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From The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 45, 8 November 1948, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The British Labor Government’s “socialism” is no more socialist than Stalin’s “communism” is communist. This is further evidenced by the government’s latest move against the British workers, It was' announced on Oct. 28 in London that disciplinary committees with powers to fine and dismiss coal miners for “absenteeism” are being established. The system of fines is part of a new Code of Conduct drafted by a government council and approved by the bureaucrats heading the National Union of Mine workers.
Simultaneously, Sir Stafford Cripps, Laborite Chancellor of the Exchequer, broadcast a demand for “higher productivity” and “more output each year from each individual.” This is part of the government’s speed-up drive to squeeze the last possible ounce of work out of the ill-nourished, underpaid workers in order to prop up tottering British capitalism.
The system of fines is a throwback to the most barbaric forms of labor exploitation under early capitalism. The successful struggle against the system of fines was one of the earliest battles of the young labor movements everywhere.
That the British Labor government is attempting to reintroduce this relic of unrestrained capitalist exploitation, is one more proof that its “socialist” claims are pure fraud. It throws more light on the real nature of the nationalizations on which the claim to “socialism” is based.
Many people on this side of the Atlantic have been fooled by these nationalizations. In reality, the nationalizations have been undertaken to safeguard British capitalism and to ensure steady profits from the most bankrupt industries. By and large, the British capitalists themselves have approved the nationalizations, particularly of such industries as coal which were previously, in hopeless chaos.
Through the nationalizations, the British Labor government has been able to restore some semblance of orderly operation to mismanaged industries and to “discipline” the workers, while .the actual control remains in the hands of the former capitalist managers. Profits, in the form of interest on government bonds, are guaranteed the former private stockholders.
In foreign affairs, the British Labor government from the start clearly demonstrated that it is faithfully serving the imperialist interests of British capitalism. It has shown this in Greece, Palestine, Malaya and everywhere else that it is carrying out the Tory foreign policy in the name of “socialism.”
In its profits-preserving nationalizations, its strikebreaking, its speed-up program culminating in the system of fines, the British Labor government is likewise carrying out the Tory program at home. It represents not the fulfillment but the betrayal of the socialist promises made to the workers by the British Labor Party leaders.
That promise will be on the road to fulfillment only when the British workers themselves, through their own committees, take full control over all the meins of production and distribution, expropriate all industry without compensation to the capitalists, and cooperatively operate the entire economy on a national plan without profits.
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Last updated: 28 March 2023