of 20% this A drop in total output of 2% (2½% if North Sea oil is excluded). More alarming still, engineering production is expected to fall by 6%, ferrous metals by 16% and shipbuilding by 10%.
The relentless erosion of Britain's industrial base is shown by the figures released as part of the ill-starred "Buy British" campaign: 79% of pocket calculators sold in Britain are now imported, 71% of typewriters, 78% of hairdryers, 70% of cutlery, 99% of dishwashers, 68% of freezers, 72% of leather handbags, 74% of sports equipment, 96% of portable radios, 56% of cars and 66% of music centres. The long-term trends are still worse as the following figures for imports show:
1970 1979 Agricultural machinery Machine tools Construction equipment 40% 71% Mechanical engineering In a context of shrinking markets and falling demand on a world scale, savage deflationary policies pursued by Thatcher, Joseph and Howe will only serve to undermine
[page 7]
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY BRITISH STEEL WORKERS The British steelworkers have received magnificent support from their European, American and Japanese brothers and sisters OLYMPICS -Tersuade sterer making discreet ate, 23 to ANTI UNION LAWS ImI WITH 7 LIVING -ilan Handman persuade athletes not to compete. ('Observer', 2/3/80]
[page 8]
8
The process of de-industrialisation is proceeding apace. In the ten months to October 1979, 27,000 jobs were lost in mechanical engineering. In January there were 24 bankruptcies in the engineering sectorthree times the normal rate-and there could be as many as 300 in 1980, according to The Financial Times'.
In their madness, the "theoreticians" of Thatcherism talk of a "new capitalism" emerging miraculously from the ruins as a result of the wonders of the free market economy.
Denis Howell, Secretary of State for Energy, predicts "the end of the Morrisonian inheritance of the nationalised industries, a more widespread ownership of capital, a more varied pattern of financing the diffusion of economic units." ('Financial Times', March 7th)
This "new capitalism" would mean, not a return to 1880, but to 1780! This, in a world where the concentration of capital has reached a point where the economy of the entire so-called "free world" is now dominated by no more than 200 giant monopolies and where the financial power of Exxon and General Motors greatly exceeds the budgets of many medium-sized nation states.
While the competitiveness of British industry has declined by 40% in the past three years according to the OECD, the blessings which North Sea oil were supposed to represent have turned into a curse.
The lion's share of the profit has been creamed off by the private oil companies, but the improvement in the balance of payments brought about by "black gold" has led to a rise in the value of sterling which in turn undermines the competitiveness of British goods abroad and hastens the collapse of Britain's manufacturing base.
What happens when the oil runs out, like a good hanging, ought to concentrate the government's mind wonderfully. Not a bit of it! The short-term benefits of North Sea oil are being frittered away in handouts to private industry.
Even the stolid 'Financial Times' complained sourly on the eve of the budget that Sir Geoffrey Howe
sounded "like an contemplating the some hastily chosen children."
Theoretically, the government cuts and hand outs to the capitalists should lead to an increase in investment. In practice, investment will continue to fall in 1980 and 1981, particularly in the productive sector.
In their short-sighted greed for quick and easy profits, the British capitalists have forgotten that industry is the real source of Britain's wealth. Britain is an industrial nation, or it is nothing.
Yet, the 17% minimum lending rate, which further exacerbates the problems of industry, has meant soaring profits for the most parasitic and non-productive section of the capitalist class, as shown by the staggering increase in bank profits.
Lloyds alone increased their profit on business in the UK by 90% last year. At the same time, the bonfire of exchange control led to the outflow of f2 billion in the last quarter of 1979
indulgent uncle
distribution of presents for the
Both sides
for collision
Industry is bled white. South Wales is devastated. Steel production is cut back to the level of 1929. But the poisonous flowers of parasitism, speculation and profiteering bloom forth on all sides.
The policies of Thatcherism, if allowed to continue, would mean the conversion of Britain into an industrial desert, an unimportant offshore island of Europe, or as Len Murray put it, a banana republic.
The idea of Britain as a "banking and tourist paradise" , a parasitic rentier economy with a tiny industrial base is entirely utopian. It would mean, not two million, but five million unemployed, with all the social convulsions that would entail.
The fact that such an idea could be seriously entertained by the principal spokesmen of British capitalism is an indication of the depths to which they have shrunk.
As MacMillan correctly explained in by-gone days, the application of "capitalism in the raw" would lead to civil war: an open confrontation between the classes.
Yet despite all warnings, Thatcher and Co. are relentlessly pursing a policy which is a finished recipe for class war, egged on by the hysterical editorials of "respectable" journals like "The Times' and "The Sunday Times' which cynically commented in its editorial of February 24th:
"When cuts are made in public spending there is no escape from the indignation and sometimes suffering they cause in one client group (!) or another."
The well-heeled leader-writers of "The Sunday Times' counsel the "Iron Maiden" to ignore the protests of "client groups" such as the homeless, the old, the sick and the unemployed and get on with the job of savage cuts.
A letter writer to The Times' quoted with approval the phrase of Montague Norman, who was Governor of the Bank of England in the 1920s: "The dogs may bark, but the caravan marches on.
The fact that Lord Norman's caravan lurched straight from the return of the gold standard in 1925 to the general strike of 1926 apparently escaped the attention of "The Times' correspondent.
For their part, the trade union leaders in 1980 no more desire a general strike than their counterparts in 1926. But the logic of the situation is pushing both sides in the direction of a collision.
And given the enormously increased power of the trade union movement as compared to 1926, the outcome of a general strike would not at all be the same thing. The labour movement today has enormous untapped reserves of strength.
The Tories got far more than they bargained for in the steel strike. Even if that strike, as a result of the failure of the leadership, does not result in a complete victory, it will mark a watershed in the transformation of the ISTC into a real fighting instrument.
The old passive, "moderate" outlook of that union will be a thing of the past. And a new series of
[page 9]
battles awaits the Tories on the industrial horizon: the railwaymen, postmen, local government workers, civil servants and the water-workers, who have already turned down two offers of 13% and 17% and are currently discussing an offer of 21.4%.
Even in British Leyland, where the government were congratulating themselves on their success in the Robinson affair, there are ominous stirrings on the wages front.
Wherever they look, the Tories can see nothing ahead but trouble and strife in the coming months. No wonder the millionaire press is filled with predictions of gloom and doom.
What alarms the strategists of capital more than anything else is the change which has taken place within the labour movement in recent years. Gone are the days when the trade unions and the Labour Party were securely under the control of the trusted agents of the capitalist class.
The growing radicalisation of society has made itself felt in the trade unions and in the Labour Party where the right wing is now an increasingly beleaguered minority, out of step with the real aspirations of the rank-and-file.
The recent events at Barnsley demonstrate yet again that the working class grass roots of the Labour Party are no longer prepared to act as the stepping stones for unrepresentative MPs who look upon the Party, not as a vehicle to defend working-class interests and change society, but to advance their own personal careers.
For the hired hacks of the millionaire press, of course, there can be no question of this being the result of ordinary Labour workers thinking for themselves.
No. It must be the result of some plot, some sinister Militant' conspiracy, or the result of Arthur Scargill's personal ambition. As if intelligent working men and women could be moulded like putty by individuals or conspiratorial groups!
Yet here is what David Wood, political commentator of The Times' has to say about Barnsley:
"At least Mr Scargill, to gain his own ends, if nothing else, is busy organising the revival of the constituency Labour Party, a task Mr
Mason and his moderate friends allowed to go by default." ('The Times', 3rd March)
These case-hardened hypocrites have been howling for months about the alleged utilisation by the left of "small, unrepresentative meetings."
Yet now that the mineworkers of Barnsley have decided, quite rightly, to move into the Labour Party to assert their rights, it is all part of a left-wing "conspiracy" — to build the Labour Party!
Thatcher Removed?
The fact is that these ge atlemen have no objection at all to "small unrepresentative meetings" so long as they continue to elect the kind of middle-class careerists who can be trusted, when in office, to toe the line laid down by big business, ignoring the interests of the people who got them elected and the decisions democratically adopted by Labour Party Conference.
What they are terrified of is the prospect of a real mass Labour Party, armed with a socialist programme and prepared to act in the interests of working people with the same determination that the Josephs and Thatchers are currently displaying in defence of the bankers and monopolists.
The strategists of capital know that the chances of the Tories winning the next election are remote. Under the present leadership, and with the present policies, they might not even "stay the course"
Hence they are already looking around anxiously for a possible replacement for Thatcher (Lord Carrington or Whitelaw are two possibilities which have been mentioned).
Despite all the bluff and bluster the present policies will have to be reversed at a given moment, and probably there will be a change of leadership.
Terrified at the prospect of a left Labour government, the ruling class through the pages of the press, is attempting to drum up support for a Centre Party.
9
If, as seems likely, the right wing do not succeed in reversing the decision on the re-selection of MPs at the next Labour Party conference, then those ladies and gentlemen who have joined the Labour Party as the result of a slight misunderstanding, will begin to organise a split in earnest.
Roy Jenkins, that great man of moderate principles, is due to receive his cards any day from the European Commission and is anxious to avoid swelling the ranks of the unemployed this side of the Channel by becoming the first leader of the new Social Democratic Party.
His friends in the City will ensure that he suffers no great loss of earnings on account of his principles, and according to the 'Observer' there are at least a dozen members of the Parliamentary Labour Party who would not flinch at making personal sacrifices of a similar kind. (The figure is, beyond doubt, greatly underestimated.)
Prodded on by his wealthy backers, that other great man of principles, David Steel, might well contemplate a fusion with the ex-Labour "moderates" to form a new party of the Centre, the aim of which would be to prevent the wholesale desertion of middle-class voters, disillusioned with Toryism, to Labour.
Alas! The venture is a risky one, and its long-term chances of success are not great. Jenkins himself, in the past, rejected the idea after seeing the failure of similar attempts in other countries. Now he has been completely converted to the idea by the forceful arguments of his friends in high places.
However, in a context of growing polarisation of the classes in society, the long term prospects for such a party are not greater, but even less now than when he first rejected the idea. As the Financial Times' cynically observed:
"Unless it were in a highly unusual constituency where (say) every voter read "The Times', the chances of Mr Jenkins winning much support against Tory and Labour candidates must be small." ('FT', 7th March)
Nevertheless, in the short run, a Centre Party brought about by the
[page 10]
No matter what the outcome of the steel strike is, the steel unions will never be the same again fusion of the Liberals and right-wing of influence of the Marxist ideas of Reg Prentice, George Brown, Dick 10 THIS WAY FOR —PART TIME THIS WAY FOR FULL Labour renegades, inflated by a massive infusion of funds from big business and backed by a noisy campaign waged by all the considerable resources of Fleet Street, might well succeed in establishing itself, winning twenty or more seats. But in the medium and long term, as shown by the experiences of other countries, such a hybrid formation would not be able to sustain itself. It would collapse under the enormous pressure to the left and right.
The ruling class strategists have carefully studied all the options and reached frankly pessimistic conclusions. Their crisis of confidence is reflected in the panic with which they observe the evolution of the Labour Party, and in particular the growth ISTC MEMBERS -SCABS TIME the Militant'.
The hysterical campaign waged in other renegades who used alleged Trotskyist "infiltration" of the Labour Party is an indication of their fear of the future. The ideas of the right wing of the Labour Party are completely bankrupt. They belong to another epoch which has already definitely receded into the past.
Their historical role has been privileged positions in the Party by victory of the They will end up where they of the world by their friends Taverne, Woodrow Wyatt and all the the the pages of the Tory press against Labour Party for their own ends and then stabbed it in the back when it suited them.
The right wing, organised as a party within a party in the misnamed Campaign for a Labour Victory, tries to pretend that socialist policies would frighten away Labour voters.
Yet it was their policies which led played out and all their attempts to to the defeat of Labour at the last hang on by their fingernails to their election and made possible the monstrously antimeans of organisational manoeuvres, working class Thatcher government. slanders and witch-hunts will not Contrary to all the fairy-stories of enable them to turn back the clock. the right wing, broadcast to the ends and rightly belong, in the ranks of allies in the Tory press, the policies Labour's enemies, with their old pals of the last Labour government, of
[page 11]
reformism without reforms, has no appeal whatever, either to the working class or to the middle class, or to anyone in particular.
On the contrary. The memory of what was done by previous Labour governments, run by these "moderate" ladies and gentlemen, is an enormously harmful burden which the Labour Party has borne for too long.
Indeed, if there is one nagging doubt which lurks unspoken in the minds of the workers as they battle against the Thatcher government it is not at all fear of the Militant' or radical socialist policies, but the danger that all their efforts and sacrifices might be thwarted "if we put in another lot like the ones we had last time."
The right wing is practically a spent force. But what of the left? Undobutedly, the rejection of the policies of watered-down Toryism will mark a great step forward.
But the policies defended by the Tribunite majority of the NEC, are confused and incoherent and offer no real solution for the working class.
To propose, as an alternative to monetarism, a return to the discredited policies of Keynesianism and increased state expenditure, is to understand nothing of the workings of the capitalist system.
Such a policy would merely result in a further explosion of inflation which ultimatley would lead to a still deeper recession than before.
As far as import controls are concerned, even the capitalists have no objection in principle to these,
and will probably be compelled to introduce them at a certain stage.
But in the modern world, it is impossible for an industrially developed country like Britain to impose import controls without provoking retaliation from its rivals.
The short-term benefits would rapidly be cancelled out and a trade war between the main capitalist countries would threaten to bring about the collapse of the whole shaky structure of world commerce built up since the second world war.
In that case, there really would be the danger of a deep slump like that of 1929. That is why, for the moment, the main developed capitalist countries have avoided resorting to import controls on a large scale, at least in an open fashion.
In the recent period, the discussion in the Labour Party has centred mainly on the question of re-selection, the control of the Manifesto and the election of a Party leader.
These questions are important. But far sooner than we think, the Labour Party will be faced with the problem of power and the need to work out a real socialist alternative to both the nightmare policies of Thatcherism and the kind of diluted Thatcherism carried out by the last Labour government.
Only the supporters of 'Militant', Labour's Marxist voice, have consistently defended a socialist programme based on the nationalisation, under democratic workers' contorl and management, of the banks, insurance companies and thi
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200 monopolies with minimum compensation on the basis of proven need, and a socialist plan of production which would mobilise all the resources of society to solve the problems of unemployment, housing, education and health, introduce the 35-hour week and an £80 minimum wage as the first steps in the socialist transformation of society.
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[page 12]