Conservative Party: Profit before human need

The Conservatives have been in power for twelve years now. Somehow they have managed to create the impression that they are the party of prosperity. A condition for this prosperity, we are told, is national unity. The Conservative Party accordingly claims to stand for the interests of the nation as a whole and calls upon all to rally behind them. Business efficiency and social reform will bring about “One Nation at home”—indeed, it is already supposed to have done this.

But is this true? Is there a classless democracy in Britain today? Can we sensibly talk of “the nation” as a whole? Consider the facts. The economic editor of one of the well-known Sunday newspapers who is certainly not a Socialist has written of “the fantastically unequal distribution of wealth” and has estimated that nearly one-half of the total personal wealth in this country is owned by 2 per cent, of the adult population. This inequality of ownership is at the heart of the capitalist system. The propertied minority who own all the means of living (land, factories, railways, etc.) live off the unpaid labour of the majority, the working class. This is not an old-fashioned dogma. It is a fact—one which the Conservatives are extremely anxious to gloss over with their talk of “national unity” and “One Nation.” This is because the Conservative Party is a party of the owners, of the propertied minority who live off the workers. They thus represent the interests of the class to whose interests those of the working class are diametrically opposed.

The Conservative Party also likes to portray itself as the party of the so-called little man, the small farmer, the small shopkeeper and the homeowner. They talk of property-owning and share-owning democracies. Today this claim is challenged by the Liberal Party and with some success as by-election results have shown. More than ever before, the Conservative Party is a party of Big Business, of the giant combines and semi-monopolies. The so-called Beeching Doctrine (the doctrine of efficiency) has become party policy. This policy has been well described by Enoch Powell, the late Minister of Health.

“Does it pay? is the question which, quite unashamedly, we have to ask today of all our economic and commercial doings. Does this railway line pay—that coal-mine, this shipping route? Does that industry in that place pay?” (The Observer, 13/5/62).

However, as the Times explained almost a year later, the adoption of such a policy is bound, sooner or later, to affect the little man:

“Sooner or later, for instance, even Conservative leaders are going to be driven away from agricultural policies that they certainly know are designed to preserve small, under-capitalized farming units which impair rather than encourage efficiency. They will also one day be driven to act, as they would long ago have liked to act, to get rid of price resale arrangements to which thousands of small local shopkeepers cling for protection.

The triumph of the Big Business elements within the Conservative Party may or may not drive the so-called little man into the arms of the Liberals. But one thing is certain. The workers have nothing to gain by supporting drives for efficiency. Capitalism, under which production is only undertaken in accordance with the principle enunciated by Mr. Powell, has nothing to offer them. Nor, therefore, has the Conservative Party, an avowed party of Capitalism and of production for profit.

We can see well the consequences of production for profit. Basic human needs are neglected because it is not profitable to satisfy them. Housing is a good example. It is more profitable to build office blocks, luxury flats and cathedrals than housing for the workers. Again, production is only carried on if what is produced can be sold at a profit. When this is not the case factories lie idle and unemployment appears. Say, for example, that “industry in that place” doesn’t pay? Then it closes down and sacks its workers. Let us take a concrete example. This month the factory of John Webb & Co., brass founders, at Nantyglo in Monmouthshire, is to close down. The valves which the factory produces will in future be made in Birmingham. Explained the company secretary:

“It has been decided that production of water and steam fittings produced by the Delta Metal group of companies must be consolidated to enable them to be fully competitive. A number of steps in this direction were taken at other works in the group earlier this year. Competition has continued to increase both in this country and from Germany, Italy and Japan and the time has now come when our production must be streamlined.” (South Wales Argus, 26/8/63.)

This is what “efficiency” means. To be sure, some of the 200 workers are to be offered jobs in Birmingham. This is what “mobility” means. For in Conservative Party thinking the producers are considered not as people but as productive resources, no different from the machinery and raw materials they use. If a manufacturer finds it more profitable to establish his factory near the coast or to concentrate his production in Birmingham then workers must be prepared to be mobile if they want work. This is everyday experience.

The Conservatives admit that their emphasis on mobility involves hardship for some. They could not very well deny it since this, too, is everyday experience. But, we are assured, these difficulties are necessary evils which we—the workers, not the capitalists, of course—must be prepared to put up with in a “dynamic” economy. And, after all, they are but a small price to pay for “the economy of abundance” which the “proper” allocation of resources brings! This is what efficiency means. For what is efficiency but the ruthless ignoring of human needs to make a profit?

It is difficult to understand how so many of those who suffer most from Capitalism can find reasons to support the Conservative Party which openly proclaims that profit must come before human needs. Clearly the workers have nothing to expect from the Conservatives but what they get—unemployment, bad housing, pay restraint, insecurity and other examples of what the Conservatives call private, family and personal difficulties.

Production for profit, which Mr. Powell praises, does not lead to One Prosperous Nation, but rather to one prosperous capitalist class and to degradation and insecurity for the working class.
A. L. B.