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Title: Mind the Gap! Author: Anarcho Date: October 6, 2017 Language: en Topics: Britain, Elections Source: Retrieved on 24th April 2021 from https://anarchism.pageabode.com/?p=1024
The 2017 snap-election was notable for many things, not least the Tory
party itself proclaiming that its policies have not worked. Well, it did
not quite say that – the problems it admitted existed seemed to have no
cause, they just were. No mention of who was in office for the past
seven years nor whose ideology had dominated the political landscape
since 1979. No, the problems were just there and without any origin –
beyond ritualistic invocation of “Labour’s recession” (that is, the
global crisis which originated in the American financial markets).
Thus the election campaign was marked by all the parties proclaiming
that something was wrong and something needed to be done. Yet, at the
same time, the Tories were keen to portray the dangers of a Labour
victory that would undermine “our strong economy,” “our prosperity” and
“our strong economic fundamentals” (“our” being non-defined, of course).
How can you have “prosperity” and a “strong economy” when increasing
numbers of people are finding it harder to make ends meet or joining the
“just-about-managing” is left unasked, never mind unanswered.
The economy exists, surely, to ensure people’s needs are meet? Not under
capitalism – hence the contradictions in the Tory campaign,
contradictions which reflect the nature of capitalism itself.
The Tory mantra that being in work is the best way out of poverty rings
hollow when used to answer the question of why so many people in work
are in poverty (child poverty has been steadily increasing since 2010,
with two-thirds of poor children are in working families). Britain was
unique amongst developed nations in that it had economic growth but
falling real wages over the last decade (wages in 2014 were almost 10
per cent lower than in 2007).
Wages, moreover, have not risen in line with productivity for the whole
of the 21^(st) century (at least), yet marginal productivity theory is
still taught in universities as if it explained the real world.
Ironically, as the economy was forced, by State intervention, to more
closely approximate the economics textbooks by means of anti-Union laws,
so the link between productivity and wages ended as the former continued
to rise as the former continued to flat-line – unlike company director
pay, which has rose from ten times that of the average worker to more
than 160 times. Unsurprisingly, as wage growth fell, credit exploded –
and more family members needed to become wage-slaves to keep family
income at reasonable levels.
The share of wages in UK GDP has fallen from a peak of 76.2% in 1975 to
65.8% in 2015 which is the real fear underlying all the talk of Labour
taking us “back to the 1970s” – and best not mention that real wages
rose 22.7% between 1970 and 1979 nor the Tory government of 1970–74
whose economic mismanagement stoked inflationary pressures, made worse
by the global oil crisis.
Outside of production, the impact of Thatcherism can also be seen. While
average pay packets increased by 19% in nominal rather than real terms
since 2006, the bills of the privatised utilities have increased far
faster – the average gas bill by 73%, electricity by 72%, and water by
41%. The big six energy companies (which control 90% of the energy
market) have been overcharging customers by an average of ÂŁ1.4 billion a
year since 2012, rising to ÂŁ2 billion a year by 2015. It has become so
bad that, after denouncing the energy-cap proposed by Ed Miliband as
Marxist madness, the Tories embraced it – much to the horror of those
companies. Still, mere weeks after arguing against consumers having
their bills capped to save them ÂŁ100 a year, the boss of one utility,
SSE, received a 72% pay rise to £2.92 million after “robust
performance,” namely years of bumper dividend pay-outs which have almost
doubled from 32.7p a share 10 years ago to 62.5p.
As for water, consumers are paying around ÂŁ2.3 billion more a year in
water and sewerage bills to the privatised companies than if they had
remained in state ownership and almost all the industry’s post-tax
income is paid out in dividends, while capital expenditure is financed
by borrowings (now standing at ÂŁ42 billion when there was no debt burden
at the time of privatisation). Even the Financial Times has admitted
water privatisation has failed – and its recommendation in the light of
this failure of competition is, of course, more competition.
And best not mention the horror story which is housing. Fewer and fewer
people can afford a mortgage and, in 2015, private renters paid 43% of
average earnings on housing costs in England (rising to 72% in London) –
from around 7% in the 1970s. Not by coincidence, by 2016 40% of
ex-council flats sold through Thatcher’s “Right to Buy” were being
rented out more expensively by private landlords. More than one-third of
private rental properties fall below the Decent Homes Standard and Tory
MPs – of whom 40% are landlords – voted down a Labour proposal that
landlords should provide habitable homes. Evictions in the private
rental sector are reaching record highs.
So the gap increases between product and pay, between profits and
people. Property is theft is still true – how else can the many enrich
the few?
The Tories are caught by the contradictions of capitalism, stuck in the
gap between reality and rhetoric. Capitalism is not freedom as it is
based on despotism in production – the worker sells their liberty and
labour to the boss who, in return for ordering them around, keeps the
product of that toil. Property is monopolised by the few and so any
“free agreement” in such circumstances will benefit the stronger party –
as shown by neo-liberalism. And as inequality rises, social mobility
stagnates alongside wages: it is hard to sell “aspiration” when equality
of opportunity needs equality of outcome.
So not trickle-down, but flood-up economics. Some kind-hearted liberals
proclaim all this as examples of “market failure” but no: it is how
capitalism is meant to work. That the resulting inequality undermines
society and the economy is just one of many contradictions facing
capitalism, contradictions which cannot be solved by asserting against
all the evidence that the Tories “reject the cult of selfish
individualism” and “abhor social division, injustice, unfairness and
inequality”!
Part of Tory problem is ideological, namely the fetishisation of
Thatcher. Yet Thatcherism is a capitalist response to a crisis caused
when the working class is too strong. We are in a crisis caused by the
working class being too weak. Ranting against “unions bosses” (that is,
elected union officials implementing a legal strike ballot) when strike
levels are at historically low levels only satisfies the party faithful
in near empty conference halls: it does nothing for capital. Nor is
there much left to privatise, not that channelling yet more money
upwards will counteract the negative impact of the current levels of
inequality. If anything, capitalism could do with the increased demand
caused by higher wages strikes and public borrowing would produce. Lest
we forget – for the Tories will never remind us – GDP per head rose by
2.6% per year between 1955 and 1979, while afterwards it has risen by
only 1.6% per year. Indeed, almost all our current problems can be
traced back to Thatcher.
Little wonder May and Hammond have been left defending the abstract
notion of a “free market” capitalist economy – mere months after
proclaiming in their manifesto that they did “not believe in
untrammelled free markets” – in the face of an opposition which simply
seeks to save capitalism from itself… and, needless to say, the Tories
have never once suggested that their anti-union laws are State
intervention in the labour market, although they obviously are. They are
just as oblivious to the contradiction of proclaiming the need to defend
the “free-market” while proposing State intervention to help those
suffering at its whims…
Can it be surprising, then, that the Tories have consistently failed
their own economic tests? The latest example is how, post-Brexit-vote,
the notion of giving an actual year for clearing the deficit disappeared
at the same time as Osbourne – although, incredibly, May is still
celebrating how they have reduced the deficit they have failed to
eliminate in the time promised in 2010 (and least we forget, they have
borrowed more in the last 7 years than every single Labour government in
history combined). All this will, undoubtedly, be as well remembered as
Osbourne stifling the 2010 recovery by austerity and Thatcher’s deep
recession and failure to control the money supply between 1979 and 1983:
simply put, if you make the rich richer economic incompetency will
always be forgiven.
For the Tories did not win “the battle of ideas” under Thatcher by force
of logic or argument – they won by the use of actual force. Socialist
ideas were not cast from the world of respectable discourse by
eloquence, they were sent there by the batons of the police. Defeats of
major (but isolated) strikes, not least of the miners and printers –
aided by a deep economic slump and mass unemployment – did that. That,
along with an uninspiring vision of socialism – essentially, a mixed
private/State capitalism – expounded by organisation run by, and for,
bureaucrats and politicians.
Now Labour seems to have its mojo back, finally dumping the
neoliberalism with a human face of the Blair-Brown years. Yet they are
focused on winning the next election – whenever that may be. If the
Tories are anything, they are ruthless about maintaining office. This
means that as much as Boris Johnson’s sense of entitlement means he
believes he should be Prime Minister, it is unlikely that the Tories
will provoke a change which may result in another “snap” election. After
all, regardless of what so-many claimed once the results were in, that
election was never considered a “gamble” – twenty-plus points ahead in
the polls, the Tories saw the opportunity of crushing the (then feeble)
opposition and took it. That their hubris and incompetence scuppered
their plans is beside the point.
So it may be some time until another election – even if they do get rid
of May sooner rather than later. However, that would not improve their
situation. For when the Tories admit to problems, suggest solutions
which involve borrowing, then their criticism of Labour disintegrates –
why is an extra £10 billion for “Help to Buy” (which benefit the
better-off few the most) okay, but not billions for, say, council
housing or ending the rampant profiteering of the privatised utilities
and railways? And this is important – far from being an existential
threat to capitalism, for all Labour’s “radical” talk this was pretty
standard policy between 1950 and 1975, for both Labour and Tories (and
State ownership of utilities and key industries is mainstream in the
rest of Western Europe).
The Tories have no ideas and are simply, at best, offering watered-down
versions of ideas first raised by Labour. That the opposition are
setting the agenda is significant: “There is no alternative” convinces
fewer and fewer, particularly as it meant a new form of feudalism.
Invoking the 1970s will not counteract a life-experience of being
ripped-off daily in the world the Tories have created.
So hope is growing – and that is good for all radicals, anarchists
included.
We must remember that the Labour Party’s policies can improve things, to
some degree. What they will not do is challenge capitalism as such,
rather they will save it – from its worst excesses as they did
post-1945. However, a key problem is that the Labour Party still sees
hope as lying in winning elections – this may be years still. Factor in
the time needed to become accustomed to their new position then wage
rises and other needed reforms will be some way down the line – ignoring
the inevitable opposition of the State bureaucracy to policies
considered too radical (this bureaucracy, along with the power of big
business, is why they will be in office but not in power).
Again, we are faced with the gap between rhetoric and reality: the
problems we face are pressing. This system of economic contradictions
will continue until such time as we end it, by our own efforts. The task
is to convince people that they need to act for themselves, to fight for
what they need by their own direct action and solidarity.
We must organise – whether in a rank-and-file movement in the trade
unions or in syndicalist union depends on circumstances and common-sense
– to win wage increases, lower hours, more holidays as well as reducing
insecurity and the authoritarianism of petty tyrants; we must resist the
rollout of Universal Credit and the vicious attacks on the disabled; we
must ensure that society sees squatting as a key part of the solution to
the housing crisis; we must combat all attempts to restrict freedom of
speech and association, knowing full-well that what is considered
“unacceptable” by those in authority will constantly widen; we must
oppose all bigotries wherever they appear; we must oppose the
selling-off of public services and property; the list is long…
We must learn from the mistakes of the 1980s and widen struggles, rather
than be picked off one by one. More – we must raise libertarian
alternatives to both private and State capitalism: instead of
privatisation/nationalisation, we must urge socialisation rather than
replacing the boss with the bureaucrat (or vice versa); water companies
owned by their consumers and run by their workers; railways under
workers’ control with strong links to passenger associations; solving
the housing crisis must go beyond replacing the private landlord with a
State official, tenants must control their homes collectively and
individually; co-operatives should be favoured over capitalist firms in
both production and consumption; workers should seek to exercise as much
control now as possible over our labour as we fight to end wage-labour
once and for all; this list is just as long…
The biggest gap remains, as ever, that between what is and what could
be. We are a rich country which could provide well-being for all but the
distribution of wealth and power is so dysfunctional even the Tories
have to pay lip-service to doing something about it. The answer to the
social question remains, as ever, in our hands and not in those of
politicians, regardless of how nice or radical they seem. The answer
lies in whether we remain content to let others act on our behalf or
whether we take control of our fates.
We know what the former is like, are we willing to take the direct
action and solidarity needed for the latter?