A Worker’s Guide

The Bevin Society

The chapters in this pamphlet introduce you to key topics for thinking about socialism and socialist ideas and suggests why they are important. They are not intended as gospel but as guides to your own thinking and aids in debate. Use the pamphlet to stimulate your own thinking, to help with discussions with comrades and as a reminder of some basic ideas that are too easily forgotten. Ultimately socialism is based on a very simple and universal truth. Human beings acting collectively in pursuit of a common interest are invariably more effective than individuals doing so on their own. Very often this truth is difficult to recognise because of the existence of conflicts of interest, real and imagined, between groups of people. But socialism recognises that working people and their dependents have much to gain from collective action, far more than they would acting alone. This does not mean that they always and at all times want the same thing. Socialism is not the enemy of diversity: diversity can be cultivated on the basis of the security that collective action brings.

Remember, there is no substitute for your own thinking, but you cannot do it without access to accurate information and well thought out arguments. This pamphlet is a small step towards developing those arguments.

Chapter 1

Why the Workers’ Struggle is a Class Struggle.

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” (Warren Buffett, investor and capitalist, 2006).

The quote above blurts out a truth which the political establishment and media of this country would like to keep from us. We live in a class society in which owners of big capital and their servants on the one hand and workers who depend on salaries and wages for their existence on the other are the main classes. The capitalist class is in a dominant position. These two classes struggle over the appropriation of the fruits of the labour of workers. The state in a capitalist society does not stand between them as a neutral arbiter but in the main serves the interests of big capital, as for example when it decides on austerity to reduce public services on which ordinary people depend. When the state acts in the interests of workers by, for example, setting up the NHS, this is the result of successful class struggle by organised workers, who ensured that liberal proposals for health care reform were put into effect through pressure and agitation. The working class was in a strong position after the Second World War and in a position to ensure that the state to some extent acted in their interests.  

Class War and Class Struggle.

A lot of effort goes into pretending that social classes do not exist. Tories, Labour and Liberals do not at all like the idea and frequently claim that social class is obsolete, the term ‘social class’ a hangover from the industrial revolution. Hence the use by mainstream politicians of mealy-mouthed phrases like ‘alarm clock Britain’ ‘strivers’ or ‘hard-working families’ to cover up the uncomfortable reality that the great majority of the working age population and their families depend on the fruits of their daily labour for their livelihood. They are ‘one payslip away from disaster’, a disaster that could lose them their livelihoods, their homes and their families. Working people are as dependent for their livelihood on a ruling capitalist class as serfs were on their lords or slaves on their masters for theirs, unless they organise to represent their own interests. Keir Starmer in proclaiming his working class roots reframes ‘working class’ as aspiration to a more comfortable existence and never mentions the difficulties in achieving this other than through class struggle.

Buffett talks of ‘class war’ but the day-to-day reality is more ordinary. It consists of sundry local battles to improve wages and conditions of work, opposition to sackings and redundancies and campaigns for the recognition of organised labour. This is the reality of everyday class struggle. All this is about the application of force against force but it is not usually all-out warfare. Class struggle concerns the constant tussle between capital and labour for a greater portion of the fruits of the labour of workers and is effective when it is based on organisation.  Capitalists are good at this because they are organised have largely captured the media, the political élite and important elements of the state. In Britain they have been winning the class struggle since 1979 when Thatcher first took office. Workers do have local victories but it is fair to say that the whole 45 year period since 1979 has been a long defeat. It is well past time that this defeat should be reversed. 

Trade unionism, that is collective action by workers, is the way in which to conduct the everyday class struggle;  trade unionism in Britain has been in decline for the past 45 years and is particularly weak in the private sector. While this has been happening, the political party that used to represent trade unionism in parliament, the Labour Party, has become a party of big capitalism. It promotes the interests of big capital, weakens the ability of the state to attend to working class interests and has established itself as a caste profiting from the spoils of professional politics: cushy jobs in think tanks and the press, as political advisers and lobbyists for wealthy interests. The needs of working people are far from their concerns except when they can no longer ignore them.

The optimism of the period from 1945 to 1979 has largely disappeared. Organised labour has been demoralised and weakened by damaging setbacks such as a continual flow of anti-trade union legislation which has made working class organisation much less effective and industrial defeats such as the miners’ strike of 1984. Instead of optimism there is now widespread demoralisation, resignation and even despair amongst large sections of the working population. 

Why did this happen?

The bread and butter work of trade unions is the defence of pay, conditions, health and safety, pensions and job security. Without attending to these basic needs, workers will not see them as organisations that act in their most basic interests. But for organised labour to be effective in the long term, at the political as well as the workplace level, more is needed. Trade unions need to adopt a civic and political role as well as an economic one. They need to be involved in social insurance, education and training and in the governance of their firms. British trade unionism has on the whole, not been very good at this, seeing its role as one of fighting off the capitalists and getting the best possible pay deal from them. It has not been interested in developing the workforce or playing an important role in running the organisations in which they work. There have been hugely important exceptions to this. Ernest Bevin of the TGWU (Transport and General Workers Union) was, in the 1930s and 1940s a towering figure who built up the T&G, defended the living standards of its members and turned trade unionism into a political and civic force. He was not afraid of extending the power of trade unionism beyond the day-to-day class struggle, pushing the working class into becoming more of a ruling class in its own right. After his death in 1951, trade unionism continued to grow, but unfortunately without a guiding aim, despite the fact that outstanding trade unionists with a similar vision such as Jack Jones (a successor at the TGWU) continued to be influential. 

By the mid-1960s it became evident that, by and large, concerted trade union action could achieve most of what it demanded in terms of the ‘bread and butter’ issues of pay, conditions, job security. It was so successful that it had begun to disrupt the workings of capitalism, putting a squeeze on profitability and severely limiting the ‘hire and fire’ prerogative of employers. A solution became necessary. The later 1960s saw an attempt by a genuine friend of the working class, Barbara Castle, to put trade union power within an institutional framework, not so much to tame it as to ensure that it was exercised in such a way that it benefitted both the national economy and the working class.

At this point it is necessary to go back to the distinction between class struggle and class war. In a class war the aim of the war is the destruction of the opposing party, in this case the capitalist class. Many in the trade union movement, for example the Communist Party of Great Britain and various Trotskyist groups were ‘class warriors’ in this sense. They were all the more influential within the trade union and broader labour movement (Labour Party, Co-operative Societies etc.) because they used the ‘bread and butter’ of issues of pay and conditions as a weapon of class warfare. By stopping capitalism from working they hoped to destroy it and bring about a socialist revolution. They were not interested in promoting the civic and governance aims of trade unionism within the labour movement, but wanted to use the rhetoric of class struggle to promote class war and thus seize power at the point of capitalist collapse.

But class struggle is not at all the same thing as class war. The class warriors on the left wished to destroy capitalism. Capitalist class warriors want to destroy working class organisations and leave individual workers at the mercy of employers, preferably without any fallback. They are prepared to provide minimal levels of social security or unemployment benefit, if only to keep social peace. 

The great majority of working people and trade unionists are not class warriors, but they are caught up in the class struggle whether they like it or not. Most want a better deal from capitalism, some want to move beyond capitalism to some form of socialism. We count ourselves in this camp, but rather than advocating the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism we wish to build socialism from within the society. How can this be done? In brief we propose to do it by expanding the power of collective action by the working class and, where and when it is possible, engaging with the state and employers to arrive at solutions based on compromise around common interests. This does not mean ‘class collaboration’ but a rational use of working class power to achieve our interests. There are occasions where the interests of employers and employees converge or where a compromise is possible. Class struggle does not mean ‘no compromise ever’. That is a self-destructive approach. 

Not all employers are enemies of the working class and we need support from good employers in the small and medium enterprise sector without compromising on the need for fair and decent pay and working conditions. We need to support co-operative forms of business activity with worker owners and co-operative ownership as well as publicly owned bodies with worker representation. Trade unions also have a role to play in running vocational education, social security and above all in the governance of the companies in which they work, both in the public and private sector. They may well find themselves ‘managing capitalism’ but they have a chance to do so in the interests of workers and their families and dependents and for those who wish to move beyond capitalism here is a chance to show how well workers can run their own affairs.

The attempt to institutionalise trade union activity within a state framework had failed by the late 1960s. The next decade of working class militancy led to the search for another solution. The Wilson government of 1974-6 commissioned the Bullock Report on Industrial Democracy which published its findings in 1977. Bullock recommended equal worker and employer representation on the board of directors on all non-publicly owned companies with more than  2,000 employees with a further third selected by the employer and worker representatives. This was known as the ‘2x + y’ formula for company governance. It was thought that by putting workers in the driving seat they would protect their interests and allow those of their companies to flourish at the same time. Some influential trade unionists saw Bullock as an opportunity to consolidate working class power on a permanent basis. These included Jack Jones of the TGWU and Clive Jenkins of the ASTMS, later the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union (MSF).  Employers, not surprisingly, were in the main not keen on the Bullock proposals. Class warriors of the revolutionary variety were contemptuous of such a way of propping up capitalism while, as they saw it, working class action would bring about its downfall within a very short timeframe. Right wing trade unionists who believed in a limited class struggle for pay, conditions, employment protection and health and safety also objected because they thought that this would distract trade unions from their traditional ‘bread and butter’ role within capitalism. Hardly anyone in Britain paid any attention to Germany where, in 1974, the German unions won a great victory by ensuring 50% worker representation on the supervisory boards of companies, as well as a powerful within-plant workers’ council network. 

The Bullock report died through lack of trade union support and it seemed as if the worker-capitalist stalemate would continue. This was not to be however, because by this time the capitalist class had found a champion who would not only advocate for unrestrained capitalist control over the economy but who could also win over large sections of the electorate who were fed up with the disruption caused by the stalemated class struggle. This champion was Margaret Thatcher whose government, elected in 1979, was dedicated to the weakening of the trade union movement. Her task was made easier by the fact that the Labour Party and the trade unions thought that industrial action could bring about her downfall. Although this did not happen in the first five years of her government, some class warriors, notably Arthur Scargill, leader of the miners’ union did not give up, and thought that ‘one more heave’ would see her off. They could not have been more mistaken and the tragedy of the failed miners’ strike of 1984 not only crippled the union but demoralised the wider labour movement. 

It also emboldened Thatcher to start to dismantle publicly owned industries such as Telecoms, Energy and Water with consequences that we are all too familiar with today. Also tragically and despite these catastrophic setbacks, the leadership of the trade union movement continued to believe in a limited role. There were some exceptions, notably Frances O’Grady when she was TUC General Secretary from 2013 to 2022, who was a staunch advocate of increased workers’ control, but she was unable to have much effect against powerful trade union leaders who had no interest in increasing worker control over the businesses in which their members worked. The Workers’ Party of Britain is unique in drawing the lessons of the last 80 years and has placed workers’ control in its policy statement. 

Persuasion.

Class struggle requires force, sometimes even physical force, but more often the moral force that comes from conviction of the justice of one’s cause is effective in conjunction with the organised withdrawal of labour. It results in collective action by large bodies of men and women. But collective action is only possible if many trade unionists can be persuaded to make the immediate sacrifices that they will need to make if their cause is to prevail. Ernest Bevin’s tireless work and organisational and rhetorical ability built up a mighty and successful union. He persuaded millions of men and women to go the hard way and fight for their rights. But he also saw the importance of the civic role of trade unions, persuading the public of the justice of the cause of organised labour. Under Bevin’s leadership trade unionism came to be seen as an essential feature of working class identity, both by his members and by the public. 

There is no contemporary Bevin, but there are trade union leaders who understand the importance of leading their members through example and persuasion and at the same time understand the importance of putting their case to the broader public who may be temporarily inconvenienced by their action. Mick Lynch, former General Secretary of the RMT is such a person. He works for his members not only within the union but in representing the union to a broader public thus not only gaining support for his members but presenting an attractive view of trade unions as organisations that stand for the interests of their members and more broadly for the interests of working people. He does this through the patient and calm way in which he shows the justice of the railwaymen’s cause and by extension, the justice of trade union causes when they respond to threats to the well being of their members. The public who are not involved can understand this when it is put to them in a reasonable way that relies on the facts of the case. The force of persuasion is just as necessary as the force of withdrawal of labour in successful class struggle.

Where are we now?

Despite effective contemporary trade unionists such as Mick Lynch and Sharon Graham, we are a long way from having the advocates of extensive working class power such as Ernest Bevin and Jack Jones at the forefront of trade unionism. There is no sign that either of these leaders recognise the wider role of trade unionism nor the tragedy of not taking the road sketched out by the Bullock Report and advocated by Jack Jones. Trade unionism is still in defensive mode. Its political arm, the so-called Labour Party has long ago withered into a professionalised band of office-seekers, claiming to be able to run capitalism for the capitalists better than the Tories can. The differences between them have become cosmetic. Politics is now a career route to personal power and influence rather than a calling to one’s class’s interests.

The nature of the working class has changed since the 1970s.  Many industrial sectors have decreased or disappeared altogether, taking with them manual workers but also the technicians and scientists; large factories have gone but also the Small and Medium Enterprises which supplied them.  The new jobs that have been created are mainly in services, where the workforce is more difficult to organise.  The new workforce contains a much greater percentage of women and immigrants who need to learn about trade unions and why they are necessary.  

Another factor that has successfully weakened working class power is the rise of identity politics. Working people have never been a homogenous mass with identical views and interests. Nonetheless they have been capable of fighting for a common class cause, be they men or women, black of white, gay or straight.  Working class politics should be able to cater for this diversity without fear or favour. However, seemingly radical movements which seek to divide and demoralise the working class have made great inroads into British politics and particularly on the left, where they have become the fads of middle class activists who have taken over political movements to pursue their narrow interests. 

The now defunct Communist Party of Great Britain is a horrible warning of how badly left-wing politics can go wrong. By adopting identity politics and framing the class struggle in a very restricted way they ensured their irrelevance to working people and faded away. But the advocates of identity politics have had a very harmful and destructive effect on left wing politics more generally with an agenda that often alienates people concerned about their jobs, their wages and their communities. The Tories pretend to be shocked by this supposed threat to our society but in fact they are partially responsible for its spread and secretly delighted. The weakening of the trade union movement by Thatcher and her successors left an opening for identity politics and its disruptive influence on the left gives the Tories an opportunity to attack the left as ‘woke’ maniacs completely out of touch with working people. Divide and rule is very often a successful strategy. 

Class struggle is always a reality in capitalist society and always will be. It is time that working people started to prove Warren Buffett wrong and to roll back capitalist prerogatives. When it happens, it won’t be all-out class war but it will mean the return of effective collective action and expansion into areas previously neglected by the working class movement in Britain: governance, social welfare and training.

Chapter 2

The State in Capitalist Society

What Socialists Should Know.

Socialists need to understand what the state is and how it can help or hinder progress towards socialism. Societies can exist without a state but the reality is that, when a society becomes complex or is threatened by neighbouring societies it will develop a state. A state is an organisation that enjoys a monopoly of force against both internal and external enemies within a more or less well-defined territory. To a greater or lesser extent it relies on the implicit allegiance of most of those subject to its rule to ensure its stability. On this communists, socialists, liberals and conservatives agree, but on little else.

By far the most influential thinking about the state in the West is liberal. According to liberalism the state arises out of a contract between individual persons and a central power (‘the sovereign’). In exchange for individuals giving up some or all of their rights, the state undertakes to protect them against internal and external enemies. In liberal thinking the state’s obligations do not extend far beyond that, although some liberals have maintained that the state also has a duty to enforce a limited degree of distribution of opportunities and wealth. But all liberals see the legitimacy of the state based on some kind of contract between the monopoly power that is the state and individual citizens.

The functions of the state.

There are two major problems with this approach. The first is that the modern state has a much more extensive role than policing and defence, even in the most liberal societies. States have been obliged to attend to health, pensions, education, the unemployed and economically inactive, housing, money and economic development. Nationalist economists like Friedrich List maintained that modern nation states have to develop economically in order to be viable and to do this they need to direct economic development through regulation of external trade, the provision of a currency, education and public works to provide the necessary infrastructure through the agency of the state.  In practice all modern states do this, but liberal theory does not seem able to account for it.

The second major problem is that the relationships between the state and citizens should not be seen as the relationship between a monolithic entity and individuals. In any society, with or without a state, people congregate in groups such as families, clans, churches/mosques/temples, businesses, political parties and trade unions. Their relationship with the state is mediated through these groupings to which most people also owe an allegiance. Their relationship with these institutions is usually much closer and day-to-day than it is to the state which seems abstract and remote. Therefore the society which the state governs is usually complex and composed of different interests, the most important two of which are the competing interests of labour and capital discussed in the previous chapter on class struggle. But there are also very often different religious, linguistic and national affiliations which can give rise to competition or even tension. Liberal theory has difficulty in recognising these fundamental facts.

The institutions of the state.

With a few exceptions liberals have not looked closely at the internal complexity of the state. Locke, a seventeenth century liberal, recognised that the state had legislative, executive and judicial powers, corresponding to a parliament, a sovereign and judiciary. But states also have civil servants, police forces and armies to carry out their various functions. We should bear in mind that the individuals who staff these state institutions are also people with their own interests and allegiances to other bodies as well as to the state. This is a fundamental point that Marx recognised. To gain control of the state is to control all its parts, not just the legislative and executive functions.

The state and social classes: Marx’s insight.

Marx understood that the state was a complex institution ruling over a class-divided society, invariably in the interests of the dominant class. He was not the first to recognise this; the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle understood this as well. Aristotle maintained that a well-governed state, be it a monarchy, oligarchy or democracy, pursued the public interest, that is what is best for all members of the society so that no one group can enjoy security at the expense of the others. He recognised though that many, if not most, societies are misgoverned and the public interest is neglected in favour of the interests of the dominant class or even of a dictator and his entourage.

Marx was more sceptical about the possibility of rule in the public interest than was Aristotle although he recognised that wise rulers will try to maintain the impression that they rule without fear or favour on behalf of the whole society. His main point though is that the state is primarily the instrument of the economically dominant class, in our case, the capitalist class and although concessions may be won by other classes and groups through pressure on the state and class struggle in the workplace and communities, the fundamental relationship does not change unless for some reason an economically subordinate group becomes politically dominant. Class struggle is in part a struggle for control of the state.

Marx’s views are generally met with outrage and scorn on the part of contemporary liberals. But they have very little in the way of arguments against Marx’s insight and ignore the uncomfortable reality of the deeply divided nature of modern societies. Conservatives sometimes fall back on the Aristotelian position, acknowledging the stratified nature of society but insisting that the ruling group is benevolent and governs in the public interest. Marx and Engels considered the capitalist state to be the executive committee of the capitalists and their close allies, but did not go into a great amount of detail into the workings of this executive committee. However, some historians have, notably Lewis Namier who, in his discussion of the politics of eighteenth-century England, showed in detail how a small élite arranged affairs in their interest through the manipulation of electoral politics and the handing out of perks and bribes to influential people within localities where elections needed to be won. Namier presents the workings of the Georgian state in a matter-of-fact way, without passing judgement, but his account fits very well with Marx’s and Engels’s descriptions of the way in which a state operates. Namier was a conservative.

It could be said that the modern state is different because every adult has the vote and can ensure that governments act in the public interest. This view ignores the manipulation of public opinion by powerful media organisations in order to secure allegiance. No-one can  have an informed opinion about a matter if they do not have accurate and complete information about it. Those who control the distribution of information in society can ensure that accurate and comprehensive information is not presented, but rather that what is presented is designed to align with their own interests. They thus have direct control over state media but also of media organisations closely aligned with the state. Most mainstream media are owned by wealthy individuals and groups who make it their business to maintain the political status quo. Sometimes they acquire newspapers and television channels for this very purpose. State control of information is a very powerful instrument of political control in modern societies. It is one of the main challenges facing socialists. The rise of the internet has posed a limited challenge to the information monopoly of ruling élites and is sufficiently influential to be regarded with alarm and calls for censorship (or ‘moderating content’ as they prefer to call it). Given the way in which capitalists have accumulated wealth and power since the heyday of trade unionism in the 1970s through legislation, coercion, informational manipulation and the distribution of offices and perks, it is difficult to see how Marx’s diagnosis was wrong. It is also important to gaining the allegiance of the working class that there is at least the semblance of prosperity and attention to their needs. Economic growth is an important means of gaining this. But faltering growth and living standards since 2008 has placed this method of obtaining allegiance to the capitalist state in jeopardy. Even the perception of economic decline can lead to anger and apathy rather than to purposive action if there is no political leadership. But to recognise this is also to recognise that the task of anyone, who like socialists, wish to bring about a redistribution of wealth and power is a formidable one indeed. Better though to recognise the reality than to live in illusion

The Problem of Political Power.

In British politics majority party control over the House of Commons is necessary for legislative change. Even without control, powerful parties in parliament and the country can ‘change the political weather’ by forcing other parties to take account of the public opinion represented by them. To a limited extent this was true of Jeremy Corbyn’s 4 year leadership of the Labour Party. The Tories under Theresa May were obliged to pay attention to the needs of sections of the working class (the ‘just about managing’). With Corbyn gone, neither Labour or the Tories see the need for paying such attention. Although the Workers’ Pary seriously alarms the liberal and capitalist establishment it is not yet in a position to change the political weather to any significant extent. But you can be sure that a Worker’s Party with significant parliamentary representation would change the political climate in Britain to a considerable degree, forcing working class interests and socialist proposals back onto the political agenda after many years’ absence. 

Gaining political power and wielding it effectively is however a different and more difficult proposition. To do so, a majority in the House of Commons is necessary but not sufficient. A party in power with a socialist mandate would meet the most ferocious and ruthless opposition up to and including violence. A socialist majority in the House of Commons would mean that a socialist bloc had gained a foothold in the state. It could not, though, be confident that its wishes, expressed through legislation, could be enforced. Obstruction from the civil service and the armed forces and quite possibly the judiciary could be taken for granted. It is worth reminding ourselves why the Labour Government of 1945-51 was effective. As well as securing a large  majority in the House of Commons the Labour Party had a mass membership as did the trade union movement. The trade unions, under the leadership of Ernest Bevin, were accustomed to wielding political power in wartime conditions. Much of the adult population had served in the armed forces and knew how to handle themselves in conditions of armed conflict. Last but not least, soldiers, sailors and airmen in the armed forces had thought and debated about the kind of society that they wished to see when peace returned and they expected the government that they elected to do something about it.

Generally speaking, the upper reaches of the various components of the state are staffed by individuals from the capitalist class and associated élites. They are not sympathetic either to working class interests or to socialism more generally. They cannot be expected to show enthusiastic or indeed any allegiance to a majority socialist party unless they feel that they have no choice. This is why the working class attempt to control the state cannot rely on parliamentary activity alone. It needs to be supported within civil society through the agencies of the class struggle, most notably trade unions but also, where possible, media organisations that are not subject to oligarchic control. Working class parties and organisations can also exert pressure on the BBC to provide less biased reporting and to act in accordance with its own statutes. They can ensure that censorship of news organisations that attempt to present impartial or alternative points of view are not suppressed. Trade unionism’s work in localities can also strengthen civil society’s ability to stand up to the state and to protect local, including municipal, attempts to better the conditions of workers and their families. Trade unions can organise within the state, including within the civil service and try to ensure that working class interests are properly attended to there. Trade union representation on the Court (governing body) of the Bank of England is an important working class demand which an incoming socialist government should immediately enact.

The State and the Economy.

Mainstream capitalist ideology maintains that the state has no role to play in economic life apart from maintaining the currency, enforcing contracts and doing the minimum necessary to enable capitalism to flourish. When private enterprise fails to provide essential services such as banking, health, education or housing they allow that the state should be allowed to step in to provide them on a limited basis. In reality the state often provides these services because no one else will, or because of working class pressure to provide them. In socialist societies such as the People’s Republic of China by contrast, the state has a significant role in economic development, providing infrastructure, finance and an entrepreneurial role in itself, as well as setting the framework for the development of capitalist enterprises within a socialist framework. The state also owns the land and leases it to farmers. No one can say that this has not been a hugely successful model, but it is one that capitalism in the west prefers to talk about as if the Chinese state is an obstacle rather than an enabler of economic development. Even in the west, the state’s investments in infrastructure (think of the development of the internet for military purposes initially) leads to capitalist economic development. 

There is also a variety of nationalist capitalist economics that does recognise the critical role of the state in economic development. List, a nineteenth century German economist, was at pains to show how the ‘productive powers’ (i.e. economic potential) of a market society could be developed through tariffs against foreign goods and through infrastructure development within the state’s territories. Many capitalist societies, including the United States, have followed List’s model in their own economic development.

Working class power can be exercised on the state through the pressures of class struggle including trade union activism and party-political action. But unless working class parties gain at least some control of the state they will find it difficult to see legislation in their favour passed and will still need to provide external pressure to see that it is enforced. Any longer-term influence over the state will depend on the strength of working-class instruments of class struggle in political parties, trade unions, local authorities and in enterprises, particularly when the working class gains a degree of power within these as was argued in the article on class struggle last month. 

Control over the state is a long-term objective of working-class politics. But it can never be secure without a strong presence in working class institutions within civil society. Influence over the means of communication and dissemination of opinion are very important for the maintenance of this influence and oligopolist control over these means needs to be challenged and if possible eliminated. One important piece of legislation in the working-class interest would be to set strict limits on ownership of mass media by foreign and domestic oligarchs. In the shorter-term influence over the state can be developed even without control over the legislature by changing the expectations and terms of debate that set the political weather and the development of institutions that limit the power for the state to act exclusively in the interests of capitalism. The most important of these are the trade unions, whose current weakness needs to be reversed in order that serious progress in limiting the capitalist interest can be made.

Chapter 3

Civil Society and Socialism.

Human beings need to live in association with each other. They can live in societies without a state, but the world of today is dominated by states. But each of these states is composed of different kinds of social groups based on family, economic, religious and linguistic ties. The state relates not just to individuals but to the groups in which they live. Political action begins in civil society, the complex of social groups that make up a nation. Where states are dominated by one national group they are known as nation states. 

 Marx and his followers recognised this; it is one of their great insights that politics is not just to be understood in terms of the state and the individuals who live under its dominion but also in terms of social groups of various kinds. Those associations which are not part of the state are known as civil society. Politics operates in civil society as much as it does in the state and the economic struggle between different classes, owners of capital and sellers of labour power, is the dominant force in politics in most nation states. To a large extent that struggle takes place in civil society. However, it is important not to forget the other kinds of association that make up civil society. Ignoring these gives a one-sided perspective on working class politics.

Families are groupings united by parenthood and blood lines and exist in all societies. They are usually the most intimate form of association and many of our strongest allegiances lie within the family. However, the role that families play in politics differs according to social class. Working class families can be a bulwark against the hardships of life in capitalist societies. They provide some protection from the worst misfortunes and can provide the inspiration for young people to make their way in the world. At their best, members of families relate to each other through mutual support. They are not in the nexus of buying and selling or of market relationships. But they can be fragile and hardship and the intrusions of market society can weaken and even destroy them.

Capitalism is antagonistic to working class family life as it can form the basis of resistance to its operation when families organise together to create their own institutions. Ideologies such as feminism, which seek to sow discord between men and women and to undermine family life are promoted by capitalists for a good reason: they allow market relationships to penetrate into the most intimate and private parts of life by turning family members into individual consumers and even antagonists to each other through falsely suggesting that there is a struggle between the sexes like a struggle between the classes. Working class communities can seek to support family structures and to resist the relentless march of market relationships, but there is no doubt that they are often under siege. 

The families of the wealthy and of the capitalist and political ruling class are also subject to some of these pressures although not to the financial precarity that often afflict working class families. But they also play a powerful role in maintaining political and economic power. Through extended family relationships they can form clans exercising influence over capital and political institutions, not only maintaining their grip on them, but ensuring that power is not spread more widely. It is not the goal of working class politics to destroy these families but to ensure that their ability to project and protect their power is weakened through growing working class institutions such as trade unions, particularly when some form of workers’ control is exercised over enterprises.

Class Institutions.

In order to protect their interests under hardship and great pressure, the working class has historically developed its own defensive institutions, most notably trade unions and co-operative societies. Collective action can be an effective antidote to the clan-based network of economic and political power exercised by a ruling class. This development has been fiercely resisted however, and in countries like the UK, the ruling class has never reconciled itself to the working class exercising its power through its own institutions. This attitude is often justified with reference to the economist, Adam Smith, who argued that ‘combinations’ either of employers or employees, upset the efficient workings of markets and ultimately undermine capitalism. The ideal relationship is a bargain struck between an individual employer and an individual worker as a so-called relationship between equals. As Marx pointed out, the bargaining relationship is unequal since workers need work in order to live and to support their families, while individual employers usually have a choice of whom to hire. In addition, it is much easier for employers to work informally as networks agreeing on actions to prevent working class resistance, to raise prices and to exclude competitors. This can all be done ‘behind closed doors’ while trade union activity has to involve large numbers and is difficult to conceal. It took decades of action for trade union activity to be legally recognised and for workers to obtain rights to strike and to bargain. Sadly, these have been eroded since the time of Thatcher starting in 1979.

Employers can be in competition with each other, but it is not unusual for them to work together on issues that affect their common interests. Workers can work together on matters of common interest, most obviously when they are together in the same workplace or the same industry. But they can also be set apart from each other through issues to do with hierarchy, craft skills, pay differentials and ethnic differences. Unity of purpose, which involves uniting diverse groups can be difficult to achieve and in general capitalists will do their best to hinder the development of a united purpose among working people. In particular they will seek to avoid the working class becoming aware of itself as a class with a common interest and purpose. Any form of divisiveness that can be used to prevent this happening: male versus female, religion, region, language, race, nationality can be used for this purpose.

Working class politics is unlikely to be effective if it does not have roots within civil society and does not concern itself with local or workplace issues. This is not enough however and working class politics needs a political party both to mobilise support within civil society but also to compete with other political parties and to influence the state. Developing an effective political party that can bring together the diverse interests within the working class, develop political awareness and political campaigns and fight elections on behalf of working class candidates is the first task. Ultimately the aim is to gain control of the government, but the working class cannot make the state act according to its will without a strong presence in civil society. Creating and maintaining a political party without the resources of capitalists and oligarchs is an extremely difficult but essential task for working class movements that seek to attain political power.

A working class party has to compete with parties that do not have the best interests of the working class at heart, although nearly all parties pretend to do so. The Labour Party achieved this by making itself the political vehicle of the trade union movement promoting the interests of the working class via parliamentary representation. As pointed out in the chapter on class struggle, this worked to some extent until the trade union movement itself faltered and the Labour Party was given over to careerists with their own interests in mind. It has now become necessary to reconstitute a working class party with strong roots in communities and trade unions. Once political careerists are allowed to take over a working class political party, it is likely to be corrupted to serve capitalist interests. The Labour Party is a very good example of this.

One important asset of capitalist oriented parties is the support of capitalists who not only donate to them but support them through the ownership of newspapers, radio and television channels. Powerful individuals or families often control these, and they become an important asset of the political parties that they support. A working class party cannot hope to match such support without the help of trade unions who, despite efforts, never succeeded in the long term in running a newspaper that could seriously challenge the influence of capitalist supporting newspapers. These civil society institutions are in some ways the opposite of working class civil society. They rely on great private wealth held in a few hands, they are closely connected to friendly political parties, there is a crossover between media ownership and political party membership and they are usually close to state power. Alternative media are definitely an asset for a working class movement to get its ideas across and to attract support but not enough in themselves. Apart from resources, the biggest barrier to the success of working class oriented newspapers and other media is the liberal cultural inclination of most journalists who are hostile to working class attitudes and preferences.

Chapter 4

Trade unions

It is generally agreed that you are more likely to be successful in achieving your aims if you work with others to achieve those that you have in common. This is the basis of social life. Individuals who share a common interest are more likely to realise that interest if they work together. When workers have common interests which are opposed by capitalists then they have a common incentive in uniting to pursue those interests in opposition to the capitalists who employ them. This does not mean that employers and employees do not have any interests in common. On these they can work jointly. But in many areas employers and employees do not always see eye-to-eye: working conditions, pay, job security, pensions, health and safety are just some of the areas of conflict that are likely to occur. In addition, employees might wish to gain greater control over the enterprises in which they work, over training practices and regulations and over the administration of unemployment benefit and social security. These are all matters in which they have a vital interest. Collective action in pursuit of these goals is much more likely to be effective than the action of individuals acting independently. The ultimate sanction that those who labour can enforce on their employers is the withdrawal of their labour, either wholly or in part. They can only do this without fear of the sack when they act collectively.

Their chosen instrument of this collective action is a trade union. Trade unions exist to further the interests of members who are employees of particular enterprises or of the state. In one form or another they have been around for 200 years or more. In that time they have contributed mightily to the defence and improvement of workers’ rights in the workplace and beyond, often in the teeth of ferocious and even deadly opposition from employers and the state. Their work is not done and most likely never will be since the interests that they represent impinge on the will of some employers to do what they please whatever the consequences.

Different kinds of Unions

Trade unions are diverse and reflect the complexity and diversity of the working class. This is both a strength and a potential weakness and managing this diversity within the trade union movement is one of the main tasks of trade union leaders. Craft unions have their origins in the guilds of the mediaeval period and are organised on the basis of participation in a specialist craft occupation such as bricklaying, locksmithing or boilermaking. General unions bring together workers from different sectors of the economy, usually where there are some economic connections between different workers, for example between dockers and lorry drivers. General unions often organise ‘unskilled’ workers, that is workers who do not have a formal qualification for the work that they do, who receive little training and are easily replaceable. The Transport and General Workers Union (now Unite the Union) is a prime example, the heritage of the outstanding organisational, campaigning and political work of its first General Secretary, Ernest Bevin. Then there are industrial unions, organised around an economic sector such as construction, retail or banking and encompassing a range of occupations within the sector. German trade unionism is largely organised on industrial lines. 

As well as unions, there are trade union federations. In the UK there is one, the Trade Union Congress, but it is very common to find federations organised around religious and ideological lines, with Catholic, Communist and Social Democratic trade union federations to be found, for example, in France.

Because the working class is itself very diverse, trade union activists and leaders often have a job in handling divisions and conflicts within the broader movement. Craft unions often jealously guard their occupational boundaries and there are often rivalries between unions for members of occupations that could potentially belong to more than one union. Trade unions’ political orientation often means that they are affiliated with rival political parties. This diversity is inevitable as the working class is not a monolith. At the same time, a degree of working class unity is a prerequisite for industrial and political action. It goes without saying that employers and hostile elements in the state will constantly seek to devise ways of undermining and dividing the trade union movement by exploiting such divisions. One of the great challenges for trade unions is to manage such diversity in a productive way, while presenting as little opportunity for disruption by employers and the state as possible.

What they do and what they can do.

Trade unions were established to defend the interests of their members mainly in the workplace. They are a pillar of the working class element of civil society. In order to defend their members’ interests they need to have the right to exist in the first place. In Britain in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries there was great opposition to this happening and today there are still many people who would prefer that trade unions did not exist and that their ability to organise should be limited as much as possible. Economists like Adam Smith thought that any sort of combination of employers and employees was bad for the public and in 1799 and 1800, parliament passed the Combination Acts which forbade any association of either employers or employees to raise or lower wages. No employer was ever prosecuted and the legislation outlawed trade unions or any ‘combination’ of two or more people acting together for such a purpose. Even when trade unions are legalised, there is a great deal that can be done, both with and without the law, to limit their ability to be effective. Laws can limit the ability to take industrial action, to recruit new members, to have trade unions recognised in the workplace and to gain the support of other trade unions and of the public. The movement has constantly to be on the guard against laws and practices that limit their ability to represent the interests of their members and in particular to bargain collectively.

Collective Bargaining.

The ability to bargain collectively is a fundamental activity of trade unions. The union negotiates with employers on behalf of its members rather than each individual bargaining with their employer. The workforce as a collective is a much more effective bargainer than individuals on their own. They can make and enforce much better agreements than individuals acting on their own could ever do and for this reason the right to be recognised to be entitled to bargain collectively is often fiercely contested by employers. Even when the right to recruit members in the workplace by a trade union is recognised by employers, they may well refuse to bargain with the union on behalf of the workforce. In Britain a priority of the trade union movement should be to repeal legislation that limits their rights to recruit, to achieve recognition, and to negotiate collectively and if necessary take action to back up their demands, let alone to act in concert with other trade unions to pursue matters of common interest. Many of these rights, gained in the Twentieth Century were lost through Tory legislation in the latter part of that century through the weakening of the union movement and the reluctance of the Labour governments of 1997 to 2010 to do anything significant to strengthen the position of the trade unions. 

What Should Trade Unions Concern Themselves With?

Traditionally, quite rightly unions have been concerned with the working conditions and remuneration of their members. The length of the working day was an early point of contention, along with rates of pay. But there were other matters of great interest to the workforce, including the safety of workers and their compensation as a result of workplace injury, broader issues concerned with health and safety at work and the conditions of recruitment of new workers into the industry or a particular workplace. In addition, trade unions have seen the need to protect members in old age through pensions as a highly important issue, treating the pension as deferred pay for a time when a worker was no longer able to support him or herself. Trade unions that fail to apply themselves to these issues are not likely to raise themselves high in the respect of the workers whom they claim to represent and are thus not likely to survive. 

Beyond such core day-to-day interests what other areas of vital interest to workers are the proper concern of trade unions? We at ‘Labour Affairs’ would argue that there are and that neglecting these while focussing exclusively on wages and conditions can weaken the movement, as the history of British trade unionism from the Second World War until 1984, the year of the miners’ strike, shows so clearly. We realise that taking an expansive view of trade union activity goes against the grain of the attitudes and practices of many trade unionists but remind readers that there is a proud tradition of trade unionists taking a broader view of the role of unions in their society. We have mentioned Ernest Bevin, but Jack Jones, also of the T&GWU was an outstanding trade unionist of the 1970s and more recently Frances O’Grady of the TUC was another who championed the role of unions in having a decisive say in how the enterprises in which they work were run. Across the Irish Sea, James Connolly and Jim Larkin Jr. were both exponents of the key role that trade unions could play in society and it is no exaggeration to say that Irish trade unionism is one of the founders of the Republic of Ireland.

The other issues that should concern trade unions include job tenure, vocational education,  entry to the workforce, administration of insurance and social security, participation in the running of their enterprises. There need be no limits to the role that unions play in their society. The limits lie in the minds of their members and leadership. They should certainly ensure that they are represented politically at the highest levels, but they should also ensure that they are not captured by political parties. We will return to this.

Trade unions and conflict with employers.

By the late 1960s British trade unionism was able to exercise a dominant influence on the British economy and society. So much so that from the early 1960s onwards attempts were made to bring it into the running of capitalism alongside the state and capitalists. The National Economic Development Council and the National Incomes Commission, together with the Industrial Training Act of 1964 were all attempts to institutionalise the union movement. They ultimately failed and trade unionism continued to advance on  the narrow front of ‘pay and conditions’. Labour’s failed ‘In Place of Strife’ White Paper of 1968 was another attempt to institutionalise class conflict and finally the Bullock Report of 1977, supported by Jack Jones and other trade unionists, proposed a decisive role for trade unions in managing larger capitalist enterprises. These proposals were made at the high tide of British trade unionism and they were rejected by the majority. A chance like this would not come again. So what went wrong and why did British trade unionism go into seemingly irreversible decline? 

British trade unionism accommodated a right wing and a left wing, but both combined to defeat any attempt to expand the role of trade unions beyond struggle over wages and conditions. Let’s look at the right wing first. The dominant view here was that there are employers and employees who are in competition about how the product of capital and labour should be distributed and that it is the job and the only job of trade unionists to gain as much of a share of that product as possible regardless of the consequences for their enterprises. ‘It’s management’s right to manage’ was the slogan of this faction. Consequently they had no interest in the governance or management of their enterprises. On the left there was a powerful faction, dominated by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) which thought that worker militancy would be developed by the wage struggle and that the development of class consciousness that this would lead to, would bring about a revolutionary situation in which capitalism would be abolished. Anything like the Bullock proposals would look like  an attempt to revive a dying capitalism. Both of these factions believed in ‘management’s right to manage’, the only difference being that the left believed that the wage struggle was going to open the door to a socialist utopia. We all know the consequences of this limited view of trade unionism and the difficulties that it led to, which the left continues to wrestle with.

Trade unions and political representation.

The history of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s tells us that trade unionism needs to have a political perspective. To some extent, under the influence of trade union leaders like Jack Jones, the Labour Party provided this but trade unionism as a whole was unable to respond. After this, the Labour Party turned decisively away from representing trade union interests but the trade union movement continues to regard the Labour Party as its vehicle for  political representation when it has long ceased to act as such. This suggests that trade unions and the TUC need to have a political perspective, but they are ‘on their own’ as regards political representation. They cannot rely on a party that claims to have their best interests at heart, which takes the money of their members and offers little or nothing in return. They need to adopt a transactional attitude to Labour and to other political parties, providing them with support on the issues that affect them and withdrawing it when those parties are not prepared to support the objectives of trade unionism. Above all, they should avoid capture of their leaderships by officials whose first allegiance is to a political party rather than the trade union. A terrible current example of this is the way in which some trade unions have succumbed to globalist propaganda about Ukraine, following the imperialist line developed by the Labour Party without any serious attempt to inform themselves about the matter. A trade union movement that behaves in such a slavish way to outside interests has a long way to go to developing an informed and independent stance. How unions can support a policy that promotes neo-nazism and impoverishes their own members beggars belief. But it is the result of capture by the Labour Party.

How should trade unions relate to political parties?

We suggest therefore that a much stronger element of conditionality be built into trade union support for the Labour Party while at the same time looking for alternative forms of political representation. At the same time it is important that unions and the TUC develop their own capacity, not just to research the state of the enterprises for which their members work, which is vitally important for trade union core functions, but also to think for themselves about the wider world, free from the policies of the British political parties which, with the exception of the Workers Party of Britain are imperialist in inclination. 

Related to this it is important that unions develop leaderships that are committed to the welfare of their members and the union rather than to political careers within the Labour Party. There are too many careerists who promote their  own, often anti-working class agendas at work within the trade union movement and, while able trade unionists need to be given leadership opportunities, their members need to ensure that they put the union and its members first rather than their own political ambitions or ideological fads. 

The TUC will remain important as a means of resolving disputes between unions and providing a collective voice for unionism when this is needed, but it will not regain the influence that it once had without a considerable expansion in union membership.

The future of trade unionism.

In order to arrest the decline of organised labour, unions need first of all to develop, as some have already done, a ferocious and forensic focus on the operations of their employers and their ability to fulfil their members’ needs. They need to be far more conditional and unsentimental in their support of political parties and use them to sustain their own strategic objectives, which should include the repeal of most of the anti-union Tory legislation restricting the activities of trade unions and the development of a national presence within key national institutions. A key demand should be the enactment of legislation along the lines of the Bullock Report which would have placed trade union representatives on the boards of directors of their companies in a number sufficient to protect and develop the vital interests of their members. These are necessary steps towards playing a fuller role in the governing of the organisations in which they work, which will include taking greater responsibility for vocational education and the running of the business directly alongside shareholders, representing employee interests at the highest level. But they cannot do this without an effective political strategy that also places them in influential positions in State institutions, most notably the Bank of England  and more generally they should campaign for structures which allow them a significant say, particularly in the areas of economic development, unemployment benefit and social security. Without this orientation they will continue to decline.

Chapter 5

Political Parties aligned with the Working Class

What are they and how should they operate?

Political Parties use social action to achieve political objectives.

In order to defend collective interests within the state, one needs an organisation that has the potential to form a government. This basically is what a political party exists to do – to form a government of the country that pays attention to the interests of the group that forms and controls that party. A party of the working class should govern in the interests of all the society but pay particular attention to the broad and long-term interests of the working class. Since the working class by far constitutes the majority of the population in a country like Britain this is not government by a sectional interest but government on behalf of the mass of the population. If such a party comes to power through the popular vote then it is reasonable to claim that it expresses the will of the majority of the people. 

It is well known that many parties represent the interests of other classes, such as small businesses, monopolies and the financial sector of the economy. Since these groups are not especially numerous they will need to represent their interests as coinciding with the majority of the population i.e. the working class. The less the working class sees itself as a class with common interests the easier it will be to emphasise rivalry within it and to detach sections of the working class to find common cause with other interests. In Britain, this strategy has been highly effective in preventing the working class from exercising governmental power, let alone control of the state. This should not however prevent a working class party, whose interests are partly shared by other groups such as some kinds of small business and farmers’ from forming a common cause on matters that concern both.

The origins of the British political parties stem from élite rivalries and interests

It is difficult to understand British politics without appreciating that the country has a basically two-party system with deep historical roots that go back to a time long before democracy existed in Britain, in fact to a time before 1832 when something like 2.7% of the adult population (around 10% of adult males) were entitled to vote. British political parties have their origin in the English Civil War of the mid Sixteenth Century which was largely a power struggle between the landed gentry and sections of the aristocracy against the Crown. Although the gentry won this struggle they found it hard to establish a stable state that protected their interests without a royal head of state and so monarchy was re-established but with diminished powers, particularly after an aristocratic coup d’état (the ‘Glorious Revolution) of 1688, which put the aristocracy firmly in control behind the figurehead of a monarch.

This was the origin of the British party-political system. Two competing interest groups, monarchy and its supporters and the supporters of oligarchical aristocratic power formed loose organisations to contest elections. One of these (the Tories) was protective of the monarchy as the primary source of political power. The other (the Whigs) supported the aristocratic oligarchy as the governing élite with a monarch as a figurehead with limited powers. Although political alignments were never clear cut, and although there were Tory aristocrats and middle class Whigs, the basis of the political power of each was located in different positions within the ruling élites. Tories relied in particular on some sections of the the aristocracy and untitled landowners (Gentry) and on those in the broader population who felt oppressed by the aristocracy, as the main basis for their support. During the early years of party politics, changes of government were not smooth and the outgoing administration was often regarded as treasonous by the incoming one. The system took a long time to bed down as a form of peaceful transfer of power between competing factions. These early parties were basically associations of clans (groupings of extended families almost wholly drawn from the aristocracy and gentry) whose members populated both houses of parliament and exercised patronage over jobs and privileges nationally and locally. British government was a sophisticated but often brutal system of oligarchical government composed of two contending factions. 

What were the differences between the élite parties?

Since the aristocratic interest was mainly represented by the Whigs and since supporters of the monarchy sought to broaden their appeal, the Tories had a predisposition to appeal beyond their immediate supporters in the aristocracy and gentry to position themselves as defenders of the lower classes of society. Bolingbroke’s ‘The Patriot King’, written in 1738 was an attempt to show how a monarch could transcend faction and govern on behalf of all society. The Tory politician Disraeli in the mid Nineteenth Century developed Bolingbroke’s ideas and saw the possibility of a Tory -working class alliance that would counter the Whigs with their addiction to laissez faire capitalism which worked to the detriment of the working conditions of the proletariat. Such an alliance was sketched out in the Tory Disraeli’s novel ‘Sybil’ published in the 1840s. Tory organisation within the working class continued well into the Twentieth Century. It should be noted that both parties were imperialists and fervent supporters of the British Empire although there were differences between them as to how it should be organised.

The rise of the Labour Party and its infiltration by liberalism

Trade unionism needs a political presence in order to be effective. One way of doing this is to set up a union-based political party and the Labour Party became the political vehicle of trade unions, very much a junior partner to the Liberals in what remained a basically two-party system. The Liberals were the successors of the aristocratic Whig party and continued its addiction to laissez faire capitalism, making it an unsuitable partner for a party focused on taming the market and ensuring reform in the working class interest through organised collective action. It was possible to be a member of the Labour Party both through individual subscription and through affiliation via membership of a trade union. Although Labour MPs were newcomers to the clubbable and clannish parliamentary system in the House of Commons, it was the Liberals, the successors of the Whigs, who in effect took the Parliamentary Labour Party under its wing and taught it the ways of parliamentary government. The historical influence of the Liberal Party and of liberalism as an ideology has had a profound and harmful effect on the Labour Party. First through its domestication to the clubbable world of parliamentary politics and the diminution of political conflict through cross-party friendship. Second and more importantly through the possibility of building a career within politics detached from the working class interest that put Labour politicians in power in the first place. Third through the penetration of liberal ideology into the attitudes and policies of Labour. This was a much more long drawn out and deeply rooted process that is also associated with the rise of economic liberalism within the Tory Party under Margaret Thatcher, that was itself a product of the failure of the trade union movement to develop as a governing class within the society. Liberalism in various forms, ranging from imperialist attitudes to neoliberal economics to identity politics continues to cripple the Labour Party. We take a closer look at liberalism and its relationship with socialism in a later chapter.

Modern mass political parties depend on active memberships and deep roots within communities.

Only a small proportion of the population will want to play an active role in politics and fewer still want to become party activists. That said, in the years following the second world war and until the 1980s, British political parties had a mass base and there was more political awareness and trade union activity in the society than there is now. However, in the democratic era political parties need to represent a good cross-section of those parts of the population whose interests they particularly wish to represent. A working class party needs to recruit across the working class without allowing one section to dominate the rest.  A working class party also needs to have a good geographical distribution, it needs to represent the whole country and not just the capital. If possible it should have deep local roots and be embedded in civil society. It should be capable of reaching out to sympathisers and engaging with them through festivals, conferences, demonstrations and workplaces. It should certainly have an extensive media presence and ideally a newpaper that represents its views – easier said than done. 

Party members should be trade unionists where possible but it is important that they do not dominate union structures and make them appendages of the party, thus undermining their own core function, to protect and extend the interests of their members in their workplaces and enterprises. Parties are collectives of individuals dedicated to a common purpose so they need to be composed of individuals who can work together, respect the points of views of others and seek to lead through persuasion rather than manipulation or bureaucratic manoeuvring. Membership should be a privilege and applicants should expect to be scrutinised before they join, particularly if they have previous enjoyed a dubious political past. None of this is simple, but it is important. Failure to do attend to these issues will lead to an unrepresentative and possibly even corrupt political party.

The rise of a new political class and a uniparty.

In Britain since the 1980s the decline in political interest, trade union and party membership has led to a situation where the parties are again becoming more like the élite organisations of the period before the Reform Act of 1832. However, instead of representing the interests of different factions of aristocrats, landowners, industrialists and plantation owners ,they now represent lobby groups of financiers, industrialists and foreign policy interests underneath a veneer of popular democratic structures. Wealthy organisations and individuals can set up so-called think tanks that crank out policy recommendations in the interests of their funders, then lobby or covertly bribe MPs to enact legislation that puts their policies into effect. This process is much more advanced in the United States than it is in the UK, but it is a steadily advancing process here. Keir Starmer and the Labour Party are a good example of a party in hoc to powerful commercial and defence interests who do not have the interests of their electors at heart. 

The Labour, Liberal and Tory parties are run by individuals who are typically products of élite universities and often private schools. They may have allegiance to one particular party but in reality their views are very similar to each other. They forge careers as junior party functionaries, think tankers and political advisors   with the view to eventually getting a seat in the House of Commons or House of Lords. They are good at ‘networking’ or forging chains of influence and often master the ‘black arts’ of inner party manoeuvring, conducting purges, character assassinations and fixing elections. They have little concern for the needs of the electorate. The policies that they develop for their respective parties are largely interchangeable and differences between them are exaggerated to make party competition appear more of a real thing than it actually is. A commitment to imperialist foreign policy is a given across all the main parties, warmongering is compulsory as is denunciation of anyone who wants peace or friendship with Russia, China or the Palestinian people. If, by some mischance a figure should emerge, like Jeremy Corbyn, who advocates a degree of humanity and independence in foreign policy or a programme of mild social democracy at home, he or she is ruthlessly hunted down through smears, disloyalty, expulsion and character assassination, often aided by the foreign powers whose agents party functionaries all too often are. What looks like democracy based on elections is, in reality, an oligarchy of formally separate but in reality nearly identical parties composed of careerists who make sure that anyone who tries to disrupt the oligarchical system is crushed. Up to the time of writing they have been remarkable successful. 

Membership and party aims.

Anyone, particularly socialists, who wish to challenge this corrupt system are up against formidable challenges. Mainstream media will either ignore or attempt to rubbish them; funding will depend on the limited resources of members and, beyond that, the task of persuading diverse individuals to take part in a collective enterprise that involves self-sacrifice and much time is itself formidable. In order to do this  a political party needs to have a clear conception of what it is, how it relates to major interests within the society and how it positions itself in relation to the world outside the UK.

The Workers Party has made a good start on this by stating its core values of socialism, rejection of liberalism and its fads particularly its nihilism about society, anti-imperialism and a commitment to the family and social cohesion. In addition there is a manifesto that fleshes out these points with some policy proposals. It is obvious that, in a country dominated by neoliberal and neoconservative media, a commitment to socialism and anti-imperialism is going to arouse great hostility. Neither are the commitments to social cohesion and anti-liberalism popular with the media. However, a set of values like this has the potential to appeal to very large sections of the working class who are struggling with the failure of capitalism in Britain to ensure decent living standards for all. In the end, a party that seeks to court popularity at the expense of its own values is just going to sink into the morass of left-liberal-imperialist attitudes that pervade the left in the UK and will make no impact. 

At some stage such a party will need to make clear how the core values connect with each other. Anti-imperialism should be seen as a necessary remedy against wasteful and dangerous foreign adventures that imperil the British population, promote instability and lead to influxes of refugees and especially economic migrants.  A commitment to self-determination is in line with the value of treating everyone as of equal moral worth. ‘Common sense’ socialism will need to be debated in terms of such fundamental issues as the scope and nature of nationalisation, working class and trade union involvement in key institutions, including the enterprises in which they work, the role of small businesses and the extent to which economic markets should quell oligopolistic behaviour and ways in which the state can support innovation. No small matter is the question of how socialists can make best use of the fact that the UK is a sovereign currency-issuing state that can never ‘run out of money’. We have an example in the People’s Republic of China of a country that harnesses markets without letting them get out of control and there is a lot to be learned from the recent Chinese experience. Finally, a working class party needs to think about how the labour market can be made to work in the interests of the working class, which means thinking about how economic strategies, vocational education and the effect of large scale immigration on the domestic labour market perpetuate a low skill economic strategy by Britain’s employers.

Labour Affairs does not wish to spell out how such a party should organise itself. The Workers’ Party needs no lessons from us on how to conduct its affairs. Nevertheless, questions of party organisation are important, often pose dilemmas and need periodically to be reviewed. One of these is the question of membership, whether it should only be individual or whether there is scope for affiliation via a trade union. How selective should a party be about admitting members, not just because they adhere formally to the party’s values but because they are capable of working productively towards common ends with other party members. In our opinion a smallish party with a committed and cohesive membership is likely to be more effective than one that indiscriminately accepts members. Reform UK is a good example of a party with a large membership that suffers from members who put their egos first and the values of their party a distant second. Even when there isn’t a problem of massive egos, the ability to work productively and co-operatively with others cannot be taken for granted. Once a small party has established a healthy working ethos it can think about careful expansion.

However parties have to make their own decisions about various organisational matters and how the ethos of the organisation is maintained. A party of individual members should have a vote for each member of equal standing. 

Internal democracy and internal dissent.

A party that wants its members to think for themselves will have to cope with discussion and disagreement. Disagreeing in a comradely way and agreeing to abide by decisions made by a majority is easier to describe than it often is to put into practice. A party needs to develop an ethos in which this is expected and this can take time. This is why adherence to core values is so important, it has to accommodate dissent and the clash of deeply held views on apparently technical but actually politically very important matters such as how the budget and money supply is managed without the proponents of particular views putting them forward as a kind of cult view rather than a practical strategic suggestion.

Funding.

The Tories and right-wing outfits like Reform will never be short of rich donors. Working class parties have to make to do with member subscriptions. Unequal access to funding makes a democratic level playing field almost impossible to achieve. Furthermore, funding from large donors undermines the independence of a party. Even when a donor makes no specific request, fear of not getting further donations can affect political judgement about future policies. It goes without saying that there should be a ban on foreign donations to indigenous parties. Otherwise powerful actors who do not have the public interest at heart will be able to make hay with British democracy. There should also be a strict annual limit on the amount that domestic donors can pay into a party’s coffers. This country is much too lax in its regulation of individual and foreign donations and this seriously undermines our democracy.

It has been said that state funding of political parties will make the donor problem unnecessary. Unfortunately this proposal makes our political parties dependent on the state and the state as sole individual donor cannot be assumed to be a benign actor. There is no good case for the state funding of political parties except in the limited case of providing support for parliamentary operations which parties with seats in parliament might otherwise be unable to support.

A National Party.

British political parties should represent the interests of the British people or sections of the British people. They cannot represent foreign entities as the European communist parties did until the fall of the Soviet Union. There is no harm though in having good relations with like-minded parties in other countries such as the Communist Party of China which does not seek to impose its pattern of government across the world. BSW in Germany and the Workers Party in Britain will also greatly profit from sharing experiences and ideas. Being a national party need not mean being an insular or chauvinistic party. The working class of Britain needs a party that puts its interests first but which is also alive to injustices that result from policies that Britain has promoted through its actions, such as genocide in Gaza. It need not be shy about the need to defend British sovereignty and security interests while taking account of the security needs of other countries. Collective security is the best way to promote national security. Imperialism, as in the case of warmongering against Russia, is one of the surest ways to ensure disaster for the British working class.

Chapter 6

Markets and Socialism

Markets as social institutions constrained both by custom and law.

Markets have always been a tricky subject for socialists. Capitalists favour a market in labour where, in theory, in return for their labour power workers receive a wage, capitalists and workers meet as equals to negotiate mutually advantageous arrangements. Any attempts at conscious co-ordination, either by groups of employers or groups of workers will disrupt the working of the labour market. Such was the idea of Adam Smith in ‘The Wealth of Nations’. Socialists, at least since Marx, have denounced this view as a self-serving fantasy on the part of capitalists. There are usually more workers than there are jobs. Workers have to compete for a limited number of jobs and capitalists can use this competition to their advantage to lower wages, extract surplus value and make profits. In addition it is far more easy for them to collude in secret despite legislation against doing so. The key point here is that the labour market works to the advantage of capitalists because they have the power, ultimately, to starve workers who refuse to accept their terms of employment. The impartiality of the unregulated labour market is a sham.

Labour markets can, however be tilted in the favour of workers through social security and social health arrangements that give them resilience and through occupational labour markets that make a worker’s labour a portable form of property embodied in national recognised qualifications and a collectively bargained wage rate.   But to achieve that requires collective action by workers to oblige the state, against opposition from capitalists, to put appropriate measures such as legislation and financial arrangements in place. Without the successful prosecution of class struggle, labour markets will always tend to be skewed in favour of owners of capital. 

Markets as promoters of competition.

The most intuitive model of a market is a collection of stalls in a market square where goods and prices are on clear display to sellers who can choose on the basis of the best mix of price and quality. Those sellers who succeed best in  providing good quality at the lowest price will succeed in clearing their goods and making a profit. Even here there are possible imbalances in favour of sellers. It often requires specialist knowledge and knowledge of the history of what  is being supplied in order to make a good purchase. If you know something about horses it certainly pays looking a horse in the mouth before buying it. Otherwise you may end up being defrauded. That said, markets can be an efficient way of distributing resources if properly regulated.

Sometimes what is available to the public is not what they need or want. They may not even be aware that they want something before it becomes available. It often rapidly becomes a need. Think of the way in which mobile phones have come to dominate our lives, not always to our unvarnished benefit. If an innovation is introduced into a market and is successful, then competitors will emerge and try to do something better than the original. This drive for innovation is often said to be what allows for technological development and keeps innovation at the forefront of market relationships at prices that customers can afford. This feature of markets sometimes worries socialists who are concerned that wants and needs are created that can be harmful to human well-being, particularly if they are addictive and have the potential to harm other people. Once again, unregulated markets can cause great harm if left unchecked.

Socialist countries have had an uneasy relationship with economic markets. Lenin used them to stimulate production in the 1920s Soviet Union and they were then suppressed. Small scale capitalist businesses were not allowed to exist or in some cases they had a limited role to play in an overall socialist economy. The People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, has allowed markets to exist in order to reap the advantages of productivity and innovation that they can provide, but the state controls land and the commanding heights of the economy and suppresses oligopolies and monopolies. Markets work but they are highly regulated and supervised by the State. 

Monopolies, Oligopolies and the role of the State in regulating Market and Property.

When markets are not regulated successful capitalists can achieve a dominant position and use their resources and market power to squeeze out competitors. They can bleed them dry by pricing their own goods below the cost of production, they can use advertising and/or spread false information or they can use coercion. A single supplier, unfettered by competition, can set prices way beyond cost of production without having to worry too much about the quality of the product. A small number of suppliers (oligopolists) can collude to set levels of price and quality amongst themselves to their own exclusive advantage. Such things can happen if monopolies and oligopolies are allowed to form.

The wealth that such concerns generate can also allow them to employ lawyers and lobbyists to work on their behalf. ‘Think Tanks’ and newspapers can create a climate of opinion that benefits monopolists and oligopolists and influences legislators to organise regulations in their favour. An example given by Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany concerns the altering of patent legislation to prevent competitors from ever entering the market. The use of monopoly or oligopoly power can ensure that competition is permanently stifled unless control of the state is wrested away from the grip of monopoly capital and its allies.

Does this mean that socialists should oppose use of the market in all its aspects? Not necessarily. In order to secure the public good and the interests of working people, the state does not need to micromanage every aspect of economic activity. Individuals and families should be free to run their own businesses and various forms of collective ownership, including but not confined to shareholding can benefit society by providing for a diversity of needs, keeping down prices and encouraging innovation. The state should be seen as a kind of ringmaster for markets, ensuring access to those who want it and devising and enforcing rules that ensure fair trading and restrict the emergence of monopolies and oligopolies, as well as ensuring that the interests of working people are guaranteed. 

There are four further roles for the state relating to markets under socialism. First, important sectors of the economy should be under some form of collective ownership to ensure the public interest. At the very minimum these include control of a central bank and money creating abilities, utilities such as water, gas, electricity, transport and probably some aspects of telecommunications. These should also include industries of strategic importance such as other forms of energy and mineral extraction, and those essential to health, national security and long-term economic development. In general, key aspects of national infrastructure important to national development should come within the control, if not always the direct ownership of the state. In some cases this need not be a public monopoly, but the state can be a significant player in the market, for example to promote innovation through long-term investment. It is also an important part of the business of the state to ensure that everyone has adequate housing and to this end it should be involved in house building and renovation, either directly or more probably through the agency of local authorities. 

Second, the state should promote different forms of collective property and control of assets in the economic sphere. Employee representation on boards should be a prerequisite for all but the smallest private enterprises including public enterprises owned by the state, for example the Bank of England. In the case of the BoE trade union representation covering the range of national economic activity should as far as possible be represented in the Court of that institution. Employee control of pensions schemes, both public and private is needed to ensure that funds are invested safely and pension guarantees are not undermined. Very often this can be combined with collective ownership such as non-transferable rights in the business.  Market relationships do not exclude giving the working class a decisive say in how the businesses on which they depend should be run and class relationships do not have to be stacked against them.

Third, the state should be in a position to promote economic development and innovation by setting investment priorities, funding research and where necessary setting up businesses to promote strategic objectives. To those who say that the state cannot pick winners, we ask you to look at the success of the People’s Republic of China in setting, pursuing and investing in national economic priorities. 

Fourth, the state needs to ensure that the public interest is served in international trade. Unrestricted free trade is to be avoided, in particular an unrestricted international labour market. Countries should ensure that their own human resources are properly cared for, developed and employed before opting for the easy solution of cheap oversees labour, often working in invidious conditions. Where a state considers it to be in the national interest to promote certain types of economic activity which might be stifled through excessive international competition tariffs should be used as much and for as long as necessary to prevent this from happening.

Conclusion.

‘A good servant but a bad master’ should be the watchword for socialists when considering the role of markets in society. Market relationships can benefit society by promoting choice, innovation and growth. When market players become monopolists or oligopolists they gain dominance over both buyers and sellers in markets, distort competition and stifle innovation. In a word they become rent seekers rather than entrepreneurs. As they grow in wealth they grow in power and seek the ‘soft capture’ of the state through lobbying and media control. The state and the working class movement must always be vigilant to ensure that markets work in the public interest through oversight and regulation and should ensure that access to the media and other means of communication are accessible and out of the hands of monopolists and oligopolists. That means that parties and trade unions that work in the interests of working people maintain dominance within the state, and not just in the legislature.

Chapter 7

Should Socialists Fear Liberalism?

One of the reasons why socialism is struggling is that socialists do not really know who they are and where they came from. Many think that they are a species of liberal. After all, socialism grew up alongside liberalism and both are opponents of conservatism. Both socialists and liberals favour democracy and rights. Surely socialism just means taking liberalism a bit further?

Despite the apparent similarities there are good reasons for thinking that socialists should resist the excessive penetration of liberal ideas into socialist thinking. There are a number of areas of concern.

Liberals tend to believe in three interconnected propositions:

• Absolute individual rights,
• The right to private property
• The unconditional sanctity of the market.

Each of these beliefs support the other.

Socialists, who are capable of seeing that the market can be an efficient way of conveying some information about preferences and availability, only see it as having conditional value. It is good as long as it delivers the goods and can only do so when kept under control.

Individual rights:

It is impossible for socialists to avoid talking about rights if they want their claims on behalf of people’s vital interests to be taken seriously. So rights arise from vital interests. But different groups of people may have somewhat different interests. Liberals prefer to ignore the fact that we may often also have collective interests so there can be collective rights.

However, many if not most liberals think that rights are a kind of fundamental, irreversible gift that every individual has. According to the late Robert Nozick, individual rights are so powerful that it is questionable whether the state can do anything to override them.  This way of thinking means that the individual comes first and must always be deferred to even in the face of powerful collective interests. This view of the individual right to private property explains partly why property rights, especially in the United States, appear so extreme. The left has often been badly led astray by rights rhetoric. Having bought into the individual rights agenda, it has allowed itself to be distracted by various forms of special interest politics that should really be the province of liberals and which are not particularly congenial to the goals of socialists, which are to do with the development and promotion of the interests of wage-earners and their dependents in the broadest sense. In this context questions about the interests of women, the family, minorities and the environment can have a proper place as the broad mainstream sort out their priorities as part of the development of a political programme that has to cater for diversity.

One major problem with putting special interest politics first and then dealing with socialist ideas later is that radical liberals, and socialists influenced by liberal ideas, have mistakenly bought the idea of strong autonomy, as a political ideal, which involves the claim that any individual can choose what they wish to do in life so long as it does not harm other people. So it is quite ok to be a drug addict or surfer so long as you do not interfere with the rights of others to do as they like.

It is easy for socialists to be tempted by this doctrine because we all live in a society that values a wide range of individual choice about how one lives one’s life and because socialists, as well as liberals, tend to value this ability. What the liberal often ignores, however, is the existence of a common good and the closely associated idea of a public interest which is affected by the actions of everyone, whether or not they wish or do not wish to harm other people.

Once one takes into account the impact of one’s actions, both intended and unintended, indirect as well as direct, then it becomes much more difficult to maintain that we should enjoy autonomy in a strong sense. Rather, we should be autonomists who believe that people should be able to make life choices that take account of the common good. This does not mean that citizens should not be able to evaluate what counts as the common good, but it does entail that this should continue to be a reference point for individual choices. Individual rights need to be exercised in the context of collective ones. 

Private property:

Most liberals hold this to be inviolate. Yet the claims of the supporters of private property are extreme. Private property gives its holders exclusive control over assets, even if their control of those assets adversely affects the interests of other people. Yet the theoretical justification for private property, which comes from Locke, is very weak. Locke also admits that one should only own enough for one’s everyday use and that one’s ownership of private property should not derogate from the rights of those who already enjoy benefits which are part of that property. Yet these provisos are ignored as a matter of routine.

Liberals seem happy with the institution of private property as it is currently constituted, rather than as liberal ideology would have it Even Nozick admitted that past injustices in the appropriation of property need to be rectified, making for example the continued holding of land in Zimbabwe by white farmers difficult to justify on liberal grounds. Hegel argued that people needed private property as a means of self-realisation. But you don’t need the extreme liberal version of private property in order to enjoy enough assets in order to realise yourself.

Socialists need have no problem with the possession of personal property nor with the possession of some forms of private property. They can even agree with Hegel to some extent that the possession of private property is an important condition of self-fulfilment. There is no reason, though, for them to give assent to the extreme and unreasonable notions of private property that have legal sanction within our own society. Liberals are particularly vulnerable on this question since they have failed to develop a satisfactory philosophical or ethical justification for absolutist notions of private property.

Socialist have not done enough to challenge them on their own ground on this question. In fact it is not difficult to give Locke’s arguments a socialist twist. If we take self-sufficiency seriously, together with the need not to take away from people’s enjoyment of a previously commonly held asset, then private property need not look so unshakeable. Locke’s argument that private property results from mixing the land with one’s labour formed one of the elements of Marx’s labour theory of value and of exploitation. But one can simply argue that if ownership arises from labouring on natural materials, then employees must be entitled to a large component of the production of any economy, in particular the value that they have themselves added to a natural asset. One can argue this on good liberal grounds and undermine liberal ideas about property from within.

The market:

Liberals have a thing about the market. Even those, like John Stuart Mill, who considered himself to be a socialist, thought that the market was the best way to ensure economic efficiency. This is also true of modem welfare-oriented liberals like John Rawls. This belief ties in well with their beliefs in property and individual rights. The market presupposes a strong form of property right so that assets can be traded unconditionally, and also strong individual rights to buy and sell. In addition, the market is thought to be the best way of allowing individual choices to make themselves known and to provide the widest possible scope for individual choice.

Socialists, who are capable of seeing that the market can be an efficient way of conveying some information about preferences and availability, only see it as having conditional value. It is good as long as it delivers the goods and can only do so when kept under control. The liberal, however, often sees the market as the guarantor of rights, including property rights. Take away the market and it is difficult to exercise these rights. Although most liberals make out the case for markets in terms of efficiency it is not unusual to hear the market described as something that is good in itself. There don’t seem to be any circumstances in which most liberals would be prepared to entertain giving up the market as the main mechanism for allocating resources To a socialist, such an idea is absurd since the market is only as useful as the results it produces.

Conclusion

There is no reason for socialists to believe in unconditional individual rights. Rights arise from interests and are defined by social institutions. Property rights are not absolute and the market’s value is conditional only. These beliefs are opposed to those of fundamentalist liberals. Because socialists believe in self-realisation, democracy and political freedom, this does not mean that they have to buy the liberal agenda. Adopting a more critical attitude towards it would help socialists to be less deferential to ideas that are hostile to their own and to be more self-confident about their own ideas and values. 

Chapter 8

Equality and Socialism 

It is often said by anti-socialists that one of the motivations for socialism and communism is first, a desire for everyone to be identical in all important respects and second, envy of those who are rich or talented. For these disreputable reasons, so it is said, socialists are in favour of equality. Equality leads to a society where talents are stifled and dynamism of every kind is extinguished. Often people on the left don’t know how to respond to these charges, and perhaps one reason for this is that they themselves have not thought through what they understand the socialist demand for equality to be. Equality, like sameness, is a relative idea; something can only be equal to something else in some respect or other, just as two things that are the same are the same in some respect. Where two things have the all the same properties or are equal in every respect then they are identical. Socialists clearly don’t want everyone to be identical – so what do they want? We need to understand in what respect equality is desirable.

An answer that seems to be popular is that people should all do the same things: everyone should have the same education, everyone should be in paid employment, for example. When seen like this, equality is in danger of looking like uniformity, since this scheme suggests a lack of variety in the way in which people are encouraged or allowed to live their lives. It must be admitted that a lot of people who consider themselves to be socialists do think like this. They cannot see that giving everyone exactly the same kind of education up to the age of 16 and beyond is not necessarily good for them; they assume that everyone should be in paid employment, whether they want to be or not. If this is what socialists want, then they should think again. A society in which people are valued should be one where they are valued for what they are, for the contribution they can make to the common life, or by developing their talents to the full. And it is evident that a complex society needs many different kinds of talents and interests that need to be encouraged, nurtured and applauded. This means that socialists should feel that they have failed if they do not succeed in developing human individuality in the form of diverse’ interests and abilities. It is of the essence of developing abilities that they need to be worked on if they are to grow and none of us can develop more than a few abilities to a high degree. We must accept therefore that we are all going to turn out differently if we are serious about developing our talents.

So in what sense are socialists egalitarians? People should not all receive exactly the same education, because then not all will find it easy to pursue the things that they are most interested in and that they can do best. In a society that wants musicians, engineers, sportspeople and technicians, as well as academics, managers and clerks, there will need to be opportunities to develop those abilities. This means that there should be schools and colleges whose job it is to promote a love of and excellence in engineering, music etc. Anyone serious about developing institutions that are genuinely specialist would have to spend serious money on buildings, equipment and teachers with experience of the activities that they are preparing young people for. Specialist schools need to have much more than token sums of money or their claim to be genuinely specialist is nothing more than a gesture. Further Education colleges and their teachers are starved of money and resources, so that the sector as a whole gets something like one fifth of the per capita income of universities. There is no way that the current government would spend serious money on something that might appeal to large numbers of working people and divert money away from the education of the middle class. Some forms of education may be more expensive than others, particularly education that requires specialist staff and equipment. Socialists believe that everyone should have the opportunity to develop their abilities to the maximum extent consistent with the resources available within the society. This means variety, not uniformity in the education system and a willingness to make good the resource gap between universities and vocational institutions.

There are skill shortages in some areas but on the whole employers have low expectations of what they expect from employees. If there is no interest in other kinds of specialist, what is the point in encouraging diversity? If you do want to encourage diversity it is not enough to increase the supply, you must make sure that there is a demand and there is not much sign of that among the employers, who are the only people this government really listens to.

Where Socialists should be More Egalitarian.

It is often said by critics of socialism, that socialists must be motivated by envy of the rich and talented. As far as the talented are concerned, we have disposed of that argument and shown it to be bogus. What then of the rich? Envy is an understandable, if petty, emotion and it is doubtful whether it could motivate a significant social and political movement. Nevertheless, socialists have never really shaken off the charge that they are motivated by envy. So what should they say? There certainly are critical issues to do with wealth and income. As social creatures, we are conscious of our place in society. We wish to be recognised for what we do well, but we don’t wish to be treated as if we are of little or no worth. Very large inequalities of income and wealth make most of us feel devalued, even if we have the necessities of life and so they should be avoided as much as possible. It is not necessarily envy that motivates people, but the feeling of being devalued, by being poorly off relative to other people and ultimately powerless. This feeling explains a lot of the anger that lies behind the award of ‘fat cat’ salaries and perks. But there is a far more important argument that is not sufficiently exploited by socialists. Inequalities of wealth also lead to inequalities of power and thus prevent people from realising their own hopes. The opportunities of some people, if they are backed with disproportionate power and wealth, can stifle those of people who are less well off. If speculators and hedge funds force up the prices of houses through buying up scarce assets then everybody else finds it more difficult to buy a house. If the Jeff Bezoses and the Rupert Murdochs finance newspapers with their vast wealth, then it becomes difficult for people of more modest means to make their voices heard. If private patients buy up the best doctors, then these are not available for people who are not so well off.

This point is particularly telling in a liberal society whose main value is supposed to be that of allowing everyone to pursue their own projects in life. If inequalities of wealth and power ensure that this cannot happen, then such a society is something of a sham. It is ironic that the liberal philosopher of welfare, John Rawls, half realises this, by recognising that the full value of liberty has to be secured by preventing those with large resources from blighting the aspirations of the less well-off. If he had thought through the implications of this insight, his famous Difference Principle, which involves the prioritisation of the least well-off, would have to be applied before considerations of the distribution of liberty could even be considered. The redistribution of wealth would be a priority for anyone who was serious about promoting the maximum amount of liberty.

There is powerful empirical evidence that, beyond a certain level, increases in wealth have diminishing returns in terms of well-being and that unequal distribution of wealth has a detrimental effect on people’s sense of their own well-being. And when you think about it, what is the point of a society accumulating wealth and then distributing it in such a way as to make people more miserable than they previously were? So the policy implication seems to be that there should be far less inequality in wealth and income than there currently is, while at the same time more diversity of education and occupation should be encouraged. The redistribution of wealth could not only alleviate poverty but also allow for a more diverse education system. It could also allow for a carer’s income which would mean that those who wished to bring up children or to look after elderly or infirm relatives could do so with dignity, while at the same time eliminating some of the social cost that arises from the inability of people to bring up their own children or to look after members of their family. When governments make even modest attempts to do this, it happens against a depressing if predictable backdrop of complaint by some on the left that choice is being removed, when in fact the opposite is happening. The influence of feminism has meant that domestic work of any kind that is not part of the market is seen as ‘reactionary’. As far as liberal leftists are concerned, if you are not in paid employment you are a cost on society. This attitude ties in neatly with the right wing perception of all those not in paid employment (‘the workless’ in their inimitable phrase) as needing to be herded into paid employment, irrespective of its value or quality.

Public goods such as collectively owned transport, health care and education have the social effect that their usage does not harm the enjoyment of other people. A good surgeon, teacher or railway service are things that we can all benefit from without harming their use by other people. In the private sector, the use of the best surgeons and teachers is appropriated exclusively for the rich. The excessive use of private transport atrophies public transport systems which the less well-off tend to rely on. So here is a socialist programme: more public goods, less inequality of wealth and income and more chances for people to develop their talents and interests.

It is highly unlikely that Starmer and his clique would be attracted by such a programme, as it would involve offending businessmen and the wealthy. However, if it can be shown that greater equality actually increases people’s choices, gives them more control over their lives and actually makes them happier, it is something that the left ought to take seriously, if only they can end their own muddled thinking about the relationship between equality and uniformity.