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WAITING FOR 'SOCIETY' (THE WORKING CLASS) TO ACT
Up until the l890s the British working class were certainly conscious of the need to ensure the society's reproduction through adequate profits. Sliding scale agreements were not only freely negotiated but actively sought by trade union leaders. Moreover, these agreements were on terms favourable to the working class. Wages could travel upwards by as much as 45% as market prices travelled upwards; but they could only travel downwards by 10-15% as market prices moved downwards. In the l890s, however, New Unionism and socialism entered on the British working class scene. In Britain New Unionism and socialism were less conscious expressions of the working class's position in society than the old Unions and Lib-Labs. They were able to replace the old union consciousness and the Lib Labs because these old institutions no longer adequately expressed the working class's power in society. The working class had become the main force in the society and the old institutions assumed that the bourgeoisie had equal if not superior force. They had been adequate expressions for the working class; they were now reactionary. The ruling class recognised this and did not resist either New Unionism or socialism intransigently. Both New Unionism and socialism have remained at the level of reaction to the working class's position in society. They have enabled the working class to use that position; but they have been unable to permit the conscious development of the working class from that position.
Because the trade union movement and socialism have not developed into conscious institutions in the society, they still retain the 'will of the people' idealist slogan that is so typical an expression of an emerging, raw social force. The ruling class's response in Britain to the 'will of the people' has been to attempt to force its advocates to develop their needs and the people's will into forms which the society could absorb and put into practice. This does not mean the existing forms, but only forms which the society can come to absorb and use. We can see the results of the ruling class's pressure in the Fabians. We find them advocating the nationalisation of industry only when that particular industry was ripe for nationalisation i.e. when the economic logic of the production process impelled socialisation and when the necessary social relations were clear to society. (The Fabians were founded in the late 1880s; G.B. Shaw was their representative at the founding conference of the ILP. They have been a part of the labour movement from its birth as a 'labour movement'.)
Though the Fabians developed the best description of how the transition from capitalism to socialism could come about within British society, they completely funked the problem of the way in which that description had to be explained to the working class. And they never understood and consequently never prepared for or allowed for the fact that conflict was essential in the transition - both between the classes and within the working class against its outworn institutions. The working class needed the Fabians' programme because they were faced with the fact of having to provide an alternative programme to the Tories and the Liberals if they were to be a credible, serious political force within the society. The ruling class's response to the emergence of the ILP was 'convince the people and they will vote you to power'. If the ILP, the self-styled representative of the working class, was not to be ignominiously shown up to the working class, it had indeed to cough up a programme, to develop its 'will of the people' and 'socialism is the spirit of the age' into something that looked as if it could work and convince the voters that it would do. The result was the Labour Party; the trade unions provided the support of the working class, the ILP the rhetoric and the party machine and the Fabians the programme.
But the Fabians took the appearance of the British political system for the fact and substance. They believed that once they could get the politicians of the society to accept their programme as legitimate, it could be implemented. They did not understand that in Britain politicians and Parliament could only act in the society insofar as the society itself consciously understood and accepted the need for such action. Neither the working class nor the bourgeoisie will give up their positions in the system of private property until they understand and accept the necessity for so doing. The Fabian programme was grafted onto the Labour Party without ever having to withstand the test of doing political struggle with the working class. It never met the dominant consciousness of the working class head on to defeat it, it simply became the top layer of that consciousness which it was necessary to equip a Labour cabinet with if the Labour Party was to take its place as the second party in the British parliamentary system. The ILP rhetoric about 'the will of the people' and the moral rectitude of socialism remained at the level of the politically conscious supporters of the Labour Party in the country. The logic of having Parliamentary representation for the working class as a class and for the trade union movement remains the reason still why the working class as a class vote Labour (when they in fact do so - they also vote Conservative!).
It was the atrophy of the Liberal Party that permitted Fabianism its ascendancy in the minds of the Labour cabinet ministers, not the force of working class opinion. Thus, when the Labour Party became the governing party (1945- 51) those parts of the Fabian programme which were enacted depended on the force of the law and the Government apparatus for their effect within society. We have seen that without the prior movement of society, these two things are without substance in Britain. Thus, the programme remained unenacted in fact though enacted in legality. Because the Labour Party depended for its existence on the support of the trade unions (the conscious expression of the working class as participants in the system of private property) they could ill afford to attack the basis of the trade union movement in the society directly - in conscious conflict. To do this would have undoubtedly been beneficial to the survival and development of the society - it would have been the first step towards establishing socialism in the working class's consciousness as a necessary step for the society to take and what changes socialism would bring. But it would certainly have meant the end of the Labour Party as the second party in British politics. The Liberal Party disintegrated precisely because its most conscious members began this task of taking on the bourgeoisie - of posing the necessity of change in a serious way. Its disintegration was a sign of the political development of the bourgeoisie. The Labour Party has never had the courage or indeed the historical sense to realise that its disintegration in the course of struggling with the trade union movement is a necessary step in the development of socialism. Its leaders - the ILP, Trade Union General Secretaries, and Fabians - have always taken their function of representing the working class as an unalterable fact of life. To the 'left's' howl that the main political priority should be to "Get the Tories Out" and let Labour expose itself we would pose this fact: the Conservative Party has never opposed in any serious way any of the measures of the Labour Party or Lib-Labs which represented the development of society towards a system of socialism. Indeed at many junctures the Conservative Party and the ruling class have pipped the socialists at the post with measures more socialist than the socialists themselves (Joseph Chamberlain's Workmen's Compensation Bill which established the principle of the liability of the employer for any accident to his labour force. The Lib Labs had not dared venture this far.).
Neither the Fabians nor the present ILPers and 'New Unionists' (the International Socialists) nor the political Trade Unionists (the CPGB) have faced up to history. The British ruling class has found the temerity to do so. Instead of using their place in the Government and ideology of the society to act to stabilise and order the society, they are consciously forcing the society to give vent to its disorder. They have posed the problem of the system of private property as one that the society has not yet solved and which it must solve if it is to continue to survive and develop. The tripartite talks are dealing with the fact that not every member or class can have the fruits of their labour. Some of that labour must be appropriated in the form of profit to ensure social reproduction.
Because this is Britain this fact is not only being faced by the top of the society, but by the classes in society itself. The television and Press have dealt with the bargaining going on at Chequers and Downing Street openly. Neither the bourgeoisie nor the working class are present as a class at the talks. But both have been privy to what is being discussed. Both Hugh Scanlon and Anthony Barber have reported back publicly. The talks are formally secret - in fact they are the most public discussion of a social issue that Britain has seen since the decision to go to war against Germany was taken. [1] The talks certainly have not posed the choice of socialism or capitalism. But they represent a step towards a consciousness in the working class of how exactly capitalism enables society to survive and develop i.e. through the appropriation of the surplus value of the working class. They have been informed that profits are necessary to secure social reproduction. The capitalist class has had to ask the working class's consent to continue making profit - to increase the amount of surplus value appropriated to ensure the survival of both classes. But this consent has been asked with the proviso that the working class will have a direct, conscious voice from now on in how that surplus is meted out and indeed exactly how much of the produce of the working class will be appropriated. The Left's response to a man has been to fall back into the fold of private property and encourage the working class in going no further. Next month we will deal more fully with the talks and their significance to the problem of transition.
[1] For a rather more sceptical view of the process by which the decision(s) to go to war on Germany were taken see the relevant articles on the companion website www.british-values.com