Editorial: The doubled-headed ass. Two Voices of the Labour Party

Labour governments have little effect on capitalism, though capitalism has great effect on Labour governments. First the easy promises of what they will do when they get into office, then the brief interlude of rosy optimism, then the apologies for not doing more, then the explanations why it is impossible to do what they hoped to do. They do not all admit the change of outlook and some, like Mr. Attlee, go on speaking in the old phrases long after his lieutenants Cripps and Dalton have gone over to the new ones.

Here is Mr. Attlee in a speech at Walthamstow on 11th January, 1949:

“In these three and a half years you have had a new pattern set up in this country. The social reforms which we introduced have not been patchy; they have represented a new social order . . . We have had a great experiment in democratic Socialism.” (Manchester Guardian, 12/1/49.)

But the other government spokesmen do not agree that it is a “new social order.” At the Labour Party Conference in May, 1948, Mr. Hugh Dalton was put up to explain why it is impossible to wipe out profit-making. He said :

“We are living in a mixed economy, partly Socialist, partly capitalist . . . Since we are operating a mixed economy in which the socialised sector is still not very large, relatively speaking, the profit motive cannot be completely removed within the private sector. That is what the private sector lives upon. The private sector, which is conducted for profit, would not be conducted at all if there were no profits.” (Conference Report, page 149.)

At the Trades Union Congress in September, 1948, Sir George Chester spoke similarly :

“Few of us realise that marginal surplus or profit is essential to the conduct of British industry, whether it be nationalised or in private hands . . . It is an unfortunate circumstance, but it is absolutely true and it is inescapable until we can alter the whole structure of industry and replace the incentive of profit with another incentive.” (Conference Report, p.503.) .

Then Sir Stafford Cripps at Workington on 9th January, 1949 :

“We are, in fact, living in a mixed economy, and the majority of our export trades are still run on the lines of capitalist, though controlled, economy. That means that we must, if we are to succeed, avoid unnecessary interference with their ways of production.” (Daily Telegraph, 10/1/49.)

So we go full circle. Mr. Attlee says we have a new social order and Sir Stafford Cripps says that the Labour Government must not interfere unnecessarily with the old one.

Of course wo have not, in fact, got a mixed economy except in the sense in which capitalism has always had some State capitalist undertakings alongside private ones, but now let us look at what the Labour Party used to say about even trying to mix up capitalism and Socialism. In “For Socialism and Peace,” published by the Labour Party in 1935, we read:

“The choice before the notion is either a vain attempt to patch up the superstructure of a capitalist society in decay at its very foundations, or a rapid advance to a Socialist reconstruction of the national life. There is no half-way house between a society based on private ownership in the means of production, with the profit of the few as the measure of success, and a society where public ownership of those means enables the resources of the nation to be deliberately planned for attaining the maximum of general well-being.” (P. 8.)

Mr. Attlee was equally specific before he became Prime Minister: “The plain fact is that a Socialist Party cannot hope to make a success of administering the capitalist system because it does not believe in it.” (“The Labour Party in Perspective,” 1937, p.123.)

The Labour Party is trying to administer capitalism though Mr. Attlee used to hold that it cannot succeed. Sooner or later the electorate will decide that it is not a success and will vote against having another Labour Government. Labour supporters in the past have refused to admit this possibility. They argued that as the Labour Government gave one benefit after another to the workers so enthusiasm for Labour government would grow. We can now see before our eyes how differently it works out. Labour voters were led to hope that Labour government would mean world peace, no conscription, plenty of houses, higher wages and lower prices. They are being disappointed on all counts. Now it is the Labour Government that urges the workers not to press for higher wages and the opposition Press like the Daily Express that supports the wage claims of agricultural workers and. Post Office workers and pleads (12/1/49) that we should “get back to free enterprise and the right to ask for higher wages.”

Of course the Tories who take this line are doing it in the interest of capitalists, not workers, but as grievances accumulate so there will be a drift of votes away from the Labour Party.

The moral is simple. To quote Mr. Attlee’s words again: “A Socialist Party cannot hope to make a success of administering the capitalist system”—to which we add that a Socialist Party would not try. The sole business of a genuine Socialist Party is to work for the achievement of Socialism.