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THE LEFT AND THE REAL MEANING OF 'PROFITS'
It remains to deal with the 'left's' response to the tripartite talks. Socialist Worker states in one breath that the proposals mean that the wage increases given up will only go to line the pockets of the bosses; and in the next breath it states that without profits the system of production would collapse and is indeed collapsing. Now it is a fact (dealt with in Wages and Prices in this issue of The Communist [an article by Nina's husband, D.R.Stead - PB]) that the amount of profits which find their way into bourgeois consumption is miniscule compared with the amount going back into investment. It would indeed be surprising if this were not the case. The bourgeoisie are a minority of the population and a small minority at that. If most of the surplus value taken from the working class went in bourgeois consumption, capital accumulation would soon cease and with it production also. Socialist Worker comments that dividend restraint will anyway eventually find its way into bourgeois pockets in future. The Economist comments:
"Dividend restraint did little harm to anyone. Over the past few years companies have been hanging on to such profits as they had been making - before the Labour government's freeze, during it and after it. The percentage of profits that is distributed actually fell from 1968's 33.6% to last year's 31.3%." (p. 77)
It seems that Socialist Worker is reduced to a spurious assertion in order to induce the working class to be against profits. They are unwilling to make out the straight Marxist, Communist case for the superiority of socialism over capitalism in basing production on a conscious determination of the society's needs rather than their determination through the market. Perhaps this is because even if today's social needs were consciously determined not all of the national product would go in consumption by the working class - a portion of it to be consciously determined by the working class would be invested in order to increase the means of production (machinery, plant etc). IS are telling the working class that they are entitled to all the national product in the form of consumption when they fulminate against profits as such (their line: profits are bad because they are profits and also because they are consumed by the bourgeoisie). That is just a plain untruth. This kind of 'little white lie' is one of the reasons the working class's political consciousness has not advanced to adequately reflect its economic strength. It needs to be said that IS did not invent this line. They are merely echoing faithfully a good Labour sentiment that has been with the working class movement since the 1830s and was most systematically developed by the ILP. The sooner it is replaced by a statement of objective reality the better
One cheering thought is that SW readers could well recognise the bald contradiction between the above position on profits and the earlier quoted one which states that profits are the engine of capitalism. SW seem to like this idea because it means that the engine is grinding to a halt (the book by the ISers which SW has reviewed favourably). If capitalism is seizing up it must mean that the revolution is next on the agenda, reason IS, if only we form our revolutionary party in time. We beg to differ. It only means that the present alternative is between capitalism and anarchy. IS argue that Incomes Policies have always meant that prices slide up unnoticed while it is wages that are really held down. This is factually incorrect. Indeed it has always been prices that have held steadier in the past during incomes policies.
Leaving IS to their religionary [sic - PB] socialism, we conclude by stating that the working class has an interest in demanding that the conscious regulation of wages and prices and the continuing agreements about growth rates, the lower paid etc be established in a thoroughgoing democratic way. This means not merely democratic schemes, but a development of the working class in understanding the significance of the above decisions for the functioning of the production process and the ways in which capitalism holds back the productive forces. The initial choice between anarchy and capitalism has already been made. The talks are proceeding. The second choice lies between an involvement in the economic struggle with competitive collective bargaining or the conscious use of its economic strength. If the bourgeoisie continue to make all the running in explaining the conscious use of their economic strength to the working class, the working class will still have advanced from its present position. But it will not be any nearer in its ability to take conscious control over production. That is the job of Communists to explain.