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POWER AND LAW

The Times trundled out its notions in a particularly incoherent, unrealistic and pompous editorial on January 21. Its case is essentially the same as Worsthorne's, but badly written because written with an eye on History. And, where Worsthorne had the sense to limit himself to the kind of negative criticism that might be expected to bolster up trade union opposition to Bullock, The Times hinted at an alternative scheme which is merely ridiculous.

"Freedom depends upon the maintenance of a balanced society: a balanced society depends on the existence of different forms of power surviving in competition with each other. All the systems that are not free monopolise power; all monopolies of power must be opposed when they are being created and destroyed if they have once been created."

Bullock would lead to a growth of the already excessive power of trade unions, and since the unions are not famous for being democratic they are particularly unsuitable as instruments for achieving industrial democracy.

"It is syndicarchy not democracy which Bullock espouses" ("Syndicarchy" being "union rule") .

The Times points out that the unions "are subject to no general supervisory law and can commit almost all torts with impunity. This freedom from the control of law is a privilege not enjoyed by any other political or social group, nor claimed by any constitutional power since we chased the last of the Stuart Kings across the Channel."

Quite so. But it is of merely academic interest to point out that the trade unions are outside the law whenever they choose to be, if there is no possibility of bringing them within the law. Heath tried to bring them within the law, but they preferred not to come. There is absolutely no way of compelling them to be bound by law. The more their power grows the less it is capable of being restricted - which is a rather important feature distinguishing them from the old monarchy - and their power is still growing, and will continue to grow for some time yet.

In another mood and on another question The Times would be just as capable as Karl Marx of realising that effective law is a rationalisation of power. It systematises the expression of power and curbs the erratic use of it. It establishes standards for the use of it in individual cases. As it becomes well established, the law even becomes a refuge for the individual against the power which exercises it. But it is never a safe refuge in a serious conflict. Thomas Moore sought refuge in the network of English law against the power of the popular Tudor monarchy and lost his head. And four centuries later William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) sought refuge in British law against the vengeance of British democracy. Since he had a pretty good case in law he was able to go as far as the House of Lords, against which there is no legal appeal, before it was demonstrated to him that in the last resort British democracy is as unbound by law as Lenin’s dictatorship. (The essential difference is that the last resort is an infrequent occurrence in Britain.)

If the new trade union power declines to be controlled by laws enacted by the declining bourgeois power, even with laws which would do it no damage, there is no means of compelling it. It will continue to exist in a more or less arbitrary manner, perhaps until the question of the bourgeoisie is no longer important.

As for democracy being conditional on "the existence of different forms of power", these powers must not only be different in form but independent in substance. A form of power which exists on sufferance, which is merely tolerated by the prevailing power, is of little use in sustaining democracy. A "balanced society" is scarcely one in which a bourgeois management exists as a function of trade union activity, in order to provide a congenial atmosphere for the carrying on of trade union activity in the traditional manner.

It is not the semblance but the reality of a conflict of power that sustains democracy. The Times aspires to preserve democracy by preserving the semblance of an obsolescent power conflict. The only possible consequence of this would be to inhibit the emergence of social conflict within the new social power. Democracy can henceforward only develop on the basis of social conflict within the new social power, whose main force is the trade union movement. Such conflict will only develop most reluctantly and under heavy camouflage while the possibility, or the semblance of a possibility, exists that such a conflict could be taken advantage of for a bourgeois resurgence.

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