socialist economic policy PHIL HEARSE LAST MONTH, with much fanfare the Labour NEC introduced its 'new economic plan 'A new Britain, a new partnership'. It was a timid and muddled statement of Keynesian nostrums. But this month the Campaign Group have brought out an excellent counter-blast, A million jobs a year' by Andrew Glyn — in effect the socialist answer to the NEC
Glyn calculates that in order to reduce unemployment to its 1950s level of around 500,000 it would require the creation of 44 million new jobs, or roughly a million jobs a year during the lifetime of a Labour government. This is a very boid project compared with the timid plans of the NEC
Glyn's first merit is to debunk the myths of the impossibility of such a plan on technical or physical grounds. One myth I find particularly irksome, and one which Andrew Glyn effectively knocks on the head is the "new technology" argument, peddled in such books as The Collapse of Work" by Barrie Sherman and Clive Jenkins.
The huge level of modern unemployment is not fundamentally caused by new technology - in fact its introduction is relatively slow compared with previous new technologies, and productivity is stagnant, not rising, as would be the case if new technology were the main cause of driving millions out of the workforce. But leave that to one side.
Glyn's central argument is that given that the resources are available, especially the huge resource of millions of currently unemployed workers, a huge expansion of the economy is possible, provided that a socialist government is prepared to take all the necessary measures to see it happen.
A plan for the expansion of the economy would require huge amounts of investment capital. Where would it come from? The first argument put forward is that financial institutions would have to be compelled to deposit vast sums of money with the government. rather than sending them abroad
This indeed might be the approach that a socialist government would at first take. But ultimately, says Glyn:
T Jacob Sutton/Reflex
*The major financial institutions are capitalism's nerve centre, with a dense web of links to industry, and capable of causing financial chaos in a matter of minutes by moving out of sterling or away from lending to the government. Taking them into immediate public ownership seems absolutely indispensable if a Labour Government is to prevent a financial crisis and be enabled to use the credit system as part of planning for full employment."
So this is the first conclusion. A plan for expanding the economy needs the nationalisation of the financial sector, with adequate provision for pensions and small savers.
How could the major firms be compelled to co-operate with a plan for full employment and economic expansion? Maybe, says Glyn, by compulsory planning agreements. But this would also require a restructuring of boards of directors, to ensure worker-directors who would keep to the plan. But as Glyn points out, once you nationalise the financial sector, you already have a large chunk of industry in effective public ownership, so great is the control of finance capital. And once you make planning *greements compulsory take away the rights of big companies to make their own investment and production decisions - and change their boards of directors, then private ownership would become increasingly a legal fiction. The process taking place is really nationalisation of the monopolies.
What would be the other major steps that would need to be taken? First, moves to stem inflation, in particular price controls. Secondly exchange controls to prevent the flight of capital, and maintain the financial resources needed for investment. Third, planning of trade, including import controls, would be re quired to re-orientate trade in the face of a possible boycott. Incidentally, it is quite wrong in my view to argue against a socialist government utilising import controls as a weapon to protect the domestic economy.
FO. Young Socialists 3 MILLION REASONSTO SACK THATCHER
Andrew Glyn's pamphlet is a valuable resource for the left of the labour movement and deserves to be ordered in large numbers by trade union and Labour Party branches. It gradually builds up an irrefutable case that sweeping measures need to be taken against the preserves of capital if unemployment is to be broken. Or to put it another way, capitalism in crisis is incompatible with full employment, and only what the Militant comrades call 'boid socialist measures' can restore it.
If Glyn's argument is a little tentative and guarded at times, then this is perhaps explained by the necessities of Campaign Group sponsorship, and the entirely laudible aim of addressing people with rational argument and not with slogans.
But there is one dimension which is a (perhaps consciously) suppressed aspect to Glyn's proposals: politics. For if just one measure proposed - the nationalisation of the banks and financial institutions - were about to be implemented by a Labour government, mayhem would be let loose in British politics as the ruling class tried every means to bring the government down. For, unlike the NEC's statement, 'A million jobs a year' is not a recipe for cosy discussion with the barons of industry and finance, but a recipe for all-out class war. That of course is why no one on the right of the party will take it in the least bit seriously
During his speech in the economic debate at party conference David Blunkett attacked those in the party who argue for "simple solutions like nationalising the monopolies. But despite all the limitations with the way that some comrades present these arguments, actually a massive attack on capital and capitalism is the bedrock of any plan for full employment
or socialism. Andrew Glyn, "A million jobs a year', a Campaign Group of Labour MPs pamphlet, published by Verso at El.
International, No: I, November/December 1985
Fortnightly review of news and analysis published under the auspices of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, in conjunction with the French language,
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