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CAPITALISM OR BARBARISM
The trouble for the Tories was that it was the working class who was winning. The Post Office strike was the one instance where the Government was seen by all to have enforced its 7-8% norm. The power workers' strike was claimed by the Government but anyone who looked at the Wilberforce Settlement carefully could see that the increases granted were far in excess of the norm. The Miners' strike came next. The Government put their cards on the table and then had to explain the 31% settlement away as a special case. The rail strike finally made the Government's position evidently untenable. It was in the immediate aftermath of the rail settlement that the first signs of the present tripartite meetings appeared. Private employers were having little more success than the Government in resisting wage claims. At present average earnings are increasing at 15% per annum. The Engineering Employers Federation fared best - settling a 45% wage claim for 7-8%. This is probably explained (l) by the "reactionary" nature of the EEF which still resembles those evolved by the employing class in the late 19th century. It chucked any employer who settled independently with the unions out of the federation; helped members in financial difficulty out with a levy from other members; was prepared to sit out strikes and occupations. (2) It could afford to sit them out because the engineering industry is experiencing a slump unprecedented in the postwar period. Few British firms are buying new machinery and British prices are uncompetitive and the product ill-suited in the international market.
Why had the Government and private industry failed to win this open conflict in the labour marketplace when they had economic reality oh their side? Just how real the need for British industry to increase its profit was was acknowledged by the FT ... and two IS sympathisers [1] provided the FT with the occasion:
"This trend (of the share of profits in the national income to fall: from a high of l8.6% (1951) in the postwar period to 12% in 1971) confirms the conclusion of several studies, that the real rate of return on capital invested in the UK has been dropping sharply. It has been pointed out often enough but too little has so far been done to spell out its implications. They have been spelt out most plainly, ironically enough, in a book recently published by two Marxist economists who believe that the squeeze on profits has been caused by the combination of a push by the unions for a faster improvement in living standards with growing competition in international trade. Their conclusion is that 'British capitalism has suffered such a dramatic decline in profitability that it is now literally fighting for survival.' Those who are not anxious to see a collapse of the present economic system would do well to consider this conclusion, and in particular the representatives of the TUC, the CBI and the Government ... The unions could now cease treating profits as a dirty word and inform their members - in the words of Sir Sidney Greene - that there is nothing wrong with profits so long as they benefit the community." (FT leader, 12.9.72)
[1] Andrew Glyn and Bob Sutcliffe: British Capitalism, Workers and the Profit Squeeze, Penguin, 1972. Glyn (Wikipedia dixit) was a member of the 'Militant Tendency' (Revolutionary Socialist League), not IS.
Socialist Worker's centre page spread of 26th August explains why no Government could curb profits in a Prices and Incomes Policy:
"First there is a basic difference between wages and profits. Wages are part of the cost of production while profits are the residue left over after production and sale. This means that profits are both the engine of capitalist production and the gauge indicating its speed and efficiency. Profits form the fund out of which a company's investment has to be financed. To curb profits would mean industrial stagnation as owners of capital sought to transfer their money abroad. No government operating the capitalist system could attempt to limit profits without going on to attack capitalism itself. And one can hardly see the Tories doing that!"
At the present time it is a fact that the alternative to capitalism would be a break down of production and consequently of society. Until the working class is capable of organising production on a socialist basis and wielding political power in its own right, the bourgeoisie are correct in posing the choice as between capitalism and anarchy. The material basis for the working class organising production and administering their own state definitely exists: the fact that the Government and employers have had to climb down and meet wage demands which they can ill afford is evidence of that which is staring us in the face. It is the political consciousness of the working class which is insufficient, and the reason for that insufficiency lies in the conscious section of the working class, the 'left'.