Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Employment and Productivity, was fotced to admit that "It is not a primary funetion of the Gowernment's Prices and Incomes Policy to redistribute wealth." Even this was dishonest as It was no function at all of the Incomes Poliey to redistribute wealth in any direction other than that of in favour of the employers.
After their bluft with the Incomes Policy, the Labour Gorerment did not even particularly pretend to help the low-paid. They turned to union-bashing instead. Perhaps to have pretended would hate over-stretched the powers for deceit even of H. Wilson, Castle & Co. as during this last four years in office those at or below the Supplementary Benefft level doubled® The situation now, after six years of Labour government is roughly as follows: the TUC calculates that a minimum wage of E16.10,0. is an absolute minimum. If they were realistie they would admit that with spiralling prices, rents, ete., this is far too low. But even taking this miserably low level, Labour did nothing to help this minimum wage, If we take even 8/- an hour (equivalent to E16 for a 40-hour week), then there are now still over 75 categories of occupation where at least 25% of the workforce gets less than this an hour.'® Some of the individual figures are frankly horrifying. For example, over 80% of women manual workers (classified by occupation) get under 8/-an hour." What is more, all the talk of a wages expiosion is nonsense us far as the low-pald ane concerned. The Increase in poverty revealed by the report of the Child Poverty Action Group is Inevitablé when you have a situation where you have a situation where prices have been going up at 6-b%c a year but in at least 90 industries, wages have only been going up at 47 a year.
When Harold Walker admitted that the Incomes Poliey was not aimed in any way at redueing inequalities of wealth, be made, in the same speech, a claim that the elimination of this Inequality was being carried out by Labour's taxation policy. It is therefore worth looking at just what this policy was aimed at doing.
During the first three years of the Labour Government alone, taxution went up fastest on the worse off. For excample, on the wage we diseussed before of E16 a week, the proportion of total income paid in all forms of taxation went up by over 15%, whereas for incomes over 460 a weel, it only went up by less than 3% 13 Even for old age pensioners, the Labour Gorernment did nothing about the fact that over 20% of their miserly pension income goes In tax.
The situation ls even worse if children are taken Into account. In the case of families with one child, the proportion of income paid in taxes during the first three years of the Labour Govemment went up as follows. For a family with an income of E11, taxation went up by nearly 30%, whereas for a family with an income of over E35, It went down slightly. Taking the family with two children, we find that by the end of the same period, a family with an income of over £50 a week was paying 31% of Its income in tax, while a family with an income of E11 was puying 41%. 14 Nothing was done about the retropressive rates system either. A family with an income of E22 a week paid over 50% more, as a proportion of its income, in rates that did a family with an income of over E58 a week.
So much for Harold Walker's claim to be redistributing wealth through taxation.
As compared to all this, the capitalists did very well indeed under Labour. On a trivial level Arold Weinstock got a knighthood after sacking 12,000 men and there was even an official honour for the man who made Harold Wilson's raincoats. On a more serious level, the firms raked in the profits to the tune of $1,383, 240,000 for the len biggest firms alone.
The Parliamentary farce We could have Investigated many other features of the policy of the Labour Government; for esample Its record on the Health Service, on education, on immigration, on industrial accidenta, ete. Those points covered should, however, bring home that this was a goverment carrying out the policies to fit the needs of the capitailst class. The important lesson to leurn is why this was the case. Was it, as the Left Labourites claim, because Wilson "betrayed" the Labour Party, or did it stam from something much more fundamental?
In his mome lacid moments even Harold Wilson was on the way to understanding why his government had no choice but to carry out the dietates of the capitalist system. In a speech to the TUC in 1964, he said, "If you borrow from some of the world bankers you will quickly find that you lose... independence, because of the deflationary policies and the euts in the Social Services chat will be imposed on a government chat has got itself into that position. *15 Wilson was on the right track but be could have looked closer home. It is not only international capicalista, the "gnomes of Zurich", who wanted "deflationary policies and cuts in the social services", but Britisb capitalists as rell. That lesson was rammod home in the first few weeks of the Labour Govemment, when hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of capitalist asets were trans ferred out of the country simply because the bourgeolsle had a misguided fear that Labour might do something to improve the situation of pen sioners.
Exactly the same employers and financiers who now write irate Jetsers to newspapers about the political strikes on Dee. Sth and Jan. 12th then were the people who carried ouc a capicalisc political strike. From then on the lesson to Wilson was clear; either play ball with the capita. Isc class or that elass will wreck the eronomy:
Strangely enough. it didn t even need a Murxist bo tell Wllson that this action by the bourgeolsie was inevitable, Even dyed-in-thewool reformer Sir Stafford Cripps had poitted out thac che "idea that the wielders of economic Over 1,700,000 unfit houses power will cooperate with a Labour Govemment is quite fantastic", What be meant here of course was a Labour Government which attacked capitalism. A Labour Government which carries out the policies of the capitalist class is of course no threat. On the contrary, beeause the working elass has illusions in the Labour Party, the bougeoisie frequently prefers that attacks on the working class should be carried out by the Laboùr Party. Thus, for example, in 1981, = prominent representative of the bourgeoisie gure the following piece of advice to George V: "In view of the fact that the necessary economies would prove most unpalatable to the working classes it would be in the general interest if they were imposed by a Labour Government. +16 The "necessary economies" meant the slacking of unemployment pay in the interests of the employing class. The "general interest" meant of coune the interest of big business. Exactly the same role was forced on the last Labour Government, Its "economies", sbow that violenoe is inevitable. This ls why It la as we have seen, were "most unpalatable to the working classes."
The Labour Left of course refuses to see that the power of the ruling clss is in its econo. mic control, not in its ability to win elections. The Labour Party are united on this, from Harold Wilson to the most "extreme" lettwinger. Wilson speaks for the belief of the entire Labour Party when he says, "*Whatever people say, at an election, Ibe old establishment only have one vote each at the end of the day So has the engineer and miner in my constituency. *? What is more, the Labour "lefts" desperately lry to con fine the struggle entirely to Parliament. Thus, for example, when one of Tribune's columnists sugested that an M.P. was calling for industrial action, that M.P. sent in a letter saying that "*1 sbould hate Francis Flavius to give anyone the idea that Iam now calling for mass action from the trade union movement against it [ the Iocomes Policy]. 18 The trouble is that while Tribone places such emphasis ou elections, unfortunately for them the bourgeoisle does not. It knows that its power to bend uny govemment to carrying out policies in the Interests of the bourgeoisie will Last as long as that bourgeoisie controls the economy and thus has the power to sabotage any steps taken by a Labour Govemment.
Why tben does the Labour Left not say clearly that immedietely after being retured to office a Socialist government would have to take economic control, and therefore ownership. out of the hands of the capitalist elass? The reason for this is simple. No class is going to give up its power, wealth and position pesce. fully, Can you imagine saying to Sir Arnold Weinstock that he bes bud a good innings but now he is going to base to gise up his racehorses and yet duwa tu learning how lo operate a lathe? Just to ask che question is to see the answer. For anyone who still believes in tbe uniquely "peacetul and democratie" nature of the Bridsh bourgeoisle just consider the example of Belfast. Here we see the whole might of the British Army being used in defence of a regime tbat retuses to grant even the most elementary rights on bousing. jobs, ete. and whict is openly "racialist" as regards the Catholie minority: IE the British bourgeoisle is prepuned to use force in that situation, it would not hesitate for a moment to use it agalnst a British working class that was trying to deprive the bourgeoisie of the source of its power. The Labour Left can of course point none of this out as if it did it would bave to argue for the working cluss to prepare to meet force with force, and the Labour Lefts would die with fright at this prospect.
The C.P. of course tries to have it both ways. It states that violence Is not Inevitable bat then states in small print in the British Rood to Socia lisn that of coumse it cannot be ruled out. This is meaningless. The working class will not us Violence, even defensive violence, if it has been told for years that it can get everything by peaceful means. It will only use violence if for yeurs before it has heard the arguments which absurd when, for example, C.P.s and Left Labourites say things like, "Of course it would have been correel for the German working elass to bave resisted Hitler by force." How con you possibly expect a woeking class to respond to such appeals if it has been told for deeades that violence is unnecessury? If force, whetber revo •Sutionary or even anti-fascist foroe, is necessary, then we muse begio to answer the case for it now. The British Rood to Socioliam, by glossing oter the long period needed to persunde the working class of the need to use force, prepares the way for terrible deleals for the working class. It is not the revolutionaries who are "unrealistic" but those who bellese that the capitalist class will cooperate in actions against its own interests, or will even peacefully accept its own defeat. After six truitless yeurs of Labour Goverment, more workers are coming to see that the only realists are the resolutionaries and that the most "unreasonable" people are the faded old parliamentarians like Sid Bidwell and all the C.P. leaders who want to ape him.
NOTES 1. A Menual of Applied Statistics, ed. Prest 2. Sucia lu Decniod Familics in Britain Ed. Holmer 3. Ibid. 4, Nos e Penny on the Hants 6. The Politios of Harold Wilson -P. Foor, p. 326. 7. Child Pavercy Action Group Press Release, 21/1/71. •HODIR SCHeJrHin tae incoTaonaes 9, Child Poverty Action Group, op cit. 10.OEP Gazette, Dec. 1970, p. 1114-6.
12 Incomes DATA report on 126 Industrial Groups. 13. Ecanomic Trends, Feb 19GB 14. Ibid 15. Quoted in The Forgotten Englishmen-Coatss & Silburn, p. 172 16. Parliamentary Socialism, od. Mili bandl. p. 176. 17. Foot, op cit p. 337. 18.1010, Д. 378
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