'Goodbye' to the working class?
Socialist Action1980sPhil HearseScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
Sparked off a ride-ranging ebate. with the voters the likes of is no longer concerned with old fashioned class war slogans, but individualistic goals like owning their own homes, and higher incomes.
Such people are not interested in old dogmas like nationalisation and socialism and will never vote for a party hidebound by the myths of yesteryear.
In essence, these are the arguments put forward by Guardian commentator Peter Jenkins, a well known Jenkins points to the low proportion of trade unionists who voted for the Labour Party. because the was becoming more state intervention was abolishing capitalist crises Hugh arguments.
Tory leader Cabitals! Doolll. disguised the MIOC DrOSUCIOUS rising living standards.
millan's appeal and election decisively. social ownership were becoming irrelevant to the affluent society, as everyone equal. Further, the through Keynesian planning techniques Gaitskell, who became Labour leader in 1955, embraced these thing, The 1959 election was fought by Harold Macmillan under the slogan 'Peace and Prosperity'. Ine late '50s were the height of the post war which for while economic decline of Te prosperdus Bder was tories seemed to be true. Most working class people were indeed becoming used to more social welfare Gaitskell drew the conclusion that Labour had lost working class votes to the Tories because of its old-fashioned socialist dogmas.
tion POLARIS PROTEST Ship is not 100 per cent state ownerClause Four of the Labour Party constitution, which calls for a socialised economy, he said 'lays us open to continual misrepresentation plies that we wish to nationalise everbut we? Everything? whole of light industry, the whole of agriculture, all the shops — every little pub and garage. Of course not. have long ago come to accept the mixed Conolly.
Gaitskell's way of posing the question was a deliberate fraud. What was. and is, at issue in the nationalisation WaN whether should be nationalised, but whether the commanding heights of the economy, with the banks and finance houses should be nationalised. In other words, should there be some private enterprise within the framework of a socialist economy, or some nationalisaframework COT capitalist economy?
The formation Democratic Party can be traced directly participants in Labour's future after 1959 It im- Labour and the The working class THE DEBATE over Labour Party can win as a class-based questions — the structure of the working class and its consciousness. Is it true that the manual working class is declining? And is it true that workers are losing their traditional sciousness?
In order to see the development of the British class structure it is worth oking at the accompanying tabl able 1 shows that the proportion the adult population engaged in paid and 1970. The figures would have to be unemployment, but the basic point reMoans wud their labour in order to earn a living. The majority of people who aren't working for someone else are either retrea or acpendent on someone else s come state benefit. The most definitely not disappeared.
Table 2 shows the shitt from private employment to public employment. we sowever. shows mne mos dramatic shift and one which has continued apace - a big shift away from manual to non-manual jobs.
What conclusions Michael from this? Without doubt the structure of the working class to is changing, traditional Aneurin dustries.
In that sense there is a 'new' work. ing class, one more likely to be working in tor. But the shift in employment patSterns has not reduced the size of the working class. Nor can any automatic conclusions be drawn about the con. sciousness of the working class from this new employment pattern. In the 1983 general election the workers who voted most heavily for But Labour were public sector workers (46 the per cent). So it is just not true that a party based on the working class will be appealing to a 'minority'.
LOS Peter Jenkins Kinnock has an evangelist's fervour and a great deal of charm but he l need ever.
bit of it and more if he is to go out and win socialists of the Social But something the disputes over working the 1930s, working whether the revolves essentially around two whom thorpe, John hardly changed between i961 take of nal of • most people have to sell Just at Vauxhall, in nowadays, receiving the work cassa people attitudes Increase can we draw a shadow of a UNIORISTE reflecting the decline of the especially British manufacturing indamental sciousness disappeared.
section of even if that is true, , hasn't happened to traditional • Consciousness. the habits of class solidarity rather than in. dividual greed? Isn't today's worker a very different person to the workers o much more concerned with individualistic goals, with 'getting on'?
This idea about the development of class consciousness was put forward in the 1960s by a number of sociologists, the most prominent were Lockwood Goldwho published a series ine alliuent worker.' Their basic thesis was that of the 'em bourgeoisment' of the working class. If workers got together in a union it was only because of 'instrumental collec tivism' — not class solidarity, but just a way lo get more money.
The fate of these theories was vividly demonstrated by the celebrated study Goldthorpe of Vauxhall assembly workers in Luton. In 1966 his report on Vauxhall in the British JourSociology, indicated a fundamentally co-operative and non-class conscious attitude to management.
two months after was published an open revolt broke out which two thousand workers stormed the main offices, sang Red Flag and shouted 'string him up' whenever the name of the manager was mentioned. The fact that working want higher living standards does not make them 'bourgeois' in their Right up until the mid-70s trade was increasing rapidly, among white collar •puone sector workers. Unly lne rise ol unemployment has pushed the number The tun reflexes of con. solidarity have not But what is unfortunately true is that the rise of trade unionism and of industrial militancy in the 1970s has not Labour Partynas sosed to the Ste automatic support and the Tories — in the election only 39 Decide unions voted lo The reason for this is nothing to dr with Labour being too 'left wing', or too fixated on the working class.
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AFTERMATH of election defeat unce the 1930s has of necessity
I the movement aim that Labour was out of touch
because its policies were too left wing.
¡Hattersley and The 'new' working class
radical policies like the SDP. argument, fundamental one. The pundits are arguing that Labour is bound wing policies
traditional working elass, especially the manual working class, is getting smaller.
and become more Behind this however, is a more to lose if it has left
There's an awful feeling of deja vu about this argument. For it was exactly this proposition that the Gaitskellite right wing of the Labour Party put forward after Labour's defeat at the general election in 1959. The fight over IN THE mid-1950s, a group of right wing Labour theorists with what was called the The most them was Anthony Crosland, book, The Future of Socialism (1956), had a profound effect on the thinking of the right wing.
Crosland argued was becoming 'humanised' gradual re-distribution OI through progressive taxes democratic owners Managers were becoming important than owners of capital.
The old goals of nationalisation and Socialist Action dependencerincipe ping the coalitionist Liberals wanted the po the fosterenion ale came forward revisionist' keynote speech prominent 'old dogmas'. whose ful idealism capitalism by the broaden our base. dinary people wealth and more cuotes ridden fanatics'. companies. much more 1 urning argued that 'while Douglas Jay, another 'of the 'revisionist' authors, proposed getting rid of all references to nationalisation, breakIng une unks will tne trade unions and dropping the very name 'Labour Party More signiticantly, he proposed 'dropin olner woras some deal the Another leading right winger who sections joined the fray was Roy Jenkins, who to drop nationalisation revise the party constitution to lessen The Labour con Bevan ference in November 1959 Gaitskell's look up une tneme or must no longer count on old eroding loyalties. It must recognise the changes, continue to aciena me unacraog, appeal to youln• Four above all try to be in louen with or avoid becoming doctrinenationalisation he shall certainly we want to extend social ownership ... ou away.
The issue of Clause Four was largely a symbolic one. Many of the constituency delegales and trade unionists who regularly voted against further natonalisation were against the removal of Clause Four from the constitution.
The ensuing row was really over whether Labour should cease to be a party based on the working class, committed at least in name to socialism, or whether it should become just another capitalist party like, today's SDP Gaitskell's speech was booed by of the Foot, who had just been defeated in the strode IO Ine platform launch a bitter attack on the leadership conference ended with the cade sno rescue by saying that since everyone agreed that not everything should be nationalised, everyone was really agreement!
The uproar in the party over Clause was chorous. skell had to back down and abandon the attempt to scrap ll. The fight between Labour's left and right had within anilateral nuclear disarmameno Smuled LO question of the dispute over future of the Labour Party never went
The shift away from Labour among trade unionists reflected the fact that Labour's right-wing Gonnalcu paign could not unite the employed and the unemployed, the skilled and the unskilled, the working class and other sections of the oppressed around fighting socialist policies.
To do that would have meant an entirely different kind of campaign, one which linked up with struggle and the mass campaigns, not one sabotaged by the right wing.
Beside the betrayal leadership, Labour had another problem the 1983 employed workers, living under the Tories have not dramatically but they did go down under the last Labour government. But this present 'honeymoon' the Tories will end. start to disappear forced into savage attacks on the working class.
In the coming struggles, must seize the initiative by basing itself on the interests of the overwhelming majority — the working class.
To move to the right, to become the kind of party that the latter-day Gaitskellites want, to become an SDP mark 2, would be to decline even faster.
The Labour Party can be rebuilt, not basis of 'classless' but by clear radical alternative to the SDP. mass party which champions every industrial struggle, every campaign nuclear disarmament, every struggle by the oppressed in this country.
The splitting of the anti-Tory vote at this election is just a stage in the fight for such a Labour Party. But it was not class-based politics which Labour's defeat, it was the sabotage of a right wing which wants to say goodbye to the working class.
In the next few years more and more workers are going to discover that there are no individual solutions to their problems. 'Affluent' workers are going to be few and far between. fashioned' people in the labour movement are those who confuse the myths of the 1960s with the realities of the 1980s.
Tables from The development of the British working class by Jean Gardiner in Aaronovitch and Smith leds! The of Capitalism (McGraw-Hill, 198l). of its Among standards gone down enou will As the oil revenues will be becoming presenting for The old.
British Aneurin Bevan (right) came to Hugh Gaitskell's rescue over nationalisation at the 1959 Party conference Romemically acare Unemployed Economically inactive Students Reuired Miltary Local authonity Public corporations Total public Private * Great Britain only groups, 1911-66 Occupational group Non-mannal worker Clerk Skilled Sent skale Toel Roy Jenkins, ex-SDP leader, has already waved goodbye to the working class Should the Labour Party join him?
Economic activity of population of Great Britain, 1961-77 Self employed and employers Employees in employment Part-ume workers (included above)
Male workers (included above)
Ferate workers (included above)
Total economically active Housewives and other persons Total economically inactive Total adult population (thousands)
Employment in public and private sectors for the UK, 1951-76 1951° 3.6 Civil central government 4.9 6.1 26.7 13.2 Sources Soctal Trends (1979), British Labour Stattsties Historical Abstract (1979) The occupied population of Great Britain by major occupational Employers and proprietors / Managers and administrators Lower professionals and technicians Foremen and inspectors Salesmen and shop assistants Percentage of population 1961 1977 54.6 34.4 10.4 36.3 32.4 18.3 22.0 1.0 3.4 59.9 62.2 2.5 3.0 6.2 11.7 31.4 23.1 37.8 39569 41353 Percentage of total 1961 1976 5.3 8.1 7.6 12.1 9.0 8. 1 23.8 29.5 76,1 70.5 As a percentage of total occupied populations 1911 1966 6.7 3.4 - 18.7 38.3 3.4 6.1 13.4 3.1 6.5 1.3 3,0 5.4 S8.3 30.5
Socialist Action 24 June 1983 AcTioN SOP SDP