Capital & Class. - 1979. - Issue 8

EDITORIAL

Since the 7th of April several prominent militants of the 'autonomous' Left in Italy have been arrested on charges of belonging to "subversive associations" and of "organising armed struggle" in the form of the Red Brigades, including the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro . The accused include workers, members of the women's movement, Left broadcasters and journalists, and a number of academics who share a record of opposition to the 'Historic Compromise .' Among the twentythree comrades under arrest at the end of April are active members of the CSE . Further, there are a number of disturbing aspects of this affair to date which call for action on the part of all socialists and democrats . The revival and strengthening of Fascist measures in the Reale Law of 1975, which allows arbitrary administrative definition of "subversive associations," and up to two years imprisonment for "mental complicity" in their activities, is a serious threat to freedom of dissent . Its use in this instance to attack most organisations to the left of the major parties, implicitly 'outlawing' hundreds of thousands of people, would in itself have led to a trial of the law, rather than a trial of the accused . However, the coupling of these charges with allegations of acts of terrorism has the effect of surreptitiously 'validating' arrest for political dissent . It is therefore all the more important that the charges be clearly specified and a prima facie case made out for the defence to answer . The seriousness of the charges under the Reale Law and the European AntiTerrorist Convention means that the accused could be held without bail for up to eight years, and refused access to a lawyer or leave to appeal under the European Convention of Human Rights . By the first of May, the accused had yet to be properly indicted, and there seems every prospect of their being allowed to languish in prison unless rescued by an international protest . Such an outcry is now beginning to be heard, in the teeth of a media campaign by the prosecution to discredit the accused with a succession of sensational stories disclosing bits of 'evidence' which have, however,

failed to survive even journalistic examination . Although this shoddily prepared campaign of denigration may rebound on its perpetrators, the prosecution clearly intends to create an atmosphere in which people may be tried for the 'consequences' of their political and social views . The Padova magistrate Fais has stated that Marxists cannot be extended academic freedom because in Marxism there is unity of theory and practice . Thus the writings of Antonio Negri have been waved before the cameras as the ideological source of the whole 'autonomous' left movement in Italy, and of the Red Brigades and the Moro kidnapping, despite Negri's systematic critique of terrorism as "the mirror of the violence of the state" which has "nothing in common with any theory of proletarian violence ." While the idealism, conspiratorial fantasy and lack of political discrimination in the prosecution's claim makes it laughable, the threat of a 'trial of opinion by opinion' is very real and perfectly capable of being extended wherever in Europe it can be made politically viable . The Editorial Committee of Capital and C/ass and the Organising Committee of the Conference of Socialist Economists condemn these oppressive practices and call for the defendants to be presented with specific charges to answer in internationally recogniseable standards of evidence and a speedy trial, or their immediate and unconditional release . In the view of the grave and potentially widespread threat which this prosecution presents to political and intellectual freedom, we urge members and friends to help organise a broad and emphatic response . There is every reason to think that the weight of international opinion will affect the outcome of what is essentially a 'witch hunt'. Three copies of letters of protest should be sent to the Italy '79 Committee, Box 135, 182 Upper Street, London Nl, from where they will be forwarded to the Italian Embassy, the Italian Press, and the Comitato Contro La Repressione in Italy. Comrades in a position to individually or organisationally address the Italian Communist Party should also do so, as the uncritical endorse ment of this prosecution by its leadership (though not, it may be said, by several of its most respected members) is of great concern to those of us who believe that the P .C .I . has a democratic and progressive role to play in the European working class movement .

ERRATUM In Capital & Class No . 7 the author of the Debate Article was John Solomos and not Solomons, we regret the mistake .

THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE OF MARXISM AND FEMINISM TOWARDS A MORE PROGRESSIVE UNION Heidi I . Hartmann

This paper argues that the relation between marxism and feminism has, in all the forms it has so far taken, been an unequal one . While both marxist method and feminist analysis are necessary to an understanding of capitalist societies, and of the position of women within them, in fact feminism has consistently been subordinated . The paper presents a challenge to both marxist and radical feminist work on the "woman question", and argues that what it is necessary to analyse is the combination of patriarchy and capitalism . It is a paper which, we hope, should stimulate considerable debate .

The 'marriage' of marxism and feminism has been like the marriage of husband and wife depicted in English common law : marxism and feminism are one, and that one is marxism (1) . Recent attempts to integrate marxism and feminism are unsatisfactory to us as feminists because they subsume the feminist struggle into the 'larger' struggle against capital . To continue our simile further, either we need a healthier marriage or we need a divorce . The inequalities in this marriage, like most social phenomena, are no accident . Many marxists typically argue that feminism is at best less important than class conflict and at worst divisive of the working class . This political stance produces an analysis that absorbs feminism into the class struggle . Moreover, the analytic power of marxism with respect to capital has obscured its limitations with respect to sexism . We will argue here that while marxist analysis provides essential insight into the laws of historical development, and those of capital in particular, the categories of marxism are sex-blind . Only a specifically feminist analysis reveals the systemic character of relations between men and women . Yet feminist analysis by itself is inadequate because it has been blind to history and insufficiently



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materialist . Both marxist analysis, particularly its historical and materialist method, and feminist analysis, especially the identification of patriarchy as a social and historical structure, must be drawn upon if we are to understand the development of western capitalist societies and the predicament of women within them . In this essay we suggest a new direction for marxist feminist analysis . Part I of our discussion examines several marxist approaches to the 'woman question' . We then turn, in Part II, to the work of radical feminists . After noting the limitations of radical feminist definitions of patriarchy, we offer our own . In Part III we try to use the strengths of both marxism and feminism to make suggestions both about the development of capitalist societies and about the present situation of women . We attempt to use marxist methodology to analyze feminist objectives, correcting the imbalance in recent socialist feminist work, and suggesting a more complete analysis of our present socioeconomic formation . We argue that a materialist analysis demonstrates that patriarchy is not simply a psychic, but also a social and economic structure. We suggest that our society can best be understood once it is recognized that it is organized both in capitalist and in patriarchal ways . While pointing out tensions between patriarchal and capitalist interests, we argue that the accumulation of capital both accommodates itself to patriarchal social structure and helps to perpetuate it . We suggest in this context that sexist ideology has assumed a peculiarly capitalist form in the present, illustrating one way that patriarchal relations tend to bolster capitalism . We argue, in short, that a partnership of patriarchy and capitalism has evolved . In the concluding section, Part IV, we argue that the political relations of marxism and feminism account for the dominance of marxism over feminism in the left's understanding of the 'woman question' . A more progressive union of marxism and feminism, then, requires not only improved intellectual understanding of relations of class and sex, but also that alliance replace dominance and subordination in left politics . 1.

MARXISM AND THE WOMAN QUESTION

The 'woman question' has never been the 'feminist question' . The feminist question is directed at the causes of sexual inequality between women and men, of male dominance over women . Most marxist analyses of women's position take as their question the relationship of women to the economic system, rather than that of women to men, apparently assuming the latter will be explained in their discussion of the former . Marxist analysis of the woman question has taken three main forms . All see women's oppression in our connection (or lack of it) to production . Defining women as part of the working class, these analyses consistently subsume women's relation to men under workers' relation to capital . First, early marxists, including Marx, Engels, Kautsky, and Lenin, saw capitalism drawing all women into the wage labor force, and saw this process destroying the sexual division of labor . Second, contemporary marxists have incorporated women into an analysis of 'everyday life' in capitalism . In this view, all aspects of our lives are seen to reproduce the capitalist system



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and we are all workers in that system . And third, marxist-feminists have focussed on housework and its relation to capital, some arguing that housework produces surplus value and that houseworkers work directly for capitalists . These three approaches are examined in turn . Engels, in Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, recognized the inferior position of women and attributed it to the institution of private property (2) . In bourgeois families, -Engels argued, women had to serve their masters, be monogamous, and produce heirs to inherit property . Among proletarians, Engels argued, women were not oppressed, because there was no private property to be passed on . Engels argued further that as the extension of wage labor destroyed the small-holding peasantry, and women and children were incorporated into the wage labor force along with men, the authority of the male head of household was undermined, and patriarchal relations were destroyed (3) . For Engels then, women's participation in the labor force was the key to their emancipation . Capitalism would abolish sex differences and treat all workers equally . Women would become economically independent of men and would participate on an equal footing with men in bringing about the proletarian revolution . After the revolution, when all people would be workers and private property abolished, women would be emancipated from capital as well as from men . Marxists were aware of the hardships women's labor force participation meant for women and families, which resulted in women having two jobs, housework and wage work . Nevertheless, their emphasis was less on the continued subordination of women in the home than on the progressive character of capitalism's `erosion' of patriarchal relations . Under socialism housework too would be collectivized and women relieved of their double burden . The political implications of this first marxist approach are clear . Women's liberation requires first, that women become wage workers like men, and second, that they join with men in the revolutionary struggle against capitalism . Capital and private property, the early marxists argued, are the cause of women's particular oppression just as capital is the cause of the exploitation of workers in general . Though aware of the deplorable situation of women in their time the early marxists failed to focus on the differences between men's and women's experiences under capitalism . They did not focus on the feminist questions - how and why women are oppressed as women . They did not, therefore, recognize the vested interest men had in women's continued subordination . As we argue in Part III below, men benefitted from not having to do housework, from having their wives and daughters serve them and from having the better places in the labor market . Patriarchal relations, far from being atavistic leftovers, being rapidly outmoded by capitalism, as the early marxists suggested, have survived and thrived alongside it . And since capital and private property do not cause the oppression of women as women, their end alone will not result in the end of women's oppression . Perhaps the most popular of the recent articles exemplifying the second marxist approach, the everyday life school, is the series by Eli Zaretsky in Socialist Revolution (4) . Zaretsky agrees with feminist analysis



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when he argues that sexism is not a new phenomenon produced by capitalism, but he stresses that the particular form sexism takes now has been shaped by capital . He focusses on the differential experiences of men and women under capitalism . Writing a century after Engels, once capitalism had matured, Zaretsky points out that capitalism has not incorporated all women into the labor force on equal terms with men . Rather capital has created a separation between the home, family, and personal life on the one hand and the workplace on the other (5) . Sexism has become more virulent under capitalism, according to Zaretsky, because of this separation between wage work and home work . Women's increased oppression is caused by their exclusion from wage work . Zaretsky argues that while men are oppressed by having to do wage work, women are oppressed by not being allowed to do wage work . Women's exclusion from the wage labor force has been caused primarily by capitalism, because capitalism both creates wage work outside the home and requires women to work in the home in order to reproduce wage workers for the capitalist system . Women reproduce the labor force, provide psychological nurturance for workers, and provide an island of intimacy in a sea of alienation . In Zaretsky's view women are laboring for capital and not for men ; it is only the separation of home from work place, and the privatization of housework brought about by capitalism that creates the appearance that women are working for men privately in the home . The difference between the appearance, that women work for men, and the reality, that women work for capital, has caused a misdirection of the energies of the women's movement . Women should recognize that women, too, are part of the working class, even though they work at home . In Zaretsky's view, "the housewife emerged, alongside the proletarian [as] the two characteristic laborers of developed capitalist society," (6) and the segmentation of their lives oppresses both the husband-proletarian and the wife-housekeeper . Only a reconceptualization of 'production' which includes women's work in the home and all other socially necessary activities will allow socialists to struggle to establish a society in which this destructive separation is overcome . According to Zaretsky, men and women together (or separately) should fight to reunite the divided spheres of their lives, to create a humane socialism that meets all our private as well as public needs . Recognizing capitalism as the root of their problem, men and women will fight capital and not each other . Since capitalism causes the separation of our private and public lives, the end of capitalism will end that separation, reunite our lives, and end the oppression of both men and women . Zaretsky's analysis owes much to the feminist movement, but he ultimately argues for a redirection of that movement . Zaretsky has accepted the feminist argument that sexism predates capitalism ; he has accepted much of the marxist feminist argument that housework is crucial to the reproduction of capital ; he recognizes that housework is hard work and



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does not belittle it ; and he uses the concepts of male supremacy and sexism . But his analysis ultimately rests on the notion of separation, on the concept of division, as the crux of the problem, a division attributable

to capitalism . Like the 'complementary spheres' argument of the early twentieth century, which held that women's and men's spheres were complementary, separate but equally important, Zaretsky largely denies the existence and importance of inequality between -men and women . His

focus is on the relationship of women, the family, and the private sphere to capitalism . Moreover, even if capitalism created the private sphere, as Zaretsky argues, why did it happen that women work there, and men in

the labor force? Surely this cannot be explained without' reference to patriarchy, the systemic dominance of men over women . From our point of view, the problem in the family, the labor market, economy, and society is not simply a division of labor between men and women, but a division that places men in a superior, and women in a subordinate, position . Just as Engels sees private property as the capitalist contribution to women's oppression, so Zaretsky sees privacy. Because women are laboring privately at home they are oppressed . Zaretsky and Engels romanticize the preindustrial family and community-where men, women, adults, children worked together in family-centered enterprise and all participated in community life . Zaretsky's humane socialism will reunite the family and recreate that 'happy workshop' . While we argue that socialism is in the interest of both men and women, it is not at all clear that we are all fighting for the same kind of 'humane socialism', or that we have the same conception of the struggle required to get there, much less that capital alone is responsible for our current oppression . While Zaretsky thinks women's work appears to be for

men but in reality is for capital, we think women's work in the family really is for men-though it clearly reproduces capitalism as well . Recon-

ceptualizing 'production' may help us to think about the kind of society we want to create, but between now and its creation, the struggle between men and women will have to continue along with the struggle against capital . Marxist feminists who have looked at housework have also subsumed the feminist struggle into the struggle against capital . Mariarosa Dalla Costa's theoretical analysis of housework is essentially an argument about the relation of housework to capital and the place of housework in capitalist society and not about the relations of men and women as exemplified in housework (7) . Nevertheless, Dalla Costa's political position, that women should demand wages for housework, has vastly increased consciousness of the importance of housework among women in the women's movement . The demand was and still is debated in women's groups all over the United States (8) . By making the claim that women at home not only provide essential services for capital by reproducing the labor force, but also create surplus value through that work (9), Dalla Costa also vastly increased the left's consciousness of the importance of housework, and provoked a long debate on the relation of housework to capital (10) . Dalla Costa uses the feminist understanding of housework as real work to claim legitimacy for it under capitalism by arguing that it should be



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waged work . Women should demand wages for housework rather than allow themselves to be forced into the traditional labor force, where, doing a 'double day, women would still provide housework services to capital for free as well as wage labor . Dalla Costa suggests that women who received wages for housework would be able to organize their housework collectively, providing community child care, meal preparation, and the like . Demanding wages and having wages would raise their consciousness of the importance of their work ; they would see its social significance, as well as its private necessity, a necessary first step toward more comprehensive social change . Dalla Costa argues that what is socially important about housework is its necessity to capital . In this lies the strategic importance of women . By demanding wages for housework and by refusing to participate in the labor market women can lead the struggle against capital . Women's community organisations can be subversive to capital and lay the basis not only for resistance to the encroachment of capital but also for the formation of a new society . Dalla Costa recognizes that men will resist the liberation of women (that will occur as women organize in their communities) and that women will have to struggle against them, but this struggle is an auxiliary one that must be waged to bring about the ultimate goal of socialism . For Dalla Costa, women's struggles are revolutionary not because they are feminist, but because they are anti-capitalist. Dalla Costa finds a place in the revolution for women's struggle by making women producers of surplus value, and as a consequence part of the working class . This legitimates women's political activity (11) . The women's movement has never doubted the importance of women's struggle because for feminists the object is the liberation of women, which can only be brought about by women's struggles . Dalla Costa's contribution to increasing our understanding of the social nature of housework has been an incalculable advance . But like the other marxist approaches reviewed here her approach focusses on capital-not on relations between men and women . The fact that men and women have differences of interest, goals, and strategies is obscured by her very powerful analysis of how the capitalist system keeps us all down, and the important and perhaps strategic role of women's work in this system . The rhetoric of feminism is present in Dalla Costa's writing (the oppression of women, struggle with men) but the focus of feminism is not . If it were, Dalla Costa might argue, for example, that the importance of housework as a social relation lies in its crucial role in perpetuating male supremacy . That women do housework, performing labor for men, is crucial to the maintenance of patriarchy. Engels, Zaretsky, and Dalla Costa all fail to analyze the labor process within the family sufficiently . Who benefits from women's labor? Surely capitalists, but also surely men, who as husbands and fathers receive personalized services at home . The content and extent of the services may vary by class or ethnic or racial group, but the fact of their receipt does not. Men have a higher standard of living than women in terms of luxury consumption, leisure time, and personalized services (12) . A materialist



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approach ought not to ignore this crucial point (13) . It follows that men have a material interest in women's continued oppression . In the long run this may be `false consciousness', since the majority of men could benefit from the abolition of hierarchy within the patriarchy . But in the short run this amounts to control over other people's labor, control which men are unwilling to relinquish voluntarily . While the approach of the early marxists ignored housework and stressed women's labor force participation, the two more recent approaches emphasize housework to such an extent they ignore women's current role in the labor market . Nevertheless, all three attempt to include women in the category working class and to understand women's oppression as another aspect of class oppression . In doing so all give short shrift to the object of feminist analysis, the relations between women and men . While our 'problems' have been elegantly analyzed, they have been misunderstood . The focus of marxist analysis has been class relations ; the object of marxist analysis has been understanding the laws of motion of capitalist society. While we believe marxist methodology can be used to formulate feminist strategy, these marxist feminist approaches discussed above clearly do not do so ; their marxism clearly dominates their feminism . As we have already suggested, this is due in part to the analytic power of marxism itself . Marxism is a theory of the development of class society, of the accumulation process in capitalist societies, of the reproduction of class dominance, and of the development of contradictions and class struggle . Capitalist societies are driven by the demands of the accumulation process, most succinctly summarized by the fact that production is oriented to exchange, not use . In a capitalist system production is important only insofar as it contributes to the making of profits, and the use value of products is only an incidental consideration . Profits derive from the capitalists' ability to exploit labor power, to pay laborers less than the value of what they produce . The accumulation of profits systematically transforms social structure as it transforms the relations of production . The reserve army of labor, the poverty of great numbers of people and the near-poverty of still more, these human reproaches to capital are byproducts of the accumulation process itself . From the capitalist's point of view, the reproduction of the working class may "safely be left to itself" (14) . At the same time, capital creates an ideology, which grows up alongside of it, of individualism, competitiveness, domination, and in our time, consumption of a particular kind . Whatever one's theory of the genesis of ideology one must recognize these as the dominant values of capitalist societies . Marxism enables us to understand many things about capitalist societies : the structure of production, the generation of a particular occupational structure, and the nature of the dominant ideology . Marx's theory of the development of capitalism is a theory of the development of 'empty places' . Marx predicted, for example, the growth of the proletariat and the demise of the petit bourgeoisie . More precisely and in more detail, Braverman among others has explained the creation of the 'places' clerical worker and service worker in advanced capitalist societies (15) . Just as



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capital creates these places indifferent to the individuals who fill them, the categories of marxist analysis, 'class', 'reserve army of labor', 'wagelaborer', do not explain why particular people fill particular places . They give no clues about why women are subordinate to men inside and outside the family and why it is not the other way around . Marxist categories, like capital itself, are sex-blind. The categories of marxism cannot tell us who will fill the 'empty places' . Marxist analysis of the woman question has suffered from this basic problem . Towards More Useful Marxist Feminism Marxism is also a method of social analysis, historical dialectical materialism . By putting this method to the service of feminist questions, Juliet Mitchell and Shulamith Firestone suggest new directions for marxist feminism . Mitchell says, we think correctly, that "It is not 'our relationship' to socialism that should ever be the

question-it is the use of scientific socialism [what we call marxist method] as a method of analyzing the specific nature of our oppression and hence our revolutionary role . Such a method, I believe, needs to understand radical feminism, quite as much as previously developed socialist theories" (16) . As Engels wrote : "According to the materialistic conception, the determining factor in history is, in the final instance, the production and reproduction of immediate life . This, again, is of a twofold character : on the one side, the production of the means of existence, of food, clothing, and shelter and the tools necessary for that production ; on the other side, the production of human beings themselves, the propagation of the species . The social organization under which the people of a particular historical epoch live is determined by both kinds of production . . . ."(17) This is the kind of analysis Mitchell has attempted . In her first essay, "Women : The Longest Revolution", Mitchell examines both market work and the work of reproduction, sexuality, and child-rearing (18) . Mitchell does not entirely succeed, perhaps because not all of women's work counts as production for her . Only market work is identified as production ; the other spheres (loosely aggregated as the family) in which women work are identified as ideological . Patriarchy, which largely organizes reproduction, sexuality, and child-rearing, has no material base for Mitchell . Women's Estate, Mitchell's expansion of this essay, focusses much more on developing the analysis of women's market work than it does on developing the analysis of women's work within the family . The book is much more concerned with women's relation to, and work for, capital than with women's relation to, and work for, men ; more influenced by marxism than by radical feminism . In a later work, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, Mitchell explores an important area for studying the relations



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between women and men, namely the formation of different, gender-based

personalities by women and men (19) . Patriarchy operates, Mitchell seems to be saying, primarily in the psychological realm, where female and male children learn to be women and men . Here Mitchell focusses on the spheres she initially slighted, reproduction, sexuality, and child-rearing, but by placing them in the ideological realm, she continues the fundamental weakness of her earlier analysis . She clearly presents patriarchy as the fundamental ideological structure, just as capital is the fundamental economic structure "To put the matter schematically we are . . . . dealing with two autonomous areas : the economic mode of capitalism and the ideological mode of patriarchy." (20) Although Mitchell discusses their interpenetration, her failure to give patriarchy a material base in the relation between women's and men's labor power, and her similar failure to note the material aspects of the process of personality formation and gender creation, limits the usefulness of her analysis . Shulamith Firestone bridges marxism and feminism by bringing materialist analysis to bear on patriarchy (21) . Her use of materialist analysis is not as ambivalent as Mitchell's . The dialectic of sex, she says, is the fundamental historical dialectic, and the material base of patriarchy is the work women do reproducing the species . The importance of Firestone's work in using marxism to analyze women's position, in asserting the existence of a material base to patriarchy, cannot be overestimated . But it suffers from an overemphasis on biology and reproduction . What we need to understand is how sex (a biological fact) becomes gender (a social phenomenon) . It is necessary to place all of women's work in its social and historical context, not to focus only on reproduction . Although Firestone's work offers a new and feminist use of marxist methodology, her insistence on the primacy of men's dominance over women as the cornerstone on which all other oppression (class, age, race) rests, suggests that her book is more properly grouped with the radical feminists than with the marxist feminists . Her work remains the most complete statement of the radical feminist position . Firestone's book has been all too happily dismissed by marxists . Zaretsky, for example, calls it a `plea for subjectivity' . Yet what was so exciting to women about Firestone's book was her analysis of men's power over women, and her very healthy anger about this situation . Her chapter on love was central to our understanding of this, and still is . It is not just about 'masculinist ideology', which marxists can deal with (just a question of attitudes), but an exposition of the subjective consequences of men's power over women, of what it feels like to live in a patriarchy . 'The personal is political' is not, as Zaretsky would have it, a plea for subjectivity, for feeling better : it is a demand to recognize men's power and women's subordination as a social and political reality .

10 II .

CAPITAL & CLASS RADICAL FEMINISM AND PATRIARCHY

The great thrust of radical feminist writing has been directed to the documentation of the slogan 'the personal is political' . Women's discontent, they argued, is not the neurotic lament of the maladjusted, but a response to a social structure in which women are systematically dominated, exploited, and oppressed . Women's inferior position in the labor market, the male-centered emotional structure of middle-class marriage, the use of women in advertising, the so-called understanding of women's psyche as neurotic-popularized by academic and clinical psychologyaspect after aspect of women's lives in advanced capitalist society was researched and analyzed . The radical feminist literature is enormous and defies easy summary . At the same time, its focus on psychology is consistent . The New York Radical Feminists' organizing document was "The Politics of the Ego" . 'The personal is political' means, for radical feminists, that the original and basic class division is between the sexes, and that the motive force in history is the striving of men for power and domination over women, the dialectic of sex (22) . Accordingly, Firestone rewrote Freud to understand the development of boys and girls into men and women in terms of power (23) . Her characterizations of what are 'male' and 'female' character traits are typical of radical feminist writing . The male seeks power and domination ; he is egocentric and individualistic, competitive and pragmatic ; the 'technological mode', according to Firestone, is male . The female is nurturant, artistic, and philosophical ; the 'aesthetic mode' is female . No doubt the idea that the 'aesthetic mode' is female would have come as quite a shock to the ancient Greeks . Here lies the error of radical feminist analysis : the 'dialectic of sex' as radical feminists present it projects 'male' and 'female' characteristics as they appear in the present back into all of history . Radical feminist analysis has greatest strength in its insights into the present . Its greatest weakness is a focus on the psychological which blinds it to history . The reason for this lies not only in radical feminist method, but also in the nature of patriarchy itself, for patriarchy is a strikingly resilient form of social organization . Radical feminists use 'patriarchy' to refer to a social system characterized by male domination over women . Kate Millet's definition is classic : "our society is a patriarchy. The fact is evident at once if one recalls that the military, industry, technology, universities, science, political offices, finances-in short, every avenue of power within the society, including the coercive force of the police, is entirely in male hands ." (24) This radical feminist definition of patriarchy applies to most societies we know of and cannot distinguish among them . The use of history by radical feminists is typically limited to providing examples of the existence of patriarchy in all times and places (25) . For both marxist and mainstream social scientists before the women's movement, patriarchy referred to a



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system of relations between men, which formed the political and economic outlines of feudal and some pre-feudal societies, in which hierarchy followed ascribed characteristics . Capitalist societies are understood as meritocratic, bureaucratic, and impersonal by bourgeois social scientists ; marxists see capitalist societies as systems of class domination (26) . For both kinds of social scientists neither the historical patriarchal societies nor today's western capitalist societies are understood as systems of relations between men that enable them to dominate women . Towards a Definition of Patriarchy We can usefully define patriarchy as a set of social relations between men, which have a material base, and which, though hierarchical, establish or create interdependence and solidarity among men that enable them to dominate women . Though patriarchy is hierarchical and men of different classes, races, or ethnic groups have different places in the patriarchy, they also are united in their shared relationship of dominance over their women ; they are dependent on each other to maintain that domination . Hierarchies 'work' at least in part because they create vested interests in the status quo . Those at the higher levels can 'buy off' those at the lower levels by offering them power over those still lower . In the hierarchy of patriarchy, all men, whatever their rank in the patriarchy, are bought off by being able to control at least some women . There is some evidence to suggest that when patriarchy was first institutionalized in state societies, the ascending rulers literally made men the heads of their families (enforcing their control over their wives and children) in exchange for the men's ceding some of their tribal resources to the new rulers (27) . Men are dependent on one another (despite their hierarchical ordering) to maintain their control over women . The material base upon which patriarchy rests lies most fundamentally in men's control over women's labor power . Men maintain this control by excluding women from access to some essential productive resources (in capitalist societies, for example, jobs that pay living wages) and by restricting women's sexuality (28) . Monogamous heterosexual marriage is one relatively recent and efficient form that seems to allow men to control both these areas . Controlling women's access to resources and their sexuality, in turn, allows men to control women's labor power, both for the purpose of serving men in many personal and sexual ways and for the purpose of rearing children . The services women render men, and which exonerate men from having to perform many unpleasant tasks (like cleaning toilets) occur outside as well as inside the family setting . Examples outside the family include the harassment of women workers and students by male bosses and professors as well as the common use of secretaries to run personal errands, make coffee, and provide 'sexy' surroundings . Rearing children (whether or not the children's labor power is of immediate benefit to their fathers) is nevertheless a crucial task in perpetuating patriarchy as a system . Just as class society must be reproduced by schools, work places, consumption norms, etc ., so must patriarchal social relations . In our society children are generally reared by women at home, women socially defined and recognized as inferior to men, while men C. & C.-N



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appear in the domestic picture only rarely . Children raised in this way generally learn their places in the gender hierarchy well . Central to this process, however, are the areas outside the home where patriarchal behaviours are taught and the inferior position of women enforced and reinforced : churches, schools, sports, clubs, unions, armies, factories, offices, health centers, the media, etc . . The material base of patriarchy, then, does not rest solely on childrearing in the family, but on all the social structures that enable men to control women's labor . The aspects of social structures that perpetuate patriarchy are theoretically identifiable, hence separable from their other aspects . Gayle Rubin has increased our ability to identify the patriarchal element of these social structures enormously by identifying 'sex/gender systems' : "a 'sex/gender system' is the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in

which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied ." (29) We are born female and male, biological sexes, but we are created woman and man, socially recognized genders. How we are so created is that second aspect of the mode of production of which Engels spoke, "the production of human beings themselves, the propagation of the species" . How people propagate the species is socially determined . For example, if people are biologically sexually polymorphous, reproduction would be accidental . The strict division of labor by sex, a social invention common to all known societies, creates two very separate genders and a need for men and women to get together for economic reasons . It thus helps direct their sexual needs towards heterosexual fulfilment . Although it is theoretically possible that a sexual division of labor should not imply inequality between the sexes, in most known societies, the socially acceptable division of labor by sex is one which accords lower status to women's work . The sexual division of labor is also the underpinning of sexual subcultures in which men and women experience life differently ; it is the material base of male power which is exercised (in our society) not just in not doing housework and in securing superior employment, but psychologically as well . How people meet their sexual needs, how they reproduce, how they inculcate social norms in new generations, how they learn gender, how it feels to be a man or a woman-all occur in the realm Rubin labels the sex gender system . Rubin emphasizes the influence of kinship (which tells you with whom you can satisfy sexual needs) and the development of genderspecific personalities via child-rearing and the 'oedipal machine' . In addition, however, we can use the concept of the sex/gender system to examine all other social institutions for the roles they play in defining and reinforcing gender hierarchies . Rubin notes that theoretically a sex/gender system could be female dominant, male dominant, or egalitarian, but declines to label various known sex/gender systems or to periodize history accordingly. We choose to label our present sex/gender system patriarchy, because it appropriately captures the notions of hierarchy and male dom-



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inance which we see as central to the present system . Economic production (what marxists are used to referring to as the mode of production) and the production of people in the sex/gender sphere both determine "the social organization under which the people of a particular historical epoch and a particular country live", according to Engels . The whole of society, then, can only be understood by looking at both these types of production and reproduction, people and things (30) . There is no such thing as `pure capitalism', nor does `pure patriarchy' exist, for they must of necessity coexist . What exists is patriarchal capitalism, or patriarchal feudalism, or egalitarian hunting/gathering societies, or matriarchal horticultural societies, or patriarchal horticultural societies, and so on . There appears to be no necessary connection between changes in the one aspect of production and changes in the other . A society could undergo transition from capitalism to socialism, for example, and remain patriarchal (31) . Common sense, history, and our experience tell us, however, that these two aspects of production are so closely intertwined, that change in one ordinarily creates movement, tension, or contradiction in the other . Racial hierarchies can also be understood in this context . Further elaboration may be possible along the lines of defining `color/race systems', arenas of social life that take biological color and turn it into a social category, race . Racial hierarchies, like gender hierarchies, are aspects of our social organization, of how people are produced and reproduced . They are not fundamentally ideological ; they constitute that second aspect of our mode of production, the production and reproduction of people . It might be most accurate then to refer to our societies not as, for example, simply 'capitalist', but as `patriarchal capitalist white supremacist' . In Part III below, we illustrate one case of capitalism adapting to and making use of racial orders and several examples of the interrelations between capitalism and patriarchy . Capitalist development creates the places for a hierarchy of workers, but traditional marxist categories cannot tell us who will fill which places . Gender and racial hierarchies determine who fills the empty places . Patriarchy is not simply hierarchical organization, but hierarchy in which particular people fill particular places . It is in studying patriarchy that we learn why it is women who are dominated and how . While we believe that most known societies have been patriarchal, we do not view patriarchy as a universal, unchanging phenomenon . Rather patriarchy, the set of interrelations among men that allows men to dominate women, has changed in form and intensity over time . It is crucial that the relation of men's interdependence to their ability to dominate women be examined in historical societies . It is crucial that the hierarchy among men, and their differential access to patriarchal benefits, be examined . Surely, class, race, nationality, and even marital status and sexual orientation, as well as the obvious age, come into play here . And women of different class, race, national, marital status, or sexual orientation groups are subjected to different degrees of patriarchal power . Women may themselves exercise class, race, or national power, or even patriarchal power (through their family connections) over men lower in the patriarchal hierarchy than their own male kin .



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To recapitulate, we define patriarchy as a set of social relations which has a material base and in which there are hierarchical relations between men and solidarity among them which enable them in turn to dominate women . The material base of patriarchy is men's control over women's labor power . That control is maintained by denying women access to necessary economically productive resources and by restricting women's sexuality. Men exercise their control in receiving personal service work from women, in not having to do housework or rear children, in having access to women's bodies for sex, and in feeling powerful and being powerful . The crucial elements of patriarchy as we currently experience them are : heterosexual marriage (and consequent homophobia), female childrearing and housework, women's economic dependence on men (enforced by arrangements in the labor market), the state, and numerous institutions based on social relations among men-clubs, sports, unions, professions, universities, churches, corporations, and armies . All of these elements need to be examined if we are to understand patriarchal capitalism . Both hierarchy and interdependence among men and the subordination of women are integral to the functioning of our society ; that is, these relationships are systemic. We leave aside the question of the creation of these relations and ask, can we recognize patriarchal relations in capitalist societies? Within capitalist societies we must discover those same bonds between men which both bourgeois and marxist social scientists claim no longer exist , or are, at the most, unimportant leftovers. Can we understand how these relations among men are perpetuated in capiatalist societies? Can we identify ways in which patriarchy has shaped the course of capitalist development?

III .

THE PARTNERSHIP OF PATRIARCHY AND CAPITAL

How are we to recognize patriarchal social relations in capitalist societies? It appears as if each woman is oppressed by her own man alone ; her oppression seems a private affair . Relationships among men and among families seem equally fragmented . It is hard to recognize relationships among men, and between men and women, as systematically patriarchal . We argue, however, that patriarchy as a system of relations between men and women exists in capitalism, and that in capitalist societies a healthy and strong partnership exists between patriarchy and capital . Yet if one begins with the concept of patriarchy and an understanding of the capitalist mode of production, one recognizes immediately that the partnership of patriarchy and capital was not inevitable, men and capitalists often have conflicting interests, particularly over the use of women's labor power . Here is one way in which this conflict might manifest itself : the vast majority of men might want their women at home to personally service them . A smaller number of men, who are capitalists, might want most women (not their own) to work in the wage labor market . In examining the tensions of this conflict over women's labor power historically, we will be able to identify the material base of patriarchal relations in capitalist



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societies, as well as the basis for the partnership between capital and patriarchy.

Industrialization and the Development of Family Wages Marxists made quite logical inferences from a selection of the social phenomena they witnessed in the nineteenth century . But they ultimately underestimated the strength of the pre-existing patriarchal social forces with which fledgling capital had to contend and the need for capital to adjust to these forces . The industrial revolution was drawing all people into the labor force, including women and children ; in fact the first factories used child and female labor almost exclusively (32) . That women and children could earn wages separately from men both undermined authority relations (as discussed in Part I above) and kept wages low for everyone . Kautsky, writing in 1892, described the process this way : "[Then with] the wife and young children of the working-man able to take care of themselves, the wages of the male worker can safely be reduced to the level of his own personal needs without the risk of stopping the fresh supply of labor power . The labor of women and children, moreover, affords the additional advantage that these are less capable of resistance than men [sic] ; and their introduction into the ranks of the workers increases tremendously the quantity of labor that is offered for sale in the market . Accordingly, the labor of women and children . . . . also diminishes [the] capacity [of the male worker] for resistance in that it overstocks the market ; owing to both these circumstances it lowers the wages of the working-man ." (33) The terrible effects on working class family life of the low wages and of the forced participation of all family members in the labor force were recognized by marxists . Kautsky wrote : "The capitalist system of production does not in most cases destroy the single household of the working-man, but robs it of all but its unpleasant features . The activity of woman today in industrial pursuits means an increase of her former burden by a new one . But one cannot serve two masters . The household of the working-man suffers whenever his wife must help to earn the daily bread" (34) . Working men as well as Kautsky recognized the disadvantages of female wage-labor. Not only were women 'cheap competition' but working women were their very wives, who could not "serve two masters" well . Male workers resisted the wholesale entrance of women and children into the labor force, and sought to exclude them from union membership and the labor force as well . In 1846 the Ten-Hours'Advocate stated : "It is needless for us to say, that all attempts to improve the morals and physical condition of female factory workers will be abortive, unless their hours are materially reduced . Indeed we may go so far as

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CAPITAL & CLASS to say, that married females would be much better occupied in performing the domestic duties of the household, than following the nevertiring motion of machinery . We therefore hope the day is not distant, when the husband will be able to provide for his wife and family, without sending the former to endure the drudgery of a cotton mill ." (35)

In the United States in 1854 the National Typographical Union resolved not to "encourage by its act the employment of female compositors" . Male unionists did not want to afford union protection to women workers ; they tried to exclude them instead . In 1879 Adolph Strasser, president of the Cigarmakers International Union, said : "We cannot drive the females out of the trade, but we can restrict their daily quota of labor through factory laws" . (36) While the problem of cheap competition could have been solved by organizing the wage-earning women and youths, the problem of disrupted family life could not be . Men reserved union protection for men and argued for protective labor laws for women and children (37) . Protective labor laws, while they may have ameliorated some of the worst abuses of female and child labor, also limited the participation of adult women in many 'male' jobs (38) . Men sought to keep high wage jobs for themselves and to raise male wages generally . They argued for wages sufficient for their wage labor alone to support their families . This 'family wage' system gradually came to be the norm for stable working class families at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth (39) . Several observers have declared the non wage working wife to be part of the standard of living of male workers (40) . Instead of fighting for equal wages for men and women, male workers sought the 'family wage', wanting to retain their wives' services at home . In the absence of patriarchy a unified working class might have confronted capitalism, but patriarchal social relations divided the working class, allowing one part (men) to be bought off at the expense of the other (women) . Both the hierarchy between men and the solidarity among them were crucial in this process of resolution . 'Family wages' may be understood as a resolution of the conflict over women's labor power which was occurring between patriarchal and capitalist interests at that time. Family wages for most adult men imply men's acceptance, and collusion in, lower wages for others, young people, women and socially defined inferior men as well (Irish, blacks, etc ., the lowest groups in the patriarchal hierarchy who are denied many of the patriarchal benefits) . Lower wages for women and children and inferior men are enforced by job segregation in the labor market, in turn maintained by unions and management as well as by auxiliary institutions like schools, training programs, and even families . Job segregation by sex, by ensuring that women have the lower paid jobs, both assures women's economic dependence on men and reinforces notions of appropriate spheres for women and men . For most men, then, the development of family wages secured the material base of male domination in two ways . First women earn lower wages than men . The lower pay women receive in the labor market perpetuates men's



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material advantage over women and encourages women to choose wifery as a career. Second, then, women do housework, childcare, and perform other services at home which benefit men directly (41) . Women's home responsibilities in turn reinforce their inferior labor market position (42) . The resolution that developed in the early twentieth century can be seen to benefit capitalist interests as well as patriarchal interests . Capitalists, it is often argued, recognized that in the extreme conditions which prevailed in the early nineteenth century industrialization, working class families could not adequately reproduce themselves . They realized that housewives produced and maintained healthier workers than wage-working wives and that educated children became better workers than noneducated ones . The bargain, paying family wages to men and keeping women home, suited the capitalists at the time as well as the male workers . Although the terms of the bargain have altered over time, it is still true that the family and women's work in the family serve capital by providing a labor force and serve men as the space in which they exercise their privilege . Women, working to serve men and their families, also serve capital as consumers (43) . The family is also the place where dominance and submission are learned, as Firestone, the Frankfurt School, and many others have explained (44) . Obedient children become obedient workers ; girls and boys each learn their proper roles . While the family wage shows that capitalism adjusts to patriarchy, the changing status of children shows that patriarchy adjusts to capital . Children, like women, came to be excluded from wage labor . As children's ability to earn money declined, their legal relationship to their parents changed . At the beginning of the industrial era in the United States, fulfilling children's need for their fathers was thought to be crucial, even primary, to their happy development ; fathers had legal priority in cases of contested custody . Carol Brown has shown that as children's ability to contribute to the economic well-being of the family declined, mothers came increasingly to be viewed as crucial to the happy development of their children, and gained legal priority in cases of contested custody (45) . Here patriarchy adapted to the changing economic role of children : when children were productive, men claimed them ; as children became unproductive, they were given to women .

The Partnership in the Twentieth Century

-The prediction-of nineteenth century marxists that patriarchy would wither away -in the face of capitalism's need to proletarianize everyone has not come true . Not only did they underestimate the strength and flexibility of patriarchy, they also overestimated the strength of capital . They envisioned the new social force of capitalism, which had torn feudal relations apart ; as virtually all powerful . Contemporary observers are in a

better position to see the difference between the tendencies of 'pure' capitalism and those of 'actual' capitalism as it confronts historical forces in everyday practice . Discussions of the 'partnership' between capital and racial orders and of labor market segmentation provide additional examples of how 'pure' capitalist forces meet up with historical reality . Great -flexibility has been-displayed by capitalism in this process .



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Marxists who have studied South Africa argue that although racial orders may not allow the equal proletarianization of everyone, this does not mean that racial barriers prevent capital accumulation (46) . In the abstract, analysts could argue about which arrangements would allow capitalists to extract 'the most' surplus value . Yet in a particular historical situation, capitalists must be concerned with social control, the resistance of groups of workers, and the intervention of the state . The state might intervene in order to reproduce the society as a whole ; it might be necessary to police some capitalists, to overcome the worst tendencies of capital . Taking these factors into account, capitalists maximize greatest practicable profits . If for purposes of social control, capitalists organize work in a particular way, nothing about capital itself determines who (that is, which individuals with which ascriptive characteristics) shall occupy the higher, and who the lower rungs of the wage labor force . It helps, of course, that capitalists themselves are likely to be of the dominant social group and hence racist (and sexist) . Capitalism inherits the ascribed characteristics of the dominant groups as well as of the subordinate ones . Recent arguments about the tendency of monopoly capital to create labor market segmentation are consistent with this understanding (47) . Where capitalists purposely segment the labor force, using ascriptive characteristics to divide the working class, this clearly derives from the need for social control rather than accumulation imperatives in the narrow sense (48) . And over time, not all such divisive attempts are either successful (in dividing) nor profitable . The ability of capital to shape the workforce depends both on the particular imperatives of accumulation in a narrow sense (for example, is production organized in a way that requires communication among a large number of workers? if so, they had better all speak English) (49) and on social forces within a society which may encourage/force capital to adapt (the maintenance of separate wash-room facilities in South Africa for whites and blacks can only be understood as an economic cost to capitalists, but one less than the social cost of trying to force South African whites to wash up with blacks) . If the first element of our argument about the course of capitalist development is that capital is not all-powerful, the second is that capital is tremendously flexible . Capital accumulation encounters pre-existing social forms, and both destroys them and adapts to them . The 'adaptation' of capital can be seen as a reflection of the strength of these pre-existing forms to persevere in new environments . Yet even as they persevere, they are not unchanged . The ideology with which race and sex are understood today, for example, is strongly shaped by the reinforcement of racial and sexual divisions in the accumulation process . The Family and the Family Wage Today We argued above, that, with respect to capitalism and patriarchy, the adaptation, or mutual accommodation, took the form of the development of the family wage in the early twentieth century . The family wage cemented the partnership between patriarchy and capital . Despite women's increased labor force participation, particularly rapid since World War II, the family wage is still, we argue, the cornerstone of the present sexual



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division of labor - in which women are primarily responsible for housework and men primarily for wage work . Women's lower wages in the labor market (combined with the need for children to be reared by someone) assure the continued existence of the family as a necessary income-pooling unit . The family, supported by the family wage, thus allows the control of women's labor by men both within and without the family. Though women's increased wage work may cause stress for the family (similar to the stress Kautsky and Engels noted in the nineteenth century), it would be wrong to think that as a consequence, the concepts and the realities of the family and of the sexual division of labor will soon disappear. The sexual division of labor reappears in the labor market, where women work at women's jobs, often the very jobs they used to do only at home - food preparation and service, cleaning of all kinds, caring for people, and so on . As these jobs are low-status and low-paying patriarchal relations remain intact, though their material base shifts somewhat from the family to the wage differential . Carol Brown, for example, has argued that we are moving from "family-based" to "industrially-based" patriarchy within capitalism (50) . Industrially-based patriarchal relations are enforced in a variety of ways . Union contracts which specify lower wages, lesser benefits, and fewer advancement opportunities for women are not just atavistic hangovers - a case of sexist attitudes or male supremacist ideology - they maintain the material base of the patriarchal system . While some would go so far as to argue that patriarchy is already absent from the family (see, for example, Stewart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness) (51), we would not . Although the terms of the compromise between capital and patriarchy are changing as additional tasks formerly located in the family are capitalized, and the location of the deployment of women's labor power shifts (52), it is nevertheless true, as we have argued above, that the wage differential caused by the extreme job segregation in the labor market reinforces the family, and, with it, the domestic division of labor, by encouraging women to marry. The `ideal' of the family wage - that a man can earn enough to support an entire family - may be giving way to a new ideal that both men and women contribute through wage earning to the cash income of the family. The wage differential, then, will become increasingly necessary in perpetuating patriarchy, the male control of women's labor power. The wage differential will aid in defining women's work as secondary to men's at the same time as it necessitates women's actual continued economic dependence on men . The sexual division of labor in the labor market and elsewhere should be understood as a manifestation of patriarchy which serves to perpetuate it . Many people have argued that though the partnership between capital and patriarchy exists now, it may in the long run prove intolerable to capitalism ; capital may eventually destroy both familial relations and patriarchy. The logic of the argument is that capitalist social relations (of which the family is not an example) tend to become universalized, that as women are increasingly able to earn money they will increasingly refuse to submit to subordination in the family, and that since the family is oppressive particularly to women and children, it will collapse as soon as people can

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support themselves outside it . We do not think that the patriarchal relations embodied in the family can be destroyed so easily by capital, and we see little evidence that the family system is presently disintegrating. Although the increasing labor force participation of women has made divorce more feasible, the incentives to divorce are not overwhelming for women . Women's wages allow very few women to support themselves and their children independently and adequately. The evidence for the decay of the traditional family is weak at best . The divorce rate has not so much increased, as it has evened out among classes ; moreover, the remarriage rate is also very high . Up until the 1970 census, the first-marriage rate was continuing its historic decline . Since 1970 people seem to have been delaying marriage and childbearing, but most recently, the birth rate has begun to increase again . It is true that larger proportions of the population are now living outside traditional families . Young people, especially, are leaving their parents' homes and establishing their own households before they marry and start traditional families . Older people, especially women, are finding themselves alone in their own households after their children are grown and they experience separation or death of a spouse . Nevertheless, trends indicate that the new generations of young people will form nuclear families at some time in their adult lives in higher proportions than ever before . The cohorts, or groups of people, born since 1930 have much higher rates of eventual marriage and childrearing than previous cohorts . The duration of marriage and childrearing may be shortening, but its incidence is still spreading (53) . The argument that capital 'destroys' the family also overlooks the social forces which make family life appealing. Despite critiques of nuclear families as psychologically destructive, in a competitive society the family still meets real needs for many people . This is true not only of long-term monogamy, but even more so for raising children . Single parents bear both financial and psychic burdens . For working class women, in particular, these burdens make the 'independence' of labor force participation illusory. Single parent families have recently been seen by policy analysts as transitional family formations which become two-parent families upon remarriage (54) . It could be that the effects of women's increasing labor force participation are found in a declining sexual division of labor within the family, rather than in more frequent divorce, but evidence for this is also lacking . Statistics on who does housework, even in families with wage earning wives, show little change in recent years ; women still do most of it (55) . The 'double day' is a reality for wage-working women . This is hardly surprising since the sexual division of labor outside the family, in the labor market, keeps women financially dependent on men - even when they earn a wage themselves . The future of patriarchy does not, however, rest solely on the future of familial relations . For patriarchy, like capital, can be surprisingly flexible and adaptable . Whether or not the patriarchal division of labor, inside the family and elsewhere, is 'ultimately' intolerable to capital, it is shaping capitalism now. As we illustrate below, patriarchy both legitimates capitalist control and delegitimates certain forms of struggle against capital .



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Ideology in the Twentieth Century Patriarchy, by establishing and legitimating hierarchy among men (by allowing men of all groups to control at least some women), reinforces capitalist control, and capitalist values shape the definition of patriarchal good . The psychological phenomena Firestone identifies are particular examples of what happens in relationships of dependence and domination . They follow from the realities of men's social power - which women are denied - but they are shaped by the fact that they happen in the context of a capitalist society (56) . If we examine the characteristic of men as radical feminists describe them - competitive, rationalistic, dominatingthey are much like our description of the dominant values of capitalist society. This 'coincidence' may be explained in two ways . In the first instance, men, as wage-laborers, are absorbed in capitalist social relations at work, driven into the competition these relations prescribe, and absorb the corresponding values (57) . The radical feminist description of men was not altogether out of line for capitalist societies . Secondly, even when men and women do not actually behave in the way sexual norms prescribe, men c/aim for themselves those characteristics which are valued in the dominant ideology. So, for example, the authors of Crestwood Heights found that while the men, who were professionals, spent their days manipulating subordinates (often using techniques that appeal to fundamentally irrational motives to elicit the preferred behaviour), men and women characterized men as 'rational and pragmatic' . And while the women devoted great energies to studying scientific methods of child-rearing and child development, men and women in Crestwood Heights characterized women as 'irrational and emotional' (58) . This helps to account not only for 'male' and 'female' characteristics in capitalist societies, but for the particular form sexist ideology takes in capitalist societies . Just as women's work serves the dual purpose of perpetuating male domination and capitalist production, so sexist ideology serves the dual purpose of glorifying male characteristics/capitalist values, and denigrating female characteristics/social need . If women were degraded or powerless in other societies, the reasons (rationalizations) men had for this were different . Only in a capitalist society does it make sense to look down on women as emotional or irrational . As epithets, they would not have made sense in the renaissance . Only in a capitalist society does it make sense to look down on women as 'dependent' . 'Dependent' as an epithet would not make sense in feudal societies . Since the division of labor ensures that women as wives and mothers in the family are largely concerned with the production of use values, the denigration of these activities obscures capital's inability to meet socially-determined need at the same time that it degrades women in the eyes of men, providing a rationale for male dominance . An example of this may be seen in the peculiar ambivalence of television commercials . On one hand, they address themselves to the real obstacles to providing for socially-determined needs : detergents that destroy clothes and irritate skin, shoddily made goods of all sorts . On the other hand, concern with these problems must be -denigrated ; this is



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accomplished by mocking women, the workers who must deal with these problems . A parallel argument demonstrating the partnership of patriarchy and capitalism may be made about the sexual division of labor in the work force . The sexual division of labor places women in low-paying jobs, and in tasks thought to be appropriate to women's role . Women are teachers, welfare workers, and the great majority of workers in the health fields. The nurturant roles that women play in these jobs are of low status in part because men denigrate women's work . They are also of low status because capitalism emphasizes personal independence and the ability of private enterprise to meet social needs, emphases contradicted by the need for collectively-provided social services . As long as the social importance of nurturant tasks can be denigrated because women perform them, the confrontation of capital's priority on exchange value by a demand for use values can be avoided . In this way, it is not feminism, but sexism that divides and debilitates the working class . IV.

TOWARDS AMORE PROGRESSIVE UNION

Many problems remain for us to explore . Patriarchy as we have used it here remains more a descriptive term than an analytical one . If we think marxism alone inadequate, and radical feminism itself insufficient, then we need to develop new categories . What makes our task a difficult one is that the same features, such as the division of labor, often reinforce both patriarchy and capitalism, and in a thoroughly patriarchal capitalist society, it is hard to isolate the mechanisms of patriarchy . Nevertheless, this is what we must do . We have pointed to some starting places : looking at who benefits from women's labor power, uncovering the material base of patriarchy, investigating the mechanisms of hierarchy and solidarity among men . The questions we must ask are endless . Can we speak of the laws of motion of a patriarchal system? How does patriarchy generate feminist struggle? What kinds of sexual politics and struggle between the sexes can we see in societies other than advanced capitalist ones? What are the contradictions of the patriarchal system and what is their relation to the contradictions of capitalism? We know that patriarchal relations give rise to the feminist movement, and that capital generates class struggle - but how has the relation of feminism to class struggle been - played out in historical contexts? In this section we attempt to provide an answer to this last question . Historically and in the present, the relation of feminism and class struggle has been either that of fully separate paths ('bourgeois' feminism on one hand, class struggle on the other), or, within the left, the dominance of feminism by marxism . With respect to the latter, this has been a consequence both of the analytic power of marxism, and of the power of men within the left . These have produced both open struggles on the left, and a contradictory position for marxist feminists . Most feminists who also see themselves as radicals (anti-system, anticapitalist, anti-imperialist, socialist, communist, marxist, whatever) agree that the radical wing of the women's movement has lost momentum while



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the 'bourgeois' sector seems to have seized the time and forged ahead . Our movement is no longer in that exciting, energetic period when no matter what we did, it worked - to raise consciousness, to bring more women (more even than could be easily incorporated) into the movement, to increase the visibility of women's issues in the society, often in ways fundamentally challenging to both the capitalist and patriarchal relations in society . Now we sense parts of the movement are being coopted and 'feminism' is being used against women - for example, in court cases when judges argue that women coming out of long-term marriages in which they were housewives don't need alimony because we all know women are liberated now. The failure to date to secure the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment indicates the presence of legitimate fears among many women that 'feminism' will continue to be used against women, and it indicates a real need for us to reassess our movement, to analyze why it has been coopted in this way. It is logical for us to turn to marxism for help in that reassessment because it is a developed theory of social change . Marxist theory is well developed compared to feminist theory, and in our attempt to use it, we have sometimes been sidetracked from feminist objectives . The left has always been ambivalent about the women's movement, often viewing it as dangerous to the cause of socialist revolution . When left women espouse feminism, it may be personally threatening to left men . And of course many left organizations benefit from the labor of women . Therefore, many left analyses (both in progressive and traditional forms) are self-serving, both theoretically and politically . They seek to influence women to abandon their attempt to develop an independent understanding of women's situation and to adopt their understanding of the situation . As for our response to this pressure, it is natural that, as we ourselves have turned to marxist analysis, we would try to join the 'fraternity' using this paradigm, and we may end up trying to justify our struggle to the fraternity rather than trying to analyze the situation of women to improve our political practice . Finally, many marxists are satisfied with the traditional marxist analysis of the woman question . They see class as the correct framework with which to understand women's position . Women should be understood as part of the working class ; the working class's struggle against capitalism should take precedence over any conflict between men and women . Sex conflict must not be allowed to interfere with class solidarity . As the economic situation in the United States has worsened in the last few years, traditional marxist analysis has reasserted itself . In the sixties the civil rights movement, the student free speech movement, the antiwar movement, the women's movement, the environmental movement, and the increased militancy of professional and white collar groups all raised new questions for marxists . But now the return of obvious economic problems such as inflation and unemployment has eclipsed the importance of these demands and returned the left to the 'fundamentals' - working class (narrowly-defined) politics . The growing marxist-leninist pre-party sects are committed anti-feminists, in both doctrine and practice . And there are signs that the presence of feminist issues in the academic left is declining as well . Day care is disappearing from left conferences . As marxism or political economy become intellectually acceptable, the old



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boys' network of liberal academia is replicated in a sidekick young boys' network of marxists and radicals, nonetheless male in membership and outlook despite its youth and radicalism . The pressures on radical women to abandon this silly stuff and become 'serious' revolutionaries have increased . Our work seems like a waste of time compared to 'inflation' and 'unemployment' . It is symptomatic of male dominance that our unemployment was never considered a crisis . In the last major economic crisis, the 1930s, the vast unemployment was partially dealt with by excluding women from all kinds of jobs - one wage job per family, and that job was the man's . Capitalism and patriarchy recovered strengthened from the crisis . just as economic crises serve a restorative function for capitalism by correcting° •i mbalances, so they might serve patriarchy . The thirties put women back in their place . The struggle against capital and patriarchy cannot be successful if the study and practice of the issues of feminism are given up . A struggle aimed only at capitalist relations of oppression will fail, since their underlying supports in patriarchal relations of oppression will be overlooked . And the analysis of patriarchy is essential to a definition of the kind of socialism that would destroy patriarchy, the only kind of socialism useful to women . While men and women share a need to overthrow capitalism they retain interests particular to their gender group . It is not clear - from our sketch, from history, or from male socialists - that the 'socialism' being struggled for is the same for both men and women . For a 'humane socialism' would require not only consensus on what the new society should look like and what a healthy person should look like, but more concretely, it would require that men relinquish their privilege . As women we must not allow ourselves to be talked out of the urgency and importance of our tasks, as we have so many times in the past . We must fight the attempted coercion, both subtle and not so subtle, to abandon feminist objectives . This suggests two strategic considerations . First, a struggle to establish socialism must be a struggle in which groups with different interests form an alliance . Women should not trust men to 'liberate' them 'after the revolution', in part because there is no reason to think they would know how ; in part because there is no necessity for them to do so ; in fact their immediate self interest lies in our continued oppression . Instead we must have our own organizations and our own power base . Second, we think the sexual division of labor within capitalism has given women a practice in which we have learned to understand what human interdependence and needs are . We agree with Lise Vogel that while men have long struggled against capital, women know what to struggle for (59) . As a general rule, men's position in patriarchy and capitalism prevents them from recognizing both human needs for nurturance, sharing, and growth, and the potential for meeting those needs in a non-hierarchical, non-patriarchal society. But even if we raise their consciousness, men might assess the potential gains against the potential losses and choose the status quo . Men have more to lose than their chains . As feminist socialists, we must organize a practice which addresses both the struggle against patriarchy and the struggle against capitalism . We



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25

must insist that the society we want to create is a society in which recognition of interdependence is liberation rather than shame, nurturance is a universal, not an oppressive practice, and in which women do not continue to support the false as well as the concrete freedoms of men .

NOTES Earlier drafts of this paper appeared in 1975 and 1977 coauthored with Amy B . Bridges . Unfortunately, because of the press of current commitments, Amy was unable to continue with this project, joint from its inception and throughout most of its long and controversial history. Over the years many individuals and groups offered us comments, debate, and support . Among them I would like to thank Marxist Feminist Group 1, the Women's Studies College at SUNY Buffalo, the Women's Studies Program at the University of Michigan, and various groups of the Union for Radical Political Economics . I would also like to thank Temma Kaplan, Ann Markusen, and Jane Flax for particularly careful, recent readings . This article will appear, along with responses, extensions, critiques and so forth, in Women and Revolution, edited by Lydia Sargent, to be published by South End Press early in 1980. I thank Lydia, the South End Press, and the editors of Capital and Class for their interest in this paper . I can be contacted through South End Press (Box 68 Astor Station, Boston, Massachusetts, 02123) . 1

2

3

4

Often paraphrased as "the husband and wife are one and that one is the husband", English law held that "by marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law : that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband", I . Blackstone, Commentaries, 1765, pp . 442-445, cited in Kenneth M . Davidson Ruth B . Ginsburg, and Herma H . Kay, Sex Based Discrimination (St . Paul, Minn . : West Publishing Co ., 1974), p . 117 . Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, edited, with an introduction by Eleanor Burke Leacock (New York : International Publishers, 1972) . Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Stanford, Calif . : Stanford University Press, 1958) . See esp . pp . 16266 and p . 296 . Eli Zaretsky, "Capitalism, the Family, and Personal Life", Socialist Revolution, Part I in No . 13-14 (Jan-April 1973), pp . 66-125, and Part II in No . 15 (May-June 1973), pp . 19-70 . Also Zaretsky, "Socialist Politics and the Family", Socialist Revolution (now Socialist Review), No . 19 (Jan-March 1974), pp . 83-98, and Capitalism, the Family and Personal Life (New York : Harper & Row, 1976) . Insofar as they claim their analyses are relevant to women, Bruce Brown's Marx, Freud, and the Critique of Everyday Life (New York : Monthly



26

CAPITAL & CLASS Review Press, 1973) and Henri Lefebvre's Everyday Life in the Modern World (New York : Harper & Row, 1971) may be grouped with Zaretsky.

5

6 7

In this Zaretsky is following Margaret Benston ("The Political Economy of Women's Liberation", Monthly Review, Vol . 21, no . 4 [Sept. 1969], pp . 13-27), who made the cornerstone of her analysis that women have a different relation to capitalism than men . She argued that women at home produce use values, and that men in the labor market produce exchange values . She labelled women's work precapitalist (and found in women's common work the basis for their political unity) . Zaretsky builds on this essential difference in men's and women's work, but labels them both capitalist . Zaretsky, "Personal Life", Part I, p . 114 .

Mariarosa Dalla Costa, "Women and the Subversion of the Community", in The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community by Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James (Bristol, England : Falling Wall Press, 1973 ; second edition) pamphlet, 78 pps .

8

It is interesting to note that in the original article (cited in n . 7 above) Dalla Costa suggests that wages for housework would only further

institutionalize woman's housewife role (pp . 32, 34) but in a note (n . 16, pp . 52-53) she explains the demand's popularity and its use as a consciousness raising tool . Since then she has actively supported the demand . See Dalla Costa, "A General Strike", in All Work and No Pay: Women, Housework, and the Wages Due, ed . Wendy Edmond

9

and Suzie Fleming (Bristol, England : Falling Wall Press, 1975) . The text of the article reads : "We have to make clear that, within the wage, domestic work produces not merely use values, but is essential

to the production of surplus value" (p . 31) . Note 12 reads : "What we mean precisely is that housework as work is productive in the Marxian sense, that is, producing surplus value (p . 52, original emphasis) . To our knowledge this claim has never been made more rigorously by the wages for housework group . Nevertheless marxists have responded to the claim copiously. 10 The literature of the debate includes Lise Vogel, "The Earthly Family", Radical America, Vol . 7, no. 4-5 (July-October 1973), pp . 9-50 ; Ira Gerstein, "Domestic Work and Capitalism", Radica/America, Vol . 7, no . 4-5 (July-October 1973), pp . 101-128 ; John Harrison, "Political Economy of Housework", Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, Vol . 3, no . 1 (1973) ; Wally Seccombe, "The Housewife and her Labour under Capitalism", New Left Review, no. 83 (JanuaryFebruary 1974), pp . 3-24 ; Margaret Coulson, Branka Magas, and Hilary Wainwright, " 'The Housewife and her Labour under Capitalism', A Critique", New Left Review, no . 89 (January-February 1975), pp. 59-71 ; Jean Gardiner, "Women's Domestic Labour", New Left Review, no. 89 (January-February 1975), pp . 47-58 ; Ian Gough and

John Harrison, "Unproductive Labour and Housework Again" Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, Vol . 4, no . 1

1975) ;

Jean Gardiner, Susan Himmelweit and Maureen Mackintosh, "Women's Domestic Labour"; Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists,

UNHAPPY MA R RIA GE

11 12

13

14

15 16 17

18

19 20 21 22

27

Vol . 4, no . 2 (1975) ; Wally Seccombe, "Domestic Labour : Reply to Critics", New Left Review, no . 94 (November-December 1975), pp . 8596 ; Terry Fee, "Domestic Labor : An Analysis of Housework and its Relation to the Production Process", Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol . 8, no . 1 (Spring 1976), pp . 1-8 ; Susan Himmelweit and Simon Mohun, "Domestic Labour and Capital", Cambridge journal of Economics, Vol . 1, no . 1 (March 1977), pp . 15-31 . In the U .S ., the most often-heard political criticism of the wages for housework group has been its opportunism . Laura Oren documents this for the working class in "The Welfare of Women in Laboring Families : England, 1860-1950", Feminist Studies, Vol . 1, no . 3-4 (Winter-Spring 1973), pp . 107-25 . The late Stephen Hymer pointed out to us a basic weakness in Engels' analysis in Origins, a weakness that occurs because Engels fails to analyze the labor process within the family. Engels argues that men enforced monogamy because they wanted to leave their property to their own children . Hymer argued that far from being a 'gift', among the petit bourgeoisie, possible inheritance is used as a club to get children to work for their fathers. One must look at the labor process and who benefits from the labor of which others . This is a paraphrase . Karl Marx wrote : "The maintenance and reproduction of the working class is, and must ever be, a necessary condition to the reproduction of capital . But the capitalist may safely leave its fulfilment to the labourer's instincts of self-preservation and propagation" (Capital [New York : International Publishers, 1967], Vol . 1, p . 572 .) . Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital [New York : Monthly Review Press, 1975) . Juliet Mitchell, Women's Estate (New York : Vintage Books, 1973), p . 92 . Engels, Origins, "Preface to the First Edition", pp . 71-72 . The continuation of this quotation reads, " by the stage of development of labor on the one hand and of the family on the other". It is interesting that, by implication, labor is excluded from occurring within the family ; this is precisely the blind spot we want to overcome in . this essay. Juliet Mitchell, "Women : The Longest Revolution", New Left Review, No . 40 (Nov-Dec 1966), pp . 11-37, also reprinted by the New England Free Press . Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism (New York : Pantheon Books, 1974) . Mitchell, Psychoanalysis, p . 412 . Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex (New York : Bantam Books, 1971) . "Politics of Ego : A Manifesto for New York Radical Feminists," can be found in Rebirth of Feminism, ed . Judith Hole and Ellen Levine (New York : Quadrangle Books, 1971), pp . 440-443 . 'Radical feminists' are those feminists who argue that the most fundamental dynamic of history is men's striving to dominate women . 'Radical' in this context

C . & C.- C



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does not mean anti-capitalist, socialist, countercultural, etc ., but has the specific meaning of this particular set of feminist beliefs or group of feminists . Additional writings of radical feminists, of whom the New York Radical Feminists were probably the most influential, can be found in Radical Feminism, ed . Ann Koedt (New York : Quadrangle Press, 1972) . 23

Focussing on power was an important step forward in the feminist

critique of Freud . Firestone argues, for example, that if little girls `envied' penises it was because they recognized that little boys grew up to be members of a powerful class and little girls grew up to be dominated by them . Powerlessness, not neurosis, was the heart of women's situation . More recently, feminists have criticized Firestone for rejecting the usefulness of the concept of the unconscious . In seeking to explain the strength and continuation of male dominance, recent feminist writing has emphasized the fundamental nature of gender-based personality differences, their origins in the unconscious, and the consequent difficulty of their eradication . See Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur (New York : Harper Colophon Books, 1977), Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1978), and Jane Flax, "The Conflict Between Nurturance and Autonomy in MotherDaughter Relationships and Within Feminism, Feminist Studies, Vol . 4, no. 2 (June 1978), pp . 141-189 . 24 Kate MiIlett, Sexual Politics (New York : Avon Books, 1971), p . 25 . 25 One example of this type of radical feminist history is Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will, Men, Women, and Rape (New York : Simon & Schuster, 1975) . 26 For the bourgeois social science view of patriarchy, see, for example, Weber's distinction between traditional and legal authority, Max Weber.- The Theories of Social and Economic Organization, ed . Talcott Parsons (New York : The Free Press, 1964), pp . 328-357. These views are also discussed in Elizabeth Fee, "The Sexual Politics of Victorian Social Anthropology', Feminist Studies, Vol . 1, nos . 3-4 (Winter-Spring 1973), pp . 23-29, and in Robert A . Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (New York : Basic Books, 1966), especially Chapter 3, "Community". 27 See Viana Muller, "The Formation of the State and the Oppression of Women : Some Theoretical Considerations and a Case Study in England and Wales', Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol . 9, no . 3 (Fall

1977), pp . 7-21 . 28 The particular ways in which men control women's access to important economic resources and restrict their sexuality vary enormously, both from society to society, from sub-group to sub-group, and across time . The examples we use to illustrate patriarchy in this section, however, are drawn primarily from the experience of whites in western capitalist countries. The diversity is shown in Towards an Anthropology of Women, ed . Rayna Rapp Reiter (New York : Monthly Review Press, 1975), Woman, Culture and Society, ed . Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 1974), and

UNHAPPY MARRIAGE

29 30

31

32

33 34 35

29

Females, Males, Families : A Biosocial Approach, by Lila Leibowitz (North Scituate, Massachusetts : Duxbury Press, 1978) . The control of women's sexuality is tightly linked t& the place of children . An understanding of the demand (by men and capitalists) for children is crucial to understanding changes in women's subordination . Where children are needed for their present or future labor power, women's sexuality will tend to be directed towards reproduction and childrearing . When children are seen as superfluous, women's sexuality for other than reproductive purposes is encouraged, but men will attempt to direct it towards satisfying male needs . The Cosmo girl is a good example of a woman 'liberated' from childrearing only to find herself turning all her energies toward attracting and satisfying men . Capitalists can also use female sexuality to their own ends, as the success of Cosmo in advertising consumer products shows . Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women", in Anthropology of Women, ed . Reiter, p . 159 . Himmelweit and Mohun point out that both aspects of production (people and things) are logically necessary to describe a mode of production because by definition a mode of production must be capable of reproducing itself. Either aspect alone is not self-sufficient . To put it simply the production of things requires people, and the production of people requires things . Marx, though recognizing capitalism's need for people did not concern himself with how they were produced or what the connections between the two aspects of production were . See Himmelweit and Mohun, "Domestic Labour and Capital" (note 10 above) . For an excellent discussion of one such transition to socialism, see Batya Weinbaum, "Women in Transition to Socialism : Perspectives on the Chinese Case", Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol . 8, no. 1 (Spring 1976), pp . 34-58 . It is important to remember that in the pre-industrial period, women contributed a large share to their families' subsistence - either by participating in a family craft or by agricultural activities . The initiation of wage work for women both allowed and required this contribution to take place independently from the men in the family . The. new departure, then, was not that women earned income, but that they did so beyond their husbands' or fathers' control . Alice Clark, The Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (New York : Kelly, 1969) and Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850 (New York : Kelly, 1969) describe women's pre-industrial economic roles and the changes that occurred as capitalism progressed . It seems to be the case that Marx, Engels, and Kautsky were not fully aware of women's economic role before capitalism . Karl Kautsky, The ClassStruggle (New York : Norton, 1971), pp . 25-26 . We might add, "outside the household," Kautsky, Class Struggle, p . 26, our emphasis . Cited in Neil Smelser, Social Change and the Industrial Revolution (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1959), p. 301 .



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36 These examples are from Heidi I . Hartmann, "Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex", Signs : Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol . 1, no . 3, pt . 2 (Spring 1976), pp . 162-163 . 37 Just as the factory laws were enacted for the benefit of all capitalists against the protest of some, so too, protective legislation for women and children may have been enacted by the state with a view toward the reproduction of the working class . Only a completely instrumentalist view of the state would deny that the factory laws and protective legislation legitimate the state by providing concessions and are responses to the demands of the working class itself. 38 For a more complete discussion of protective labor legislation and women, see Ann C . Hill, "Protective Labor Legislation for Women : Its Origin and Effect", mimeographed (New Haven, Conn . : Yale Law School, 1970) parts of which have been published in Barbara A . Babcock, Ann E . Freedman, Eleanor H . Norton, and Susan C . Ross, Sex Discrimination and the Law : Cases and Remedies (Boston : Little, Brown & Co ., 1975), an excellent law text . Also see Hartmann, "Job Segregation by Sex", pp . 164-166 . 39 A reading of Alice Clark, The Working Life of Women, and Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers, suggests that the expropriation of production from the home was followed by a social adjustment process creating the social norm of the family wage . Heidi Hartmann, in Capitalism and Women's Work in the Home, 1900-1930 (Unpublished Ph .D . dissertation, Yale University, 1974 ; forthcoming Temple University Press, 1980) argues, based on qualitative data, that this process occurred in the U .S . in the early 20th century . One should be able to test this hypothesis quantitatively by examining family budget studies for different years and noting the trend of the proportion of the family income for different income groups, provided by the husband . However, this data is not available in comparable form for our period . The `family wage' resolution has probably been undermined in the post World War II period . Carolyn Shaw Bell, in "Working Women's Contributions to Family Income", Eastern Economic Journal, Vol . 1, no. 3 (July 1974), pp . 185-201, present current data and argues that it is now incorrect to assume that the man is the primary earner in the family. Yet whatever the actual situation today or earlier in the century, we would argue that the social norm was and is that men should earn enough to support their families . To say it has been the norm is not to say that it has been universally achieved . In fact, it is precisely the failure to achieve the norm that is noteworthy . Hence the observation that in the absence of sufficiently high wages, 'normative' family patterns disappear, as for example, among immigrants in the nineteenth century and third world Americans today . Oscar Handlin, Boston's Immigrants (New York : Atheneum, 1968) discusses midnineteenth century Boston, where Irish women were employed in textiles ; women constituted more than half of all wage laborers and often supported unemployed husbands . The debate about family structure among Black Americans today still rages; see Carol B . Stack, All Our Kin : Strategies for Survival in a Black Community (New York :

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31

Harper and Row, 1974), esp. Chap . 1 . We would also argue (see below) that for most families the norm is upheld by the relative places men and women hold in the labor market . 40 Hartmann, Women's Work, argues that the non-working wife was generally regarded as part of the male standard of living in the early twentieth century (see p . 136, n . 6) and Gerstein, "Domestic Work", suggests that the norm of the working wife enters into the determination of the value of male labor power (see p . 121) . 41 The importance of the fact that women perform labor services for men in the home cannot be overemphasized . As Pat Mainardi said in "The Politics of Housework" "[t]he measure of your oppression is his resistance" (in Sisterhood is Powerful, ed . Robin Morgan [New York : Vintage Books, 19701, p . 451) . Her article, perhaps as important for us as Firestone on love, is an analysis of power relations between women and men as exemplified by housework . 42 Libby Zimmerman has explored the relation of membership in the primary and secondary labor markets to family patterns in New England . See her Women in the Economy : A Case Study of Lynn, Massachusetts, 1760-1974 (Unpublished Ph.D . dissertation, Heller School, Brandeis, 1977) . Batya Weinbaum is currently exploring the relationship between family roles and places in the labor market . See her "Redefining the Question of Revolution"; Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol . 9, no . 3 (Fall 1977), pp . 54, 78, and The Curious Courtship of Women's Liberation and Socialism (Boston : South End Press, 1978) . Additional studies of the interaction of capitalism and patriarchy can be found in Zillah Eisenstein, ed .,

Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminist Revolution (New York : Monthly Review Press, 1978) . 43 See Batya Weinbaum and Amy Bridges, "The Other Side of the Paycheck : Monopoly Capital and the Structure of Consumption"

Monthly Review, Vol . 28, no . 3 (July-Aug 1976), pp . 88-103, for a discussion of women's consumption work . For the view of the Frankfurt School, see Max Horkheimer, "Authority and the Family", in Critical Theory (New York : Herder & Herder, 1972) and Frankfurt Institute of Social Research, "The Family", in Aspects of Sociology (Boston : Beacon, 1972) . 45 Carol Brown, "Patriarchal Capitalism and the Female-Headed Family" Social Scientist (India), no . 40-41 (November-December 1975),

44

pp . 28-39 . 46

For more on racial orders, see Stanley Greenberg, "Business Enterprise in A Racial Order", Politics and Society, Vol . 6, no . 2 (1976), pp . 213-240, and Michael Burroway, The Color of Class in the Copper Mines : From African Advancement to Zambianization (Manchester, England : Manchester University Press, Zambia Papers No . 7, 1972) . 47 See Michael Reich, David Gordon, and Richard Edwards, "A Theory of Labor Market Segmentation" American Economic Review, Vol . 63, no . 2 (May 1973), pp . 359-365, and the book they edited, Labor Market Segmentation (Lexington, Mass . : D .C . Heath, 1975) for a discussion of labor market segmentation .



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48 See David M . Gordon, "Capitalist Efficiency and Socialist Efficiency", Monthly Review, Vol . 28, no . 3 (July-August 1976), pp . 19-39, for a

49

50 51

52

53

54

discussion of qualitative efficiency (social control needs) and quantitative efficiency (accumulation needs) . For example, Milwaukee manufacturers organized workers in production first according to ethnic groups, but later taught all workers to speak English, as . technology and appropriate social control needs changed . See Gerd Korman, Industrialization, Immigrants, and Americanizers, the View from Milwaukee, 1866-1927 (Madison : The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1967) . Carol Brown, "Patriarchal Capitalism" . (New York : Random House, 1976 .) Jean Gardiner, in "Women's Domestic Labour" (see n . 10), clarifies the causes for the shift in location of women's labor, from capital's point of view. She examines what capital needs (in terms of the level of real wages, the supply of labor, and the size of markets) at various stages of growth and of the business cycle . She argues that in times of boom or rapid growth it is likely that socializing housework (or more accurately capitalizing it) would be the dominant tendency, and that in times of recession, housework will be maintained in its traditional form . In attempting to assess the likely direction of the British economy, however, Gardiner does not assess the economic needs of patriarchy. We argue in this essay that unless one takes patriarchy as well as capital into account one cannot adequately assess the likely direction of the economic system . For the proportion of people in nuclear families, see Peter Uhlenberg, "Cohort Variations in Family Life Cycle Experiences of U .S . Females", journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol . 36, no. 5, (May 1974), pp . 284-92 . For remarriage rates see Paul C . Glick and Arthur J . Norton, "Perspectives on the Recent Upturn in Divorce and Remarriage", Demography, Vol . 10 (1974), pp . 301-14. For divorce and income levels see Arthur J . Norton and Paul C . Glick, "Marital Instability : Past, Present, and Future", journal of Social Issues, Vol . 32, no . 1 (1976), pp . 5-20 . Also see Mary Jo Bane, Here to Stay : American Families in the Twentieth Century (New York : Basic Books, 1976) . Heather L. Ross and Isabel B . Sawhill, Time of Transition : The Growth of Families Headed by Women (Washington, D .C . : The Urban Institute, 1975) .

See Kathryn E . Walker and Margaret E. Woods, Time Use : A Measure of Household Production of Family Goods and Services (Washington, D .C. : American Home Economics Association, 1976) . 56 Richard Sennett's and Johnathan Cobb's The Hidden Injuries of Class (New York : Random House, 1973) examines similar kinds of psychological phenomena within hierarchical relationships between men at work . 57 This should provide some clues to class differences in sexism, which we cannot explore here . 58 See John R . Seeley, et al ., Crestwood Heights (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1956), pp . 382-94. While men's place may be 55



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characterized as 'in production' this does not mean that women's place is simply 'not in production' - her tasks, too, are shaped by capital . Her non-wage work is the resolution, on a day-to-day basis, of production for exchange with socially determined need, the provision of use values in a capitalist society (this is the context of consumption) . See Weinbaum and Bridges, "The Other Side of the Paycheck" for a more complete discussion of this argument . The fact that women provide 'merely' use values in a society dominated by exchange values can be used to denigrate women . 59 Lise Vogel, "The Earthly Family" (see no . 10) . a journal of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study .of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations Editor: Immanuel Wallerstein Review is committed to the pursuit of a perspective which recognizes the primacy of analysis of economies over long historical time and large space, the holism of the socio-historical process, and the transitory (heuristic) nature of theories . Vol. II, No . 1, Summer 1978 Why the History of Working-Class Movements? KATHLEEN GOUGH Agrarian Relations in Southeast India, 1750-1976 M.I . FINLEY Empire in the Graeco-Roman World SLAVERY AND CAPITALISM PAULA BEIGUELMAN The Destruction of Modern Slavery : A Theoretical Issue SIDNEY W . MINTZ Was the Plantation Slave a Proletarian? ROMANIA: EARLY THEORISTS OF DEVELOPMENT HENRI H . STAHL Theories de C .C . Gherea sur les lois de la penetration du capitalisme dans les "pays retardataires" DANIEL CHIROT A Romanian Prelude to Contemporary Debates about Development GEORGES HAUPT

Vol . II, No . 2, Fall 1978 JONATHAN FRIEDMAN Crises in Theory and Transformations of the World Economy THE ANCIEN REGIME ERNEST LABROUSSE A View of the Allocation of Agricultural Expansion among Social Classes NANCY FITCH The Demographic and Economic Effects of Sevepteenth Century Wars : The Case of the Bourbonnais, France MIKE DAVIS "Fordism" in Crisis : a review of Michel Aglietta's Regulation et crises : L'experience des Etats-Unis I wish to subscribe to Review for one year (four issues) beginning with Vol . . No . . I enclose a check for $10 payable to Fernand Braudel Center, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York 13901, U .S .A . Back issues are available on request . Name Address City Country Postal Code .

STATE AND CAPITAL IN DEPENDENT SOCIAL FORMATIONS : THE BRAZILIAN CASE Ronaldo Munck

The economic intervention of the state has been particularly important in Brazil, and is an integral element of the so-called "economic model" which has been initiated by the bourgeoisie of other semi-colonial countries . This paper explores the issues posed by the "associated-dependent" form of development in Brazil, with particular attention to the role of the capitalist state in the economic process . It then takes up the political implications of this debate, particularly the notion that state intervention is in some way "progressive".

This study is situated at the point of intersection of two important contemporary debates-that on the origins and contradictions of state intervention in the process of production, and the other on the nature of capital accumulation in dependent social formations . Marxist analysis of the state in Latin America has, for obvious reasons, focussed on the repressive nature of contemporary military regimes . We feel there is a clear need for systematic consideration of the capital/state dynamic in the countries dominated by imperialism, so that their future development and contradictions can be more clearly understood . Our study advances from a summary of the main parameters of economic intervention by the capitalist state in general, through the specificity of the dependent state, so as to finally take up our concrete study of the Brazilian case (1) . CAPITAL AND THE STATE For Marxism, the state is an essential component of the capitalist relations of production, it is subject to the law of value which regulates capitalism, and its activity and limits are determined by the capital accu-



STATE AND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

35

mutation process . The state is thus an integral element in the social reproduction of capital . Furthermore the relation between state and capital can only be understood in the context of the endemic periodic crises of the capitalist mode of production . As Gamble and Walton put it, "the objective basis for the interventionist role of the State in modern capitalist economies is to perform more smoothly the task once crudely effected by the business cycle . Put another way it ensures that one or more of the counteracting influences to the decline in the rate of profit do in fact assert themselves" (2) . This tendency of the average rate of profit to fall is a law .of development of the capitalist mode of production based on the historic increase in the organic composition of capital, i .e . an increase in dead labour as compared with living labour, a basic tendency of the capitalist mode of production . As a result of the historical tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the productive processes taken over, or regulated by the state tend to increase . The effect of the general law regarding the rate of profit, is that more and more processes of production become unprofitable to capital units and will thus be abandoned or cut back, thereby disappearing from the sphere of competing capitals . Thus, the state ensures the general conditions of production by taking over those material processes which cannot be operated on a capitalist (i .e. profitable) basis . Having established that the intervention of the bourgeois state arises directly from the needs of capital we must now introduce the distinction drawn by Marx between productive and unproductive labour . At the risk of oversimplification, productive labour does not simply produce, but produces surplus value through the production of commodities ; whereas unproductive labour does not produce surplus value (3) . Now, state expenditure is generally seen as unproductive because it reduces the share of the mass of profits available to private capital . That is, because state expenditure is mainly financed through taxation and thus represents a drain on the amount of surplus value available to private capital units. So, if state intervention is a political necessity for capitalism (to maintain the social services indispensable for "social peace") the bourgeoisie may object to the further taxation necessary for its extension . But can the state not act directly as a capitalist as Marx and Engels sometimes seemed to imply? According to the "state-capitalist" tradition it would seem "to fly in the face of current actual developments in the world economy to deny that the state can be a productive capitalist, that is, a capitalist under whose direct dominion surplus-value is produced" (Barker, 1978, p . 25) . This productive state sector would include not only nationalised industries but also those subsidised by the state„ which go beyond the "general conditions of production" (or infrastructure) which Marx foresaw as being provided by the state . The argument that an increasing proportion of state expenditure is productive expenditure leads to the conclusion that it is not in conflict with private capital accumulation, but rather complements it . Confronting this analysis, Altvater maintains that "if the state acts as a capitalist, then this can be explained only



36

CAPITAL & CLASS

through the particular history and particular conditions of a country" (Altvater, 1973, p . 108) . Outside these exceptional situations (Germany during WWI and partially under fascism, and Italy and France after WWII arb mentioned) the state remains a non-capitalist and as such limits the realm of private capital accumulation and reproduction . This debate cannot be resolved here, but the position adopted to guide our concrete study is as follows : the co-ordinates of the state/capital dynamic are set by the laws of motion of capitalism as expressed in the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall . As to the possibility of a "state capital(ism)" we maintain with Marx that capital can only exist in the form of different capitals ; otherwise, there is no compulsion to accumulate . Having said that, we will not regard . state expenditure as universally unproductive, but rather try to examine the origins, dynamic and contradictions of a state productive sector in Brazil . THE DEPENDENT STATE Our analysis now shifts to a consideration of the dependent state-a particular form of domination by imperialism . The categories we have developed in relation to capitalism in general continue to guide our analysis. Capitalism has an inherent tendency to propagate production based on capital-as Marx says, "the tendency to create the world market is directly given in the concept of capital itself . Every limit appears as a barrier to be overcome" (Grundrisse, p . 408) (6) . Extending this vital clue given by Marx, Lenin developed a theory of imperialism, and what interests us here, examined the "transitional forms of state dependence" which resulted from the struggle of the great powers for the economic and political division of the world . Specifically, Lenin referred to "the diverse forms of dependent countries which, politically, are formally independent, but in fact, are enmeshed in the web of financial and diplomatic dependence, typical of this epoch" (Lenin, 1970, p . 734) . The debate on the specificity of the dependent capitalist state (in Lenin's sense) has been developed recently, particularly in terms of its "relative autonomy" . Analysing the particular economic role of this type of state, Alavi maintains that the state apparatus in the post colonial society has taken on a new and relatively autonomous economic role, which distinguishes it from the classical bourgeois state : the direct appropriation of a large part of the "economic surplus", which is deployed bureaucratically to promote "economic development" (Alavi, 1972, p . 62) . While not accepting that this characteristic of the dependent state in any, way contradicts the classics of historical materialism, Alavi has indicated a problem which we will expand in our concrete analysis. However, the economic role of the state in Brazil is not dictated automatically through its structural determination by the world economic system, but rather the state's "increased relative autonomy" must be related to the specific historical conditions which gave rise to Bonapartist-type regimes (4) .



STATEAND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

37

A more recent survey of the state in dependent capitalism tries to go beyond Alavi's tentative generalisations and in spite of a certain formalism makes an interesting point. The authors, Ziemann and Lanzendorfer refer to the development in the periphery of "the intervention state in permanence". This relates to their view of a permanent economic crisis in these societies in the shape of an unbalanced economy, which forces the state (through a "functional imperative") to carry out a constant intervention in the economic process . But, as they point out "the state of crisis is neither alleviated or overcome by this, at most it may be shifted to another level . The consequence is to aggravate the social contradictions and conflicts, to increase the imbalance, which inevitably encourages wider state intervention and this can only be based on a paternalistic regime of military-bureaucratic-technocratic type" (Ziemann and Lanzendorfer, 1977, p . 164) . One need not accept the dubious assertion of a permanent economic crisis in the periphery to recognise the obvious strength of this analysis which is to relate the question of economic crisis (though not in general, but concretely) to the form of political regime which may emerge . A catastrophic vision of dependency though, must not be allowed to cloud an understanding of the relation between economic crises in the dependent society and political process . The economic crisis of the periphery must be considered in the context of the laws of motion of capitalism in general as structured and modified by the economy's dependent position in the international division of labour . In analysing the specificity of the laws of motion of peripheral capitalism positions can easily be polarised falsely over whether "internal" or "external" factors are primary in determining dependent capitalist accumulation . Against a certain oversimplification in earlier "dependency theory" writers who saw "dependency" as an explanation for everything and anything in the oppressed nation, there has been a move towards giving privilege to "internal" economic developments . Thus M . C . Tavares holds as a central hypothesis of her study of Brazilian economic development that "commerce and the flow of foreign capital does not exogenously determine the dynamic of accumulation, they are just articulated with it and modify it from within, accentuating the internal shifts that are taking place in the productive structure, and in the historical pattern of accumulation" (Tavares, 1974, p . 119) . The main weakness of both sides of this debate is a tendency to grant the state a will of its own-making it a "deus ex machina" which can determine an economic process through sheer voluntarism . Clearly, if one adopts a technicist view of the dependent state one either gives it an undue autonomy in the process of capital accumulation or, conversely, one makes it a tool or puppet in the hands of "imperialism" in general . If we are to relate this debate to the factors which lead to economic intervention by the state we must pose the question simultaneously in terms of the internationalisation of capital in its various phases, and in relation to the internal process of capital accumulation . Developing this necessary periodisation of state intervention, we can outline three main phases for Latin America as a whole (5) . 1

The export phase-characterised by a state-promoted organisation of



38

2

3

CAPITAL & CLASS the relations of production designed to ensure the reproduction of "the factors of production" necessary for the export-based economy, e .g. public works such as the transport network linking the productive sectors to the ports . The transition from oligarchic to industrial state-the state moves to reorganise the labour force (e .g. through corporativist trade unions) and carries out a redistribution of surplus value from the agro-export sector to the industrial sector . Furthermore it begins to invest in the productive sector, thus making the internal circuit of capital more profitable . The phase of industrial accumulation-the economic activity of the state which had earlier expressed the needs of industrial capitalism, rapidly becomes related to the process of expansion of monopoly capitalism . The role of the state is expanded with regard to infrastructure provision, the extension of financial institutions adequate to monopolistic expansion and an increased degree of participation in education, health and housing to cater for the expanded reproduction of the labour force.

The transition phase noted above coincides with the world economic crisis of 1929, and one must relate the changing role of the state in the Latin American dependent economies with the crisis of the central economies . The crisis of the world capitalist economy acts as a catalyst for changes already developing internally, but further forced an increased state intervention to reorganise the conditions of production and the exploitation of labour . The third phase can conversely be related to the reintegration of the Latin American economies into the world economic system, after a relative break caused by the Depression, World War II and the Korean War, and a temporary redirection of imperialist (i .e . US) investment to other central economies (i .e . Europe) . In this period the increased intervention of the state in the economy, particularly in Department (production of the means of production, is closely related to the increased flow of foreign investment into the Latin American economies . In general, the crises of the central economies accentuate even further the relative autonomy of the dependent state and thus pave the way for a higher profile of state intervention in the process of capital accumulation (6) . There is of course no mechanical relation between world economic crisis and peripheral state intervention, as there is no one-to-one relation between economic development and political regimes . At this stage we pass on to our examination of the internal process of capital accumulation in Brazil . CAPITAL AND THE STATE IN BRAZIL, 1930-64 The Brazilian state prior to 1930 can be characterised as a state of "oligarchic compromise", which maintained a political balance between the regional sub-systems generated by the export oriented economy . This state was consolidated during the integration of the coffee economy (based on the Centre-South-East region) into the world imperialist system . The coffee sector rapidly gained predominance over the sugar- and cotton-



STATEAND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

39

based North East and the cocoa producing Bahia region . Apart from its major role in supporting the coffee sector, the state acted as financial and commercial intermediary for the agro-export economy as a whole vis-a-vis imperialism . The world economic crisis of 1929 shattered the hegemony of the coffee bourgeoisie and ushered in a new period where the state' was to play a crucial part in the process of capital accumulation and in restructuring the relation between capital and labour . The "revolution" of 1930, sometimes seen as Brazil's bourgeois revolution, opened up a new stage in the development of capitalism in that country . This new period, which corresponds to the transition phase we outlined above, is reflected at the political level in the so-called "corporatist state", dominated by the figure of Getulio Vargas who was president from 1930 to 1945 and from 1950 to 1954 . In fact the whole Vargas period can be seen as a unified historical sequence analogous to that described by Gramsci as a "passive revolution" . According to Gramsci's analysis this entails a whole series of molecular transformations which progressively modify the previous composition of class forces (internalising the relations of dependency), and thus become the matrix for further changes . In Gramsci's words, it is a case of "a state which, even though it had limitations as a power, 'led' the group which should have been 'leading'"(Gramsci, 1971, p . 105, c.f. Meireles, 1974) . The role of the state in this type of development was also analysed by Trotsky, who shows how, in conditions of backward capitalism, the state could play a generating role in the formation of classes and class alliances . As Trotsky puts it-"The state in its turn strove to force the development of social differentiation of a primitive economic foundation . Furthermore the very need for forcing, caused by the weakness of the social-economic formations, made it natural that the state in its efforts as guardian should have tried to use its preponderant power to direct the very development of, the upper classes according to its own discretion . . . Capitalism seemed to be an offspring of the state" (Trotsky, 1971, p . 173) . In this sense, the state in Brazil during this period played a role analogous to that of the absolutist state in 17th century Europe . As mentioned above, the increased role of the state after 1930 must be related to the world economic crisis of 1929 which profoundly altered the articulation between nation-states, and in Brazil helped foster the process of industrialisation as the export economy entered into crisis . The central state for example, was forced to take over the coffee support programmes to deal with the immediate impact of the world depression . Later the Vargas regime expanded that intervention to protect different sectors (e .g . sugar, salt, fishing etc .) . The period after 1930, then, marks the end of agrarian export hegemony, and the beginning of a new phase characterised by the predominance of the urban-industrial productive structures . In the period of transition which opens up, the social conditions are created which will allow the industrial sector to become the main motor of accumulation, and for the social division of labour to accelerate . This involves a redefinition of the articulation between sectors of the economy and between the social classes-a redefinition which is mediated fundamentally by the state . The agrarian sector was not totally



40

CAPITAL & CLASS

displaced economically by the 1930 revolution, but rather it lost its leading role at the political level . The role of the coffee bourgeoisie as the leading class fraction was drawn into question, but not its dominant role in the system as a whole . In fact, until 1964 there was a compromise situ ation, with a contradictory relationship between the coffee sector` and the industrial sector, which on the one hand it stimulated, but while simultaneously setting limits on industrial accumulation . During the Vargas years, the role of the state expanded greatly . In this period, the National Steel Company was set up by state capital and an integrated steel mill was built at Volta Redonda in 1941, which neither domestic capital nor foreign capital were willing or capable of carrying out . Then, during World War I I a number of government enterprises were developed for "national security" considerations : the Fabrica Nacional de Motores (National Motors Factory) ; Companhia National de Alcalis (National Alcalis Company) ; as well as the expansion of the state into the shipping sector. An important new intervention of the state was the formation of the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico (National Economic Development Bank) in 1952, which played a crucial role - in the development of infrastructure projects and the promotion of heavy industry . A further step in the state's economic role was the formation of Petrobras in 1953 which was a state company which covered all petroleum exploration and the largest part of refining activities . Since then the state has gained control of the largest iron ore producing company, Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, and has a monopoly on electricity generating through Electrobras, and controls the telecommunications group Embratel and the aircraft manufacturers, Embraer (see Baer, 1973) . The overall participation of the state in the economy is clearly outlined in an ECLA (Economic Commission for Latin America) report of 1964. As the report summarises : "Brazil's public sector owns and directs the country's maritime-inland waterway and rail transport facilities, and its installations for the production of petroleum and atomic fuel, controls most of the steelmaking sector and is rapidly becoming the principal electric energy producer . It takes part directly in the activities of the major export sectors and markets a considerable proportion of the exportable production ; it is also the principal iron ore producer and exporter . It exercises a direct and indirect control over the exchange market . In conformity with a provision of the Constitution, it directly regulates exploitation of the sub-soil, communication media and broadcasting channels ; also delegates this right through concessions to the private sector . At the same time, it constitutes in itself the major commercial banking enterprise, since it accounts for about 3-5 per cent of the general credit extended to the private sector through the Banco do Brazil, and most of the agricultural credit as well . Through other specialised financing agencies it grants the whole of the co-operative credit and long-term financing . It establishes wages, interest rates, rents and stable commodity prices . It sets minimum agricultural prices, and is beginning to build up and operate a large-scale storage



STATE AND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

41

and marketing system for agricultural commodities . It possesses full traditional powers to impose taxes . It exercises control over monetary flows. It produces alkalis, and trucks . It also plays an important part in internal capital formation . It regulates insurance activities and controls agricultural co-operatives . It markets the country's entire output of natural rubber . It determines the composition of private investment and intervenes in the capital market . As can be seen, therefore, the State has important and widely varying powers in Brazil" (7) . This development of public enterprises in Brazil has been related historically to : 1) the existence of industrial sectors which are not profitable (or require a long period for maturing), but which are necessary for the expansion of industry as a whole, 2) conditions where the amount of initial capital outlay can only be met by the state or foreign capital, 3) the expression of nationalist or military/strategic policies, 4) the need to stimulate new levels of expansion in the downswing of an economic cycle . However, given that the Great Depression and then the War precluded imperialist capital from investing in countries like Brazil during this period, the decision by Vargas to carry out an ambitious programme of heavy investments was not in itself sufficient, to establish a firm internal circuit of capital accumulation . The role of the imperialist countries was important for example in the development of a steel sector which only materialised because the USA granted the indispensable external finance and equipment in exchange for Brazil's commitment to the war effort . Likewise the development of Petrobras dragged on until 1954, and the plans for a chemical industry turned sour due to the lack of the necessary advanced technology (8) . The overall dynamic of state intervention in this period is clearly summarised" by Oliveira : "We see the emergence and the extension of state functions in the years up to the mid-fifties ; regulation of the price of labour power, investment in the infrastructure, imposition of the "confisco cambial" (Government expropriation of foreign exchange earnings) on coffee to redistribute its profits among the other capitalist fractions, reduction of the cost of capital through exchange subsidies for the import of industrial equipment, expansion of credit and investment in production (e .g. Volta Redonda and Petrobras) . In all these ways the state continuously transferred resources to industry, which became the centre of the economic system . Both the left and the right sought a form of socialism in this "statism", without ever asking themselves the old question-who benefits from all this?" (9) . It is this important state sector which lays the infrastructure for the boom of the Kubitschek period (1956-1960) . The state was to become a fundamental element in the "great leap forward" promoted by Kubitschek's Plano de Metas (Target Plan) whose avowed aim was to advance Brazil "fifty years in five". During this cyclical acceleration there was a wave of state investments, directed mainly to the transport-energy sector and to the steel and petroleum sectors . The table below gives a clear indication of the general evolution of state investment :



42

CAPITAL & CLASS

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INVESTMENT SHARES AND SECTORAL PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNMENT ENTERPRISE INVESTMEN ,

1947-1965 (percentages)

GE1 PEI T1 T1

Sectoral Participation in GE1 Iron & ChemTransMining Steel icals Power port Other

Years

G1 T1

1947-50 1951-55 1956-60 1961-63 1964-65

23 .3 2 .6 20.2 3 .0 25 .5 7 .8 24 .4 13 .1 27 .6 12 .9

74 .1 17 .5 76 .8 4 .0 66 .7 4 .5 62 .5 3 .9 59 .5 5 .2

23 .1 34 .1 9 .0 40 .3 38 .0

0 .8 24 .2 36 .9 17 .3 21 .7

7 .1 11 .9 11 .5 12 .7 16 .7

13 .7 5 .2 26 .2 17 .2 10 .7

37 .8 20.7 11 .9 8 .7 7 .7

1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965

27 .1 24 .8 25 .2 23 .3 25 .4 29 .9

61 .3 60 .7 61 .3 65 .4 65 .3 53 .6

15 .3 42 .1 49 .9 26 .2 24 .8 45 .7

38 .2 17 .1 14 .5 20.8 24 .3 20.2

13 .0 8 .9 9 .5 21 .4 23 .8 12 .6

13 .3 16 .3 16 .4 19 .2 13 .5 9 .0

13 .9 12 .4 6 .2 7 .1 9 .0 6 .9

11 .6 14 .4 13 .5 11 .4 9 .4 16 .5

6 .3 3 .1 3 .6 5 .3 4 .6 5 .6

Symbols :

T1 = Total gross fixed investment G1 = Government gross fixed investment GE1 = Government enterprise gross fixed investment PEI = Private enterprise gross fixed investment Source : Maneschi, 1972, p . 191 This table shows the proportion of total gross fixed investment carried out by the "government" in the national accounts sense of the term (G1/ T1), by government enterprises (GE1 /TI) and private enterprise (TE1 /T1), where PEI equals TE1 (total government investment) minus GE1 ; in addition it gives the sectoral participation in GE1 . As Maneschi concludes government enterprises began assuming quantitative importance in 1957 and gathered momentum during the remaining years of the Kubitschek era until it amounted to 14 .4% of total investment in 1961 . Its share in total investment reached 16 .5% in 1965 . The share of total investment under public control (G1 + GE1)/T1, rose continuously during the 1950s and 1960s reaching an average of 40 .5% in 1964-65, compared to 23 .2% for the years 1951-55 (ibid .) . It was in the mid 1950s that a massive wave of foreign investment swept into Brazil and it has been argued that "the intervention of the state, in particular, its own potential for internal accumulation, had necessarily to expand and precede the new form of articulation with international capital" (Tavares, 1974, p . 128) . It must also be seen in the context however, of the re-orientation of the central economices and in particular the USA, after the Korean War, towards investment in the oppressed nations . State intervention in Department I during this period does



STATEAND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

43

not follow purely technical imperatives (as the ECLA version would have it), and relates to changes in the world economy and the imperatives of the internal dynamic of capital accumulation in Brazil . The model of "associated-dependent-development" generated in this period resulted in a crucial role for imperialist capital in the accumulation process . Large firms (classified as multibillionaire groups by the survey quoted) were distributed as follows in 1962 (Cardoso, 1975, p. 45) :

Industrial

Sector : Non-industrial (export-import, Non-durable financial sector consumer and industrial goods services) National : Foreign :

Durable Heavy consumer mechanical goods

8

8

1

6

5

7

Base industry

6 7

It is worth noting, as well, that the participation of state firms in fixed capital formation passed from 3 .1 % in 1956 to 8% in 1960 . It is important to stress the profound organic complementarity between imperialist capital and the state sector as it was formed in this period (not that this precludes competition between the sectors which is reflected in differential profit rates with foreign capital top of the list by far) . Rather than the dependent state being in conflict with imperialism, we see below in graphic form the complementarity of the inter-sectoral relationships between state and foreign capital in Brazil (10) . Foreign Capital

State Domestic Market

Transportation equipment Mechanical equipment Electrical equipment

Chemical Financial services

Land & sea transportation program Steel industry Federal construction Electric energy program Communications systems Petroleum and its derivatives Public utilities services

Foreign Market (Exports) Cattle Vegetable and mineral extraction Industrial surplus

Coffee (policies relating to) Iron minerals

We now digress from our historical account to consider the question of the state productive sector which is now widely held to have been implanted during this period . In their pioneering analysis of the state



44

CAPITAL & CLASS

productive sector and the cycle in Brazil, Reichstul and Coutinho maintain that this sector, composed mainly of the steel, petro-chemical and energy industries is productive in the sense of producing surplus value (Reichstul and Coutinho, 1977) . The essential transformations of the accumulation process after 1956 (and particularly the 1962-67 recession), are based on the consolidation of this productive state section during the Kubitschek period . The role of the state sector is quite correctly studied in relation to the capitalist cycle and crises . Reichstul and Coutinho show that the productive state sector began to slow down in 1961-62, to be followed by the private sector only in 1963 . Likewise the recovery from the recession was led by the productive state sector which began to pick up around 1966-67, whereas the private sector only recovered its previous growth rates around 1968 (See table below) . This would seem to indicate a leading role for the productive state sector in the dynamic of the whole economy, and we should certainly incorporate the main line of this analysis into any assessment of the 1964 conjuncture . BREAKDOWN OF TOTAL INVESTMENT (in %) 1950-1970 Public Goods State Productive Invest . Year Total Invest . Total Invest . 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970

28 .4 20.3 19 .1 21 .1 19 .8 20.9 19 .0 27 .5 29 .0 21 .5 28 .0 24 .8 25 .2 23 .2 25 .3 29 .9 26 .1 30 .9 24 .8 33 .9 19 .0

1 .7 1 .1 1 .5 2 .6 4 .2 4 .8 3 .0 6 .1 7 .3 8 .9 11 .5 14 .4 13 .4 11 .4 9 .4 16 .4

Public Invest. Private Invest . Total Invest . Total Invest . 30 .1 21 .4 20 .6 23 .7 24 .0 25 .7 22 .0 33 .6 36 .3 30.4 39 .5 39 .2 38 .6 31 .6 34 .7 46 .3

69 .9 78 .6 79 .4 76 .3 76 .0 74.3 78 .0 66 .4 63 .7 69 .6 60 .5 60 .8 61 .4 65 .4 65 .3 53 .7

M a. r rn

c

trb w

U a

26 .4

60 .3

39.7

I0

This analysis clearly recognises that the historical rhythm of the creation of state firms coincides with the historical rhythm of the different



45

STATEAND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

stages of development of the Brazilian economy . But also we would add it coincides with the developments of imperialism and the particular direction taken by its investments in each period . A further conclusion is that "the weight acquired by Department I in the expansive phase, 1956-1962, suggests that the cyclical movement of the economy acquired a dominantly endogenous character" (11) . This seems to be an unwarranted extension of the idea that the dependent state is "relatively autonomous" not only between different fractions of capital, but also in relation to imperialism . More specifically one can detect a Keynesian analysis which ignores the specific relation which must be established between an increase in state investments and a recovery of circulation (i .e . through an increase in global demand), which does not focus on how this increased state intervention modifies the conditions of production, in particular, favouring an increase in productivity and in the rate of exploitation . THE STATE AND THE BRAZILIAN "MIRACLE" Returning to our "historical" account we must examine the period opened up by the military coup of 1964. The basis for the "economic miracle" of 1968-1974 was laid by the cyclical downturn of 19621967, which led to a violent restructuring of the economy . The basic precondition for this cyclical upturn was the enormous increase in the rate of exploitation ensured by the military regimes which followed the 1964 coup . This qualitative shift in the relationship between capital and labour was accompanied by the strong process of capital concentration, which drove smaller capital units to bankruptcy . There was a sharper turn towards the world market in this period (12), which together with the marked increase in imperialist investment after 1968, resulted in a partial and sectoral integration of the Brazilian economy into the international circuit of expanded capital reproduction . Now, as to the role of the state in the process of capital accumulation the military regimes after 1964 insisted that it constituted a brake on "private enterprise" . This desire for liberal orthodoxy would seem to be related more to pleasing the IMF and obtaining "international confidence" than with the reality of the process (13) . What many have seen as a "paradox" or an "irony" is that after 1964, the role of the state has been increased by governments which were ideologically "privatist" . If we examine the changes in ownership among the 300 largest capital units we can see the comparative evolution of what is known as the "tri-pe" (threefoot or tripod) model . DISTRIBUTION OF NET ASSETS OF LARGEST 300 CORPORATIONS 0 00 Manufacturing and Petroleum

1966 State Enterprise Private Brazilian Firms Multinational Corporations

17% 36% 47%

1972 30% 28% 42%

1974

°

32% 28% 40%

o^,

h

m



46

CAPITAL & CLASS

It is important to note that "statisation" was not a one-way process : in 1968 the state vehicle factory (Fabrica Nacional de Motores) was turned over to private capital, and in 1976, after extensive debate the state petroleum monopoly. Petrobras, signed contracts with imperialist firms for oil exploration . As to the state sector itself a comprehensive study of 571 state firms in 1976 revealed very clearly the big burst of investment in this sector after 1964 and in particular in the 1970s . YEARS IN WHICH STATE FIRMS WERE CREATED (14) Period 1808. 1900

19011930

19311940

19411950

19511960

19611965

19661970

19711976

Number 4 1 .2

13 3 .7

5 1 .4

13 3 .7

37 10.6

68 19 .4

79 22 .6

131 37 .4

In 1974, 19 out of the largest 20, and 45 out of the largest 100 Brazilian corporations were state owned . Furthermore it is estimated that some 60% of all investment during the 1967-73 "boom" was carried out by the state . The growth rate of state corporations has been high enough to increase their share in the total profits of the largest 100 corporations from 54% in 1968 to 63% in 1974 . Over this period, the average profit rate for state enterprises was 9% compared with average profit rates over the same period of 12 .5% for national private firms and 15 .8% for foreign firms included in the top 100 . This profitability of the state sector is important as it was one of the main "achievements" of the post-1964 economic policies . This process of financial "saneamento" (cleaning up) and organisational modernisation of state firms also led to their segmentation and sectoralisation . Today this means that the state productive sector lacks the financial autonomy necessary to lead the process of recovery, as there is no organic articulation between state firms which act virtually as isolated oligopolies . Towards 1974 the Brazilian "economic model" had entered a crisis partly as a result of the world recession but also due to its own internal contradictions . The military government since then has been faced with the task of re-orienting the economy in the context of an unfavourable international situation, growing popular unrest over the continued depression of purchasing power and a major debate on the role of the state in 1975-6 which we will now examine . The "tri-pe" model mentioned earlier which was an association of imperialist state and private and national capitals had achieved a certain stability in the period following 1964 . One condition for its success was, however, favourable international conditions and, with these rapidly disappearing, tension began to build up . As perceived by national capital units it was a problem of "statisation" . One lucid bourgeois representative, Roberto Campos, who was Planning Minister after 1964, even believes that "Great Britain is a crypto-socialist country, with capitalist rhetoric" (15) . Beneath the rhetoric of the statisation debate and the accusations that "totalitarianism" will be the sorry



47

STATE AND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

result of this process (what have the dictatorships since

1964

been if not

totalitarian) lies a real conflict .

The national economic plan of

1974

had suggested a certain re-

articulation of the economy which would have given the state productive sector a considerable dynamic potential, the political implications of which were exaggerated by the self-appointed guardians of the "national bourgeoisie" . However, it could be advanced that though the bourgeoisie may suffer from "false consciousness" on occasions, in this case the very real contradictions of state intervention into the process of production (outlined in our introduction) were being perceived, in however distorted a fashion, by the bourgeoisie . Whatever the case, the crucial point in this re-orientation of the economy is neither the dilemma between "statism" or "state capitalism", and private enterprise, as the heated debates in the economic press might lead us to believe, nor between nationalism and further integration into the world capitalist economy . The key aspect is rather the need to carry out the re-articulation of the economy after the end of the substitution of durable consumer goods cycle, and to lay the basis for a new level of capital accumulation capable of substituting for the import of "capital" goods and guaranteeing the provision of basic industrial inputs such as steel and energy sources such as hydro electric power . In fact there was a threefold rise in the national production of "capital" goods between 1973 and 1977, and whereas in 1974 there was just one

manufacturer of heavy machinery, there were 21 by

1978,

of which half

were under national capital . This re-orientation of private and state investment toward Department I and the production of fixed capital is clearly

expressed in the economic plan for

1975-1979 .

However, this did not

particularly help the automobile industry, whose unsold stock was mounting and whose growth was declining sharply . Those sectors which no longer occupy top priority-the auto industry, consumer goods export, the speculative financial sector, etc .-perceived these changes as an attack and ignored the objective situation of the market . In the last years this has led to an increasing level of conflict between the various sectors of the bourgeoisie, and has increased President Geisel's difficulties in maintaining hegemony within the ruling bloc . If during the upswing everyone spoke of "big power Brazil", the talk now is of conspiracies, statism and government errors . Thus, in spite of the fact that the government's policies are a step forward for capitalism as a whole and could lay the basis for a renewed and intensified accumulation of capital, some bourgeois sectors, such as those based in Sao Paulo, oppose these policies . In his analysis of the recent political debate in Brazil around the nature of the economic crisis, Mathias confronts the simplifications involved in those authors who identify the state intervention in the eco-

nomy as either the central cause of the crisis or as its means of resolution (Mathias, 1977) . Taking up the arguments developed by these two opposed currents, Mathias argues that the economic action of the state does not result simply from the intentions of a "state bourgeoisie" or some other hegemonic fraction of the dominant classes . Rather it is determined fundamentally by the movement of capital as a whole which fixes, for each historical movement, the limits and the various forms of state inter-



48

CAPITAL & CLASS

vention . In this sense, the present activity of the Brazilian state can be explained fundamentally as a necessary form of the restructuring of capital defined by the nature of the economic crisis (16) . The advocates of "statisation" in the 1970s try to portray the state, and more specifically the state productive sector, as a potential ally of the working class, in a bid to re-create the illusions of pre-1964 populist ideology. Effectively, during the whole populist period (but particularly during the Kubitschek period, precisely when imperialism moved in) there was a general fetishisation of the state . A type of "state nationalism" developed which accorded the state sector an autonomous accumulation potential, removed from the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production . The particular autonomy of the dependent state in Brazil was concretised in a statist ideology, which coexisted uneasily with the nationalist component of populism . The specific dislocation between state and economy, caused by a lack of clear-cut hegemony between 1930 and 1964, pushed the state into its role as arbiter of "national interest" . In 1974, in a period of economic and political crisis the state again began assuming that role, even to the extent of acting aganst certain fractions of capital . There is an increasing tendency for analysis of this question to focus on surface developments to the detriment of a scientific understanding of the underlying processes . Thus, Evans speaks of "the new role of the state" leading to the formation of a "state bourgeoisie" (supposedly the core of the ruling class in Brazil) . His conclusion : "capitalist development in Brazil has required some redefinition of what is meant by capitalism" (17) . Such are the consequences of abandoning the categories of historical materialism . CONCLUSION In conclusion there are a number of points which emerge from our analysis : 1

The laws of motion of dependent capitalism dictate an increased intervention of the state in the economy in conditions where economic or political crises lead to a modification in the articulation between nation-states . The "overdetermining" role of the world economic system is mediated by the internal process of capital accumulation which has its own relatively autonomous dynamic . This autonomy is accentuated in periods of recession on the world market and makes imperative the intervention of the state to reorganise the conditions of production . 2' The particular dynamics of the dependent capitalist economy do not abstract it however from the general laws of capitalist development, nor from the inherent contradictions of increased state intervention . The dependent state sector is not 'beyond' the contradictions of capitalism but is rather an integral element in the contradictory selfexpansion process of capital . Nor is state intervention a voluntarist process and the state a mere "object", above classes and the class struggle . This formalism would endow the state with a near absolute degree of autonomy in carrying out a national development strategy .



49

STATE AND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

The basic difference between state intervention in the imperialist nations and dependent social formations such as Brazil is that in the latter it arose as a pre-condition for the development of monopoly capital, rather than as a result of its development and contradictions. State intervention does not result from the process of overaccumulation and crisis characteristic of advanced capitalism but rather from a "scarcity of capital" or the incapacity of private capital to lay the basis for the expanded reproduction of peripheral capitalism . The extensive role of the state in Russia's industrialisation process is continued in these countries where the bourgeoisie is even weaker in the face of imperialism and its "own" working class . I would suggest that the development of a productive state sector (neither removed from the laws of capitalism or a "state capitalism") is not in fact exceptional in dependent social formations given the congenital weakness of the national bourgeoisie . Further we must note that whereas in Latin America the state reached high levels of participation in the economy (20-25%) at a time when roughly half, and in some cases two thirds of the labour force still depended on the primary sector, in the more developed capitalist countries this level of state participation in the economy was only reached when the primary sector accounted for less than a fifth of total employment, or as in the case of Britain, one twentieth . In general we can refer to an incomplete penetration of capitalist relations of production and a relatively tardy achievement of domination by the capital-labour relation in the dependent social formations . We must reject a linear model of increased state intervention in the dependent social formations, based on the historical pattern of Europe or the USA due to the reasons mentioned in the last point. But it is also necessary to take into account the fundamentally different political matrix of state intervention in the oppressed nation . We have seen how the laws of motion of capitalism impose themselves in dependent social formations, but we cannot conceive of capital-ingeneral generating political forms in abstraction from the concrete unfolding of the class struggle . Thus the relation between capital and

3

state, in Brazil, Argentina or Peru, cannot be deduced but must be related to the different levels of capital accumulation and the very different history of the mass movement in these countries (18) . The study. of dependent states, in the Leninist sense, entails precisely elaborating the concrete political path taken by the dependent capital accumulation process in these countries .

FOOTNOTES 1

The introductory section only aims at "setting the scene" for the sub-

sequent analysis and is not intended

as

a substitute for theoretical

debate . The most glaring omission is the lack of an adequately articulated theory of imperialism which should mediate between our general and concrete analyses .



50

CAPITAL & CLASS

I would like to thank Paul Bullock, Marcelo Cavarozzi, Simon Clarke, John Humphrey and Bemardo Sorj for their helpful comments in an earlier version of this paper. 2 Gamble and Walton (1973), p . 8. For reasons of space, and because this issue has been discussed exhaustively (though not resolved to my mind) in previous C .S .E . publications, there is no attempt here to discuss Marx's law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall . See however, Bullock and Yaffe (1975) for a clear presentation . 3 With the same reservations as in the previous footnote may I refer to P . Howell's article on this issue in Bullock and Yaffe (1975) . 4 We are dealing with a case where "the bourgeoisie is totally incapable of creating democratic rule, because on the one side stands imperialist capital, and on the other side they are afraid of the proletariat because history there skipped a stage and the proletariat became an important factor before the democratic organisation of the whole society", (Trotsky, 1975) . It is the relation to imperialism which gives rise to a distinctive form of Bonapartist government which oscillates between repression of the popular masses, and concessions to the working class to gain a certain room for manoeuvre vis-a-vis imperialism . 5 Based on Sori (1976), p . 100 on . See also Economic Commission for Latin America 1971), p . 4 for a similar periodisation . 6 Recent studies of Brazil and Argentina during WWI have cast doubt on Gunder Frank's hypothesis that crisis in the centre always accelerates industrialisation in the periphery . During the 1930s Argentina became even more linked to Britain's "informal empire" (not in itself contradictory with the state's relative autonomy) and there was a consolidation of oligarchic rule . Nevertheless, industrialisation was promoted and the crisis of the regime paved the way for Peron's nationalist/ statist economic policies after 1946 . 7 Lessa (1964), p . 196-7 . Our own analysis deals principally with state investment in the industrial sector. A broader analysis of state expenditure is contained in Souza and Afonso (1975) . 8 Martins, L. (1976), studies the steel and petroleum industries in this period in terms of "decision-making" theory . He tends however to fetishise the state bureaucracy making it the "bearer" of the national consciousness the industrial bourgeoisie was not assuming . 9 Oliveira (1975), p . 14 . The issue of "statism" mentioned here will be developed in relation to the debate of 1974-6 around this question . 10 Drawn from Tavares and Serra (1973), p . 78 . See also Mantega (1976) who develops this theme . 11 Martins, C . E ., ed . (1977), p . 67. I am aware that this discussion has not clearly demonstrated that the state productive sector actually does produce surplus value . Its clearly established profitability and important (if not dominant) role in the capitalist cycle are only indicators that we are dealing with something other than a "normal" nonproductive state sector . It may be worth noting though, that in 1972 the Product per Worker (Wages, Salaries and Profits divided by Employees) was 99 Cr$ in the state firms, compared to 53 Cr$ in the multinationals and 35 Cr$ in private Brazilian units (Baer 1976) .



STATEAND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

51

12

Between 1964 and 1974 Brazil's participation in world trade more than doubled, and the share of manufactured exports in the total quantum increased by 20%. A more adequate treatment of this process and of the pre-1964 "populist period can be found in Munck (1976) . 13 O'Donnell (1978), develops an interesting analysis of how "statism" develops as an alternative for the "bureaucratic-authoritarian" state if the level of threat from the working class is low and the "normalising" economic project of this type of state is effective fairly rapidly . Brazil would seem to have been particularly successful in having an increased role for the state while maintaining the alliance with the international bourgeoisie . 14 Visao (31 .8 .76)-Out of the 471 firms surveyed, 217 figures as "unknown" in relation to date of creation . 15

Visdo (3 .10.77)-Campos is Ambassador in Britain, hence his interest

in British Labourism . 16 According to F . H . Cardoso the state began to intervene more forcefully in the economy precisely when it was faced by the world economic crisis . It took on further powers to regulate economic activities and began to make its support for private firms conditional on the adherence to the import substitution programme designed to alleviate the balance of payments deficit . For private firms which followed the

government programme there were a number of incentives . For example, in 1974 three state firms were created specifically to support the private sector : FIBRASE (Financing of basic inputs Co) ; IBRASA (Brazilian Investments Co) and EMBRAMEC (Mechanical Co), (Cardoso 1976, p . 16) . A theoretical framework which relates state intervention to the articulation between nation states is provided by Salama (1977) .

17 Evans (1977), p . 63-4 . This study is nevertheless a very useful casestudy of the petrochemical industry with many sharp insights . For example-"Neither empire building on the part of the state technocrats nor any ideological commitment to state participation brought the Brazilian state into the petrochemical industry ; rather, it was the logic of the situation, a logic that was even clearer to the "national

industrial bourgeoisie" than it was to the state itself", (p .

50) .

18 I n the case of Brazil not enough stress has been laid in the text on the effect of the class struggle, for example, the s- ass ve popular campaign involved in the creation of Petrobras . Argentina's military government of 1966 attempted a similar p : :,; ect to the Brazilian military-technocratic regime of 1964, but was thwarted by the mass semi-insurrection of the Cordobazo in 1969, and subsequent mobilisations . In 1978, Argentina's bourgeoisie is carrying out a similar debate on "statisation" as the one discus .,,-d here-its prospects depend fundamentally on the continued resistance of the working class to the "friedmanite" economic policies of the junta . On the very different political context of Peron since 1968 see Sorj (1976) .



CAPITAL & CLASS

52 REFERENCES

Alavi, H ., 1972, The state in post-colonial society, New Left Review, 1974 . Altvater, E ., 1973, Notes on some problems of state interventionism, Kapitalistate No . 1 . Bacha, E ., 1977, Issues and evidence on recent Brazilian economic growth, World Development, Vol . 5 No . 1/2 . Baer, W . et al, 1973, The changing role of the state in the Brazilian economy, World Development, Vol . 1 No. 11 . Baer, W . et al, 1976, On state capitalism in Brazil, Inter-American Economic Affairs, Vol . 30, No . 3 . Barker, C ., 1978, The state as capital, International Socialism, 1 . Bullock, P . and Yaffe, D ., 1975, Inflation, the crisis and the post-war boom . Revolutionary Communist No . 3/4 . Cardoso, F . H ., 1975, Autoritarismo e democratizacao, Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro. Cardoso, F . H ., 1976, Estatizacao e autoritarismo esclarecido : tendencias e limites, Estudos CEBRAP, 15 . Economic Commission for Latin America, 1971, Public enterprises : their present significance and their potential in development, Economic

Bulletin for Latin America, 1 . Evans, P ., 1977, Multinationals, state-owned corporations and the transformation of imperialism : a Brazilian case study, Economic Developmen t and Cultural Change, Vol 26 No .1 . Gamble, A. and Walton, P ., 1973, The British state and the inflation crisis, CSE Bulletin, Autumn 1973 . Gramsci, A ., 1971, Prison Notebooks, Lawrence and Wishart, London . Lenin, V .I ., 1970, Selected Works, Vol .1 . Progress, Moscow . Lessa, C ., 1964, Fifteen years of economic policy in Brazil, Economic Bulletin for Latin America, Vol IX, No .2 . Maneschi, A ., 1972, The Brazilian public sector, R .Roett (ed) Brazil in the 60s, Vanderbilt University Press, Tennessee . Mantega, G ., 1976, Oestado e o capital estrangeiro no Brasil, Revista Mexicans de Sociologia, Vol XXXVI 11, No .4 . Martins, C .E . (ed), 1977, Estado e capitalismo no Brasil, Ed . HucitecCebrap, Sao Paulo. Martins, L ., 1976, Pouvoir et developpement economique-formation et evolution des structures politiques au Bresil, Anth ropos, Paris . Marx, K ., 1973, The Grundrisse, Penguin, London . Mathias, G ., 1977, Estado y crisis en America Latina, Criticas de la EconomiaPolitica .-edicion latinoamericana, No .2 . Meireles, J ., 1974, Notes sur le role de I'etat clans le developpement dpi capitalisme industriel au Bresil, Critiques de l'~conomie politique, N o .16-17 . Munck, R ., 1976, Brazil 1964 - interpretation of a historical conjuncture, PhD University of Essex . O'Donnell, G ., 1978, Tensiones en el estado burocratico autoritario y la cuestion de la democracia, Documento CEDES No .11 . Oliveira, F . de 1975, A economia brasileira : cri'tica a razao dualista, Seloes CEBRA.P 1 . -



STATE AND CAPITAL IN BRAZIL

53

Reichstul, H .P ., and Coutinho, L ., 1977, "0 setor produtivo estatal e o cielo" in Martins, C.E ., 1977 . Salama, P . 1976, El estado y las crisis en America Latina, Criticas de la

EconomiaPotitica, edition latinoamericana, No .1 and 2 . Sorj, B ., 1976, The state in peripheral capitalism, PhD, Manchester University .

Souza, H . and Afonso, C ., 1975, The role of the state in the capitalist development of Brazil

-

the fiscal crisis of the Brazilian state,

Brazilian Studies no. 7 . Tavares, M .C ., 1976, Acumulacao de capital e industrializacao no Brazil, PhD, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro .

Tavares, M .C . and Serra, J ., 1973, Beyond stagnation : a discussion on the nature of recent developments in Brazil, J . Petras (ed) Latin America : from dependence to revolution, Wiley & Co, New York . Trotsky, L., 1971, Results and prospects, New Park, London . Trotsky, L ., 1975, "Discussion on Latin American questions", Intercontinental Press, 19 May .

Ziemann, W. and Lanzendorfer, M ., 1977, The state in peripheral societies, Socialist Register 1977 .

Pluto 44 Press SOUTH AFRICA : THE METHOD IN THE MADNESS John Kane-Berman Up to the minute reportage on the Soweto events plus a detailed analysis of the social and political conditions which caused the revolt - the crisis in black education, black consciousness, consumer boycotts and worker stay aways . £2 .95 paperback only ($5 .95)

THE EDUCATION OF THE FUTURE Stephen Castles and Wiebke Wustenberg This book analyses socialist education theories and experiments of the last century and compres these with recent trends in western capitalist schooling. £3 .95 paperback ($8 .95) £8 .50 hardback ($17 .50) Distributed in the United States by : Southwest Book Services, 4951 Top Line Drive, Dallas Texas 75247

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THE POLITICS OF WORKPLACE TRADE UNIONISM : RECENT TENDENCIES AND SOME PROBLEMS FOR THEORY Richard Hyman

The aim of this paper(1) is above all to stimulate discussion : firstly about the nature and significance of the changes which have occurred in British trade unionism (particularly at shop-floor level) since the 1960s ; secondly about the implications of these changes for the analyses of union democracy and union leadership which are popular on the left .(2) Much of the argument is tentative or exploratory ; constructive criticism will be very welcome . It has long been common to discuss internal political relations within unions in terms of a dichotomy between 'bureaucracy' and 'rank and file' . Often closely associated has been a strategy which emphasises workplace struggle and shop steward militancy as an objective (even if unintended) agency of advance towards socialism .(3) Not infrequently, such a perspective has involved a somewhat idealised and romanticised conception of shopfloor organisation and action ; and the controversy surrounding this position has not always been marked by a high degree of theoretical coherence . On the one hand, the notion of 'trade union bureaucracy' has normally represented a descriptive category or derogatory slogan rather than an analytical concept adequately embedded in a serious theory of trade unionism .(4) In effect, the ttrm can be employed to present trade union officialdom as scapegoats for contradictions inherent in trade unionism as such . But conversely, critics of this position have at times treated the limitations inherent in trade unionism under capitalism as an alibi for the actions and inactions of trade union leadership (or at least a favoured group within this leadership) :(5) For the traditional critique of 'bureaucracy' does reflect a genuine and important problem within trade unionism . To put a complex argument extremely briefly :(6) those continuously engaged in a representative capacity perform a crucial mediating role in sustaining tendencies towards an accommodative and subaltern relationship with external agencies (employers and state) in opposition to which trade unions were originally



THE POLITICS OF TRADE UNIONISM

55

formed . No doubt some form of accommodation with external forces is inevitable (at least outside a revolutionary situation) . But those within unions who primarily conduct external relations do not merely react to irresistible pressures ; they help shape and channel the nature and extent to which trade union goals and methods adapt to external agencies which seek to minimise the disruptive impact of workers' collective resistance to capital . Three important influences on this process may be noted . Those in official positions in trade unions possess a direct responsibility for their organisations' security and survival, a role encouraging a cautious approach to policy. In particular, this is likely to induce resistance to objectives or forms of actions which unduly antagonise employers or the state and thus risk violent confrontation . Because of their ongoing relationship with external parties, officials normally become committed to preserving a stable bargaining relationship and to the 'rules of the game' which this presupposes . And finally, the rationale of the officials' positions is typically a competence to perform specialist functions . To sustain a belief in the significance of their own role, there is a natural tendency to define trade union purposes in a manner which emphasises officials' own expertise and activities : stressing'professional'competence in collective bargaining rather than militant mass action .(7) These three powerful (though not necessarily irresistible) tendencies help explain why union officials, though often politically and socially more advanced or progressive than many of their members, frequently perform a conservative role in periods of membership activism and struggle . If the notion of 'union bureaucracy' is an unsatisfactory specification of what is nevertheless a real set of problems within trade unionism, the term 'rank and file' also lacks obvious theoretical foundation : indeed it represents no more than a military metaphor .(8) The main implication is the lack of differentiation of interests and of hierarchical control within the main body of union membership . Just as, in military usage, privates and corporals might be classed together, so the notion of trade union rank and file has normally included 'lay' officers and representatives .(9) Discussion in the 1960s often treated shop stewards, in particular, as an essential component of the rank and file, sharing the same employer as the ordinary membership, participating in the same experiences and aspirations and subject to their control . From this fairly unsophisticated perspective, discussion on the left has often stressed three aspects of shop steward organisation and action . First, that unionism within the workplace-as at national level-was predominantly economistic in orientation ; yet because of its direct engagement at the point of production, it was necessarily involved in struggles against managerial control of the labour process . This concern with issues of job control could be viewed as a basis for more ambitious movements towards workers' control of production . Second, the very intimacy of the links between shop stewards and the small groups of workers they represented could accentuate the problem of trade union sectionalism ; isolated militancy over parochial issues made workplace union power highly vulnerable to a concerted counter-attack by the employers . This problem of fragmentation was however mitigated by the development of joint shop stewards



56

CAPITAL & CLASS

committees(10) and-usually against the opposition of national officialscombine and other multi-plant bodies . Third, the proximity of shop steward organisation to the shop floor inhibited bureaucratic tendencies and corporatist developments . Indeed, the existence of autonomous workplace unionism represented a key defence against the incorporation of the national organisations ; for if the official leadership were to compromise too far (by collaborating, for example, in government wage controls) they would be faced by a rank-and-file revolt spearheaded by the stewards' movement. It is interesting that a somewhat parallel conclusion was drawn by conventional writers on 'industrial relations, particularly in their role as government advisers . Thus the central proposition of the Donovan Report of 1968 was the existence of 'two systems' of British industrial relations . Whereas conditions of employment were ostensibly determined at industrywide level in negotiations between national officials of unions and employers' associations, it was bargaining within the workplace (at least in key sectors of manufacturing industry) which was in practice more significant . Such bargaining was typically piecemeal and sectional, remote from the control of full-time union officials or senior management, and commonly resulted in unwritten understandings and 'custom and practice' rules . To this divorce between official institutions and actual practice were attributed several consequences . Small-scale, unofficial negotiation was matched by a similar pattern of strikes . Upward pressure on earnings (particularly where payment by results applied) could not readily be contained by managerial resistance or governmental policies . And employer control over the labour process was substantially eroded . For many commentators, the combination of these features was considered a major barrier to the profitability and competitiveness of British capital . Some sections of the ruling class proposed a solution primarily in terms of direct legal repression . Others advocated greater reliance on gradualist institutional transformation . Thus the major recommendation of the Donovan Commission was the formalisation and centralisation of collective bargaining at plant or company level . In this process employers should assume the main initiative, reconstructing payment systems and bargaining machinery and elaborating their internal procedures of management information and control . Unions for their part should appoint far more full-time officials in order to intervene actively in workplace negotiations and supervise the work of their shop stewards . The priority, Donovan insisted, was for employers and trade unions together 'to recognise, define and control the part played by shop stewards in our collective bargaining system' (1968, p . 120) . In the subsequent decade, the relations between unions, employers and the state have of course exhibited several major upheavals . Today it is possible to argue that the Donovan strategy has proved far more effective than is generally appreciated . At the same time, developments have not precisely matched the scenarios drawn by both advocates and opponents of 'reform' during the 1960s . Moreover, the 'offensive' of employers and the state, though clearly significant, has not alone been the decisive influence . No less important have been the emergent tendencies within



THE POLITICS OF TRADE UNIONISM

57

workplace unionism itself, which have interacted with the strategies of employers, governments, and full-time officials . A central feature of the past ten years has been the consolidation of a hierarchy within shop steward organisation . The tightening of internal management controls and the introduction of new payment systems, job evaluation structures, 'productivity' agreements and formalised negotiating and disciplinary procedures have often reduced significantly the scope for bargaining by individual stewards at section level . Workplace negotiation has become a far more centralised process, often involving the application to individual issues of an explicit set of 'rationalised' principles . But in the main this has not-as Donovan anticipated-become the responsibility of full-time officials from outside the company ; in a period of rising union membership, the rate of new appointments has been limited . Rather, the introduction and operation of centralised bargaining arrangements has been the responsibility of a new layer of full-time convenors and shop stewards . The number of such representatives, it would appear, has quadrupled during the past decade, and considerably exceeds the number of ordinary union officials . And no longer can it be suggested, as Donovan argued (p . 107), that 'it is the exception, rather than the rule, for a chief shop steward to have a room put at his disposal as an office' ; facilities provided by employers for senior stewards have expanded as substantially as their numbers .(1 1) This trend has been paralleled by a centralisation of control within stewards' organisations . In the past, joint shop stewards' committees have tended to fulfil the functions of co-ordination rather than control, to depend upon the voluntary agreement of the various sections and their representatives rather than upon the exercise of sanctions . Today it is far more common for such committees to exercise a disciplinary role, forcing dissident sections of the membership into line . But at the same time, the small cadre of full-time or almost full-time stewards within a committee often possess the authority and the informational and organisational resources to ensure that their own recommendations will be accepted as policy by the stewards' body .(12) These developments have in turn coincided with a significant degree of integration between steward hierarchies and official trade union structures . In the past there existed a considerable detachment (though exaggerated by some commentators) between workplace organisation and the branch-based decision-making machinery of most unions . Union rulebooks were slow to recognise the negotiating functions of shop stewards, and few even mentioned the position of convenors . Often those elected as lay representatives at different levels in trade union government were branch administrators rather than shop-floor bargainers . But in the past decade there have been extensive changes, often carried through under the slogan of greater union democracy . In some cases, workplace leaders have been given an official role within union constitutions ; they have become represented on many national negotiating bodies ; some unions have created industrial committees and conferences composed of workplace activists . Rulebooks have begun to define the rights and obligations of convenors and joint shop stewards' committees . Education and training



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CAPITAL & CLASS

schemes for shop stewards (typically emphasising the importance of negotiating expertise and orderly procedures rather than membership mobilisation) have burgeoned . Against this background it is not fanciful to speak of the bureaucratisation of the rank and file . The developments of the last ten years, in those unions and industries where workplace organisation has long been strongest and most autonomous, have made possible a considerable degree of articulation between union policy and national and shop-floor level . A key mediating role is now performed by a stratum of shop steward leaders who have become integrated into the external union hierarchies and have at the same time acquired the power, status and influence to contain and control disaffected sections and sectional stewards . This fact is crucial in explaining the effect of the TUC/government wage curbs since 1975 . The very limited opposition and resistance on the shop floor during the first two (or even three) years of pay controls cannot be explained simply in terms of the level of unemployment, or political commitment to a Labour government, but owe much to the new ability of national union leaders to win the backing of major convenors, and of these in turn to deliver the acquiescence of their own workplace organisations . The internal politics of trade unionism today involves a complex system of linkages between the relatively inactive membership on the shop or office floor and the top leadership in the TUC Economic Committee . The ability of national leaders to contain, control and manipulate the ordinary membership depends to an important extent on their success in establishing loyalties, understandings or trade-offs with groups at different levels in this elaborate hierarchy who are able to deploy a variety of forms of influence and sanctions . These developments have more general implications for a theoretical understanding of trade unionism in contemporary British capitalism . In the past, the existence of 'two systems' of industrial relations contained important limitations to the influence of national leadership and the corporatist tendencies of trade union organisation, in those areas of industry where relatively autonomous workplace struggle provided a power base largely independent of both management and full-time officialdom . As the duality always inherent in shop steward organisation(13) has become accentuated, so its potentiality as an agency of control over the membership has emerged more clearly . There is every reason to assume that this process will continue . The very rapid concentration and centralisation of British capital since the early 1950s entails persistent pressures for greater centralisation within British union organisation . Recent labour legislation, and union/employer moves to broaden the scope for collective bargaining, have generated a powerful impetus for the 'professionalisation' of workplace representation . Any serious moves towards 'participation' machinery (whether by legislation or through incorporationist strategies by major companies) are likely to extend such developments still further . At thi's point, two qualifications are called for . The first is that the force of any generalisation concerning British trade unionism is limited by the immense variety of traditions, institutions and contexts . The trends so far discussed have been widespread and important, but far from universal .



THE POLITICS OF TRADE UNIONISM

59

In particular, it must be noted that shop steward organisation deriving substantial autonomy from an active and extensive process of workplace bargaining has traditionally been confined to a relatively small proportion of British trade unionists. Its strongest roots were in sections of engineering, and a few other manufacturing industries, characterised by fragmented piecework systems and a general lack of sophisticated managerial contro's (often because of 'soft' product market conditions in the 1940s and 1950s) .(14) Multi-unionism was often an additional factor inhibiting effective control by outside union officials .(15) A considerable contrast existed in much of the public sector ; within most 'white-collar' occupations, and even among a wide range of privatesector manual workers . For most trade unionists it is reasonable to argue that national agreements determined fairly closely the actual earnings and conditions of employment, that shop steward organisation was relatively weak or even non-existent, and that full-time officials played an important role in whatever plant negotiations occurred.(16) In many such contexts, the main trend of the past ten years has involved a certain decentralisation of collective bargainingand union organisation . Paradoxically, sophisticated employers have recognised a need for the existence of workplace union representation . Recent years have seen major strategies of capitalist rationalisation and intensification of the labour process (encouraged by a variety of state agencies), typically involving the introduction of new production and manning standards and the tightening of the nexus between pay and performance. The successful introduction of such schemes, with the minimum of worker resistance, was seen as dependent on their negotiation with representatives familiar with workplace conditions and able to exert authority over the labour force . If shop stewards did not exist, they had to be invented . In some cases, employers themselves took the initiative in providing recognition, facilities and 'training' for workplace representatives . In others, shop steward organisation was 'sponsored' by national union leaderships : at times anxious to collaborate with such managerial strategies, at times motivated by a genuine interest in greater membership involvement in union affairs, at times alarmed by the militant revolts against national negotiators which were a feature of the late 1960s and early 1970s . Introduced largely from above, steward machinery in such circumstances is normally far more closely integrated into the official structures of trade unionism and collective bargaining than where its origins lie in independent initiative from below . Nevertheless, the implications are potentially contradictory : such organisation, once established, may develop an unanticipated degree of autonomy, perhaps providing an effective basis for resistance to the policies of management or union leadership .(17) This leads to the second qualification which must be specified . Arguably, the previous discussion of centralisation in shop steward organisation was unduly negative in tone . The traditional fragmentation of workplace struggles has always been a major source of weakness, and has become increasingly debilitating as capital itself has directed a co-ordinated attack on workers' conditions . The detachment of powerful shop stewards' organisations from national trade union politics was a reflection of the C . & C. -- I!



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CAPITAL & CLASS

dominance of economism in the 1950s and early 1960s . Even in terms of workplace action, this could create a fatal vulnerabil ity ;(1 8) in a period of rapidly developing direct state intervention in industrial relations, with the close involvement of national union leaderships, continued detachment is impossible . Moreover, it would be unrealistic to deny the need for both leadership and discipline within shop-floor union organisations. Effective strategies to advance workers' collective interests at every level cannot be expected to emerge spontaneously ; arbitrary acts of opposition by isolated individuals or groups may dissipate the strength of factory unionism or prove dangerously divisive .(19) Such considerations have been influential in encouraging the emergent tendencies towards centralised control within shop steward bodies themselves . Who says organisation says, firstly discipline, secondly routinisation . This virtual truism is less dramatic than Michels' dictum yet at the same time perhaps more fateful . Analogous tendencies are apparent within trade union organisation at national and workplace levels . The resources of discipline and control which are a precondition of effective collective struggle contain the potential to be turned back against trade union members in the interests of capital : channelling and containing workers' resistance to the exploitation of their labour power, facilitating and reinforcing managerial control over the labour process . If the notion of corporatism-currently much in vogue-possesses a coherent meaning (and its usage is often somewhat vacuous), it is to indicate the dominance of this repressive potential over the explicit purposes of unions as agencies of collective struggle through which workers collectively pursue their own distinctive interests by mobilisation and struggle . No trade union movement can become wholly an agency of repressive discipline, for this would destroy its pretensions to independence and thus its claims to workers' loyalty to the instructions and recommendations which it issues . Conversely, no trade union movement can be wholly autonomous, for this would render its activities and indeed its very existence intolerable to capital . There is a radical dualism within trade union practice ; and the balance between autonomy and incorporation (and hence in unions' role as an agency of power for workers or power over them) can vary within wide margins . This fact gives vital significance to the trends discussed in the preceding pages . Traditionally, shop-floor organisation has been viewed primarily in terms of opposition and resistance to capital ; and insofar as this view, even if oversimplified, reflected the dominant tendency within shop steward activity, the incorporation of trade unions as national organisations faced imposing obstacles . But if the balance between autonomy and containment within workplace organisations themselves has shifted-if their disciplinary powers are increasingly applied according to the logic of accommodation with the power of capital rather than workers' independent class intereststhen it has become far easier for British trade unionism as a whole to move substantially towards the corporatist pole . If this is a genuine danger (and the trends in trade unionism within most of western capitalism offer few grounds for complacency), then a precondition of effective resistance is a correct identification of its nature .



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A central theme of this paper has been that the dichotomous conception of power in trade unions misrepresents the problem and thus obstructs analysis and ultimately confuses strategy. Between 'trade union bureaucracy' and 'rank and file' there exist many forms and processes of mediation . One may, for example, identify a stratum of 'rank-and-file leadership' : the shop steward hierarchy, the respected and influential activists at branch and district level . Participating far more regularly and extensively than most members in the unions' representative machinery, such activists organise and articulate the experiences and aspirations of the membership ; but the influence which this gives them can on critical occasions be used to contain, control and manipulate members' reactions . Or the term 'semibureaucracy' might seem appropriate to designate the stratum of 'lay' officialdom on whom full-time union functionaries are considerably dependent but who in turn may be dependent on the official leadership . (For the full-time officials they perform a range of administrative tasks, act as channels of information, and may mobilise electoral support ; they in turn may seek the backing of full-timers in sustaining their reputation with the membership and sponsoring their advancement within the union structure .) These two categories are themselves involved in relationships of interdependence ; indeed they may largely overlap and in some unions virtually merge . The interconnections between national union leadership and the twelve million members in the workplace are thus manifold, complex and often contradictory. A second inadequacy of the dichotomous conception of trade union politics is that the problem is not simply (although certainly it is partially) one of hierarchical control . The trends discussed in this paper cannot be properly comprehended (as some of the left appear to suppose) merely in terms of a layer of workplace leadership 'going over to the bureaucracy'. For there is an important sense in which the problem of 'bureaucracy' denotes not so much a distinct stratum of personnel as a relationship which permeates the whole practice of trade unionism .(20) 'Bureaucracy' is in large measure a question of the differential distribution of expertise and activism : of the dependence of the mass of union membership on the initiative and strategic experience of a relatively small cadre of leadershipboth 'official' and 'unofficial'.(21) Such dependence may be deliberately fostered by an officialdom which strives to maintain a monopoly of information, experience, and negotiating opportunities, and to minimise and control the collective contacts among the membership . But what the authors of The Miners' Next Step termed the 'bad side of leadership'(22) still constitutes a problem even in the case of a cadre of militant lay activists sensitive to the need to encourage the autonomy and initiative of the membership . Hence the predicament of the stewards whose relationships are explored by Benyon : 'torn between the forces of representation and bureaucratization'.(23) The implication is not that union democracy is a utopian ideal, but that its attainment will always be partial and always against the odds . Given the necessity of some form of leadership within the unions, the style anc character of that leadership can exert a critical influence on its responsiveness to general membership aspirations ; or more crucially, its willingness



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and ability to stimulate the collective awareness, activism and control of the mass of workers, to combat their dependence on its own superior commitment and expertise . And given that the centralisation of workplace organisation is both inevitable and desirable-an argument which this paper has not intended to dispute-the issue of democratic centralism (to misapply the term) has become a vital question for shop-floor union leadership . Posed at this level of organisation, it is clear that the democratisation of trade union practice-or the defence of existing democratic processes and traditions-is a question of the relationship not merely between

full-time officialdom and 'lay' activists, but between both these categories and the general membership . The types of strategy long associated with 'unofficial' struggles must now be' re-interpreted and re-applied within shop steward organisation . And here the irony is of course that influential local activists traditionally most committed to the struggle for democracy within the national union organisation may well recognise a vested interest

in resisting pressures for greater democracy within the lower-level organisations which they dominate . Ultimately, though, the problem of vested interests is probably the least substantial-if only because the most obviously visible-obstacle to strategies for 'democratic centralism' in contemporary unionism . A more insidious problem is what is conventionally termed the 'apathy' of the majority of union members . If the mass of trade unionists-except perhaps on occasion of a major dispute or wage negotiation-have little or no interest in participating in the mechanisms of discussion and decisionmaking, they can scarcely be in a position to control the policies and activities of those who exercise leadership . At best, the latter can be

indirectly accountable to the membership through lower-level activists who may themselves be unrepresentative, or whose ability to oppose the leadership may be reduced by their members' passivity. It is of course a commonplace that most trade unionists take a far more active interest in workplace unionism than in the branch, district or national levels . It is also important to resist the tendency to treat membership 'apathy' as a scapegoat for mechanisms of union debate and decision-making almost calculated to deter any but the most dedicated, and for more basic structural sources of detachment between ordinary workers and the institutional mediations and articulations of their collective interests . But even if the term 'apathy' does not explain so much as mystify, the problem it denotes is a real one which even at the level of shop steward organisation is important in its implications . The issues of apathy as against commitment, of union democracy as against the repressive imposition of centralised discipline, cannot be dissociated from conceptions of the nature and purposes of trade unionism as such . If the whole rationale of unionism is conceived as nothing more than negotiating with employers over wages and conditions-the pursuit of relatively marginal adjustments to the form of the capital/wage-labour relation-then the implications for unions' internal political life can be readily specified . Collective bargaining will assume a focal status within trade union practice ; those who actually undertake negotiations will acquire an important basis for power within the organisation ; a decisive influence



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on policy will be the maintenance of amicable bargaining relationships, which in turn entails the maintenance of 'orderly industrial relations' and the containment of 'undisciplined' resistance by workers to capitalist priorities . Conversely, a trade unionism defined in these terms offers no persuasive motive for active membership involvement in its internal government ; most workers will quite legitimately feel that they have better things to do than to devote time and energy to meetings, controversies and decisions which will have only a minor effect on their own circumstances . The goal of union democracy ac uires significance only within a more radical conception of the objectives (at least potential) of unionism : as a basis for collective struggle against as well as within capitalism, as an agency which ultimately can be effective only as a means of collective mobilisation of the working class . It is scarcely necessary to add that, among British trade unionists, such a conception is at best an extremely subsidiary element within a tradition and an ideology powerfully dominated by the centrality of collective bargaining . Even militant and oppositional movements within unions are typically directed towards more ambitious aims and more aggressive methods within collective bargaining, rather than seeking to transcend the limits of collective bargaining itself . Accordingly, their strategies have rarely involved serious concern with developing sustained mass involvement .(24) Trade union consciousness interrelates intimately with powerful external influences-both material and ideological-on the character of union action . The politics of trade unionism constitute a complex totality highly resistant to major strategies of radicalisation and democratisationwhich, to be effective, must go hand in hand . But it is important not to end this paper (and to initiate any discussion which may ensue on a fatalistic note . 'The trade union,' wrote Gramsci (1977, p. 265), 'is not a predetermined phenomenon . It becomes a determinate institution, i .e . it takes on a definite historical form to the extent that the strength and will of the workers who are its members impress a policy and propose an aim that define it : The determinations to which British unions today are subject imply the closure of many of the options to which some romantic conceptions of the possibilities of trade unionism aspire . Nevertheless, the politics of trade unions today contain sufficient internal contradictions to make their scientific analysis and theorisation-involving the reformulation of many of the categories and assumptions traditional on the British left-an urgent and important task of theory and practice.

NOTES Richard Hyman teaches at the University of Warwick . 1 The paper originates from a contribution to a BSA Industrial Sociology conference in Birmingham in the spring of 1978 ; a brief synopsis was produced under the title 'Double Agents? Some Problems of Workplace Trade Unionism'. This developed into a paper 'British Trade Unionism in the 1970s : the Bureaucratisation of the Rank and File?', discussed



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CAPITAL & CLASS at the Bradford CSE Conference in July 1978 ; a version is to-appear in the new Canadian Marxist journal Studies in Political Economy . In the present version the introductory and concluding parts have changes, but the 'narrative' in between is largely unaltered . Possibly this needs locating autobiographically . In the period before leaving the International Socialists (which was then in the 'process •o f its identity change) I was becoming increasingly aware of inadequacies -accentuated by the developments discussed in this paper-in the analysis of trade unionism current within the organisation . Since then I have felt less restricted in thinking through my heterodoxy. Although I have sharpened by criticisms, it should be clear from what follows that I do not share the simple rejection of 'rank-and-filism' articulated within the Communist Party . As an example one may cite Cliff and Barker 1966 . While noting the weaknesses of shop steward organisation in terms of fragmentation and economism, they concluded (p . 106) : 'To defend and extend the shop stewards' organisations of today is to build the socialist movement of tomorrow ; to fight for the socialist movement of tomorrow is to strengthen the shop stewards of today .' The Red International of Labour Unions, which in the 1920s turned the three words 'trade union bureaucracy' into an incantatory epithet, was presumably not guided by sociological theories of bureaucracy . Certainly it would be difficult to construe the influence of union leaders over the membership primarily in terms of Weber's conception of 'legal-rational authority'. It is ironical to read in Beatrice Webb's Diaries of the period repeated complaints that British union leaders were extremely inadequate bureaucrats . For an example see Roberts 1976 . After correctly criticising those who attempt to subsume the problem of trade unionism within that of bureaucracy, he goes on to perpetuate precisely the reverse error . Thus Roberts argues (p . 378) : 'What defines trade union leaders as a group is not . . . that they have special interests of their own distinct from those of the working class, but their function which is in turn structurally determined . . . . What is problematical for revolutionaries is not the role of trade union leaders but the nature of trade unionism itself .' What Roberts ignores is the fact that both can constitute important and interconnected problems . By virtue of their distinctive functions, union officials do possess special interests (though whether, to what extent, and in what circumstances these are opposed to those of ordinary members is a separate issue) . One may also note that Roberts' view of the 'determination' of the nature of trade unionism and its limits would seem to be somewhat mechanical . I have tried to treat some of the issues in more detail in my Industrial Relations: a Marxist Introduction (Hyman 1975, Ch . 3) . These three points may be said to underlie Mills' famous characterisation of the union leader as a 'manager of discontent' (1948, pp . 8-9) . For a more recent discussion of the contradictory pressures on the union official see Lane 1974 . Ranks and files were the horizontal and vertical lines of infantry



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drawn up for battle ; as early as the sixteenth century the portmanteau term 'rank and file' was used to denote the common soldiery . The OED notes its application outside the military context in Mill's Considerations on Representative Government (1865) . The term was used with reference to trade union members at least by the 1890s. The Webbs commented in the second edition of their History (1920, p . 577) that the 'annually elected branch officials and shop stewards may be regarded as the non-commissioned officers of the Movement' . Lane comments (1974, p . 204) that 'joint shop stewards' committees emerged as a means of regulating the otherwise "free market" of sectional groupings' . However, as Benyon (1973) insists, unification normally occurred in any meaningful sense only within the confines of the workplace; what resulted, he argues, was a form of 'factory consciousness' . In general, a notable feature of the literature on shop stewards in Britain is the absence of serious discussion of the development of shop steward hierarchies and the ensuing problems of control . For some useful details of recent developments see Brown and Terry 1978 . For a painstaking documentation and analysis of such processesthough interpreted within a highly idealistic problematic-see Batstone

et al . 1977. 13

14 15

16 17

18

A much quoted comment is the conclusion of the Donovan Commission's own research, that 'for the most part the steward is viewed by others, and views himself, as an accepted, reasonable and even moderating influence; more of a lubricant than an irritant' (McCarthy and Parker 1968, p . 56) . A major study of the car industry suggested that the stewards' organisation 'has assumed, in relation to managements on the one hand and the rank-and-file of operatives on the other, many of the characteristics that the official unions once displayed under the earlier developments of national or industry-wide collective bargaining' (Turner et al. 1967, p . 222) . Friedman's differentiation (1977) between centre and periphery is of obvious relevance here . In this context, the series of major trade union amalgamations in the 1960s and 1970s may be seen as a further tendency encouraging the integration of workplace within national union organisation . An indication of this variety of practices and relationships can be obtained from Boraston et al . 1975 . Such a tendency may perhaps be discerned in the development of the 'union stewards' established by the National Union of Public Employees in response to the introduction of bonus schemes in local government and the health service . In a very different context, Nichols and Benyon (1977, Part III) discuss ICI's strategy of sponsoring shop steward organisation in a 'greenfield' site, and indicate some of the latent contradictions resulting from the creation of a (partially) independent collective structure . For example when Ford management, with the collaboration of national union leaderships, smashed the powerful Dagenham shop stewards' organisation in the early 1960s . As Benyon (1973) indicates,



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CAPITAL & CLASS this was a lesson which the stewards at Halewood subsequently took to heart . The realities of such considerations, and the contradictory pressures which result, are sensitively discussed in Benyon 1973 ; see for example p . 140 . The debates among Italian revolutionaries in 1919-20 remain surprisingly relevant ; see Gramsci 1977 . This formulation of the problem was indicated by Bob Fryer in the discussion at the Bradford CSE Conference . The notion of rank-and-file leaders as part of a 'cadre' which includes the full-time officialdom has been explored by Mick Carpenter in an unpublished paper. See Unofficial Reform Committee 1912, pp . 13-15 . The anti-leadership theories current in the unofficial movements in many British unions in this decade are ofted cited as a reason for their ultimately limited success . Perhaps more crucially, the tendency to consider 'leadership in highly abstracted terms inhibited sensitive analysis of the requirements of militant union organisation in respect of centralised co-ordination, planning and decision, and the possible strategies for their attainment while avoiding hierarchical domination and manipulation . Benyon's argument (1973, p . 206) deserves quoting at greater length : 'The tension between the need for trade union organization and mass participation in that organization is a vital and irresolvable one . A gap exists between the shop stewards and the rest . A gap created by the very fact of sustained activism and enforced by its organization . Ultimately there is no way out of this . The complexity of modern society coupled with the physical and mental strains of factory work make some form of "full-time" activism essential . Even at the shop floor level . In coping with this the shop steward finds himself torn between the forces of representation and bureaucratization . Between the need to represent the immediate wishes of the members and to provide a long-term strategy that will protect the interests of those members .' There is a certain fatalism about this passage which belies Benyon's previous insistence (p . 202) that 'apathy, like commitment, doesn't fall from the skies' . While the gap between activists and others will never be fully or definitively bridged, there can at least be strategies to reduce it-strategies which, to an important extent, will need to transcend the boundaries of the individual workplace . An important absence from this paper is a discussion of the role of Communist Party activists, who have long held positions of leadership within many workplace organisations . While I lack systematic and widely based information, it is clear that CP-dominated shop steward hierarchies rarely differ substantially from their non-CP counterparts in respect of the tendencies I discuss . Some CP trade union activists seek to justify this with a fatalistic assertion of the inherent limits of trade union action : treating 'Communist politics' as a sphere of practice totally dissociated from the narrow routine of 'trade union work'. Thus CP convenors are economistic or manipulative because, this side of the revolution, they can do no other : a thesis for which Lenin is sometimes cited in support!



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BIBLIOGRAPHY Batstone, E.V., Boraston, I .G . & Frenkel, S ., 1977, Shop Stewards in Action, Blackwell, Oxford . Benyon, H ., 1973, Working for Ford, Penguin, Harmondsworth . Boraston, I .G ., Clegg, H .A . & Rimmer, M ., 1975, Workplace and Union, Blackwell, Oxford . Brown, W. & Terry, M ., 1978, 'The Future of Collective Bargaining', New Society, 23 March 1978 . Cliff, T. & Barker, C ., 1966, Incomes Policy, Legislation and Shop Stewards, London Industrial Shop Stewards Defence Committee . Donovan (Lord), 1968, Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations, Report, HMSO, Cmnd . 3263 . Friedman, A ., 1977, Industry and Labour, Macmillan, London . Gramsci, A., 1977, Selections from Political Writings 1910-1920, Lawrence & Wishart, London . Hyman, R ., 1975, Industrial Relations: A Marxist Introduction, Macmillan, London . Lane, T., 1974, The Union Makes Us Strong, Arrow, London . McCarthy, W.E .J . & Parker, S .R ., 1968, Shop Stewards and Workplace Relations, HMSO . Mills, C .W, 1948, The New Men of Power, Harcourt Brace, New York . Nichols, T. & Benyon, H ., 1977, Living with Capitalism, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London . Roberts, G ., 1976, 'The Strategy of Rank and Filism, Marxism Today, December 1976 . Turner, H .A., Clack, G . & Roberts, G ., 1967, Labour Relations in the Motor Industry, Allen & Unwin, London . Unofficial Reform Committee, 1912, The Miners' Next Step, Davies, Tonypandy . Webb, S . & Webb, B ., 1920, History of Trade Unionism, Longmans, London .

C. D . A. Final Reports FINAL REPORTS FROM THE Newcastle(Benwell),Coventry, Birmingham, North Tyneside and Canning Town CDPs now available . Write for a complete list to : Publications Section, Benwell CDP, 87 Adelaide

Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 8BB . Titles now available include : Living with industrial Change, Women's Work, Permanent Unemployment, The Making of a Ruling Class, Private Housing and the Working Class, Working Class Politics and Housing, Workers on the Scrapheap, Aims of Industry and many others .Limited stocks .

CRISIS, THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIC STRATEGY London CSE Group

The paper which follows opens the journal's Strategy Section with a defence of the labour movement's Alternative Economic Strategy (AES) . It argues that, taken as a whole, and despite its weaknesses, the AES is based both on sophisticated economics and on a political understanding of economic policy as class struggle, aiming to impose greater working class political control on each of the forms of capital, and thereby posing as political problems aspects of capital's circuits which are normally taken for granted . We hope in future issues to print articles which take issue with this argument, which propose different strategies, or which elaborate further the argument of this paper .

INTRODUCTION In response to the current crisis in British and world capitalism, widespread agreement has emerged within the labour movement on the question of what alternative measures should be fought for to advance the position of the left. Thus, the main planks of the alternative economic strategy (AES) have been adopted overwhelmingly by the Labour Party Conference, the TUC and numerous trade unions . Although significant differences of content and interpretation undoubtedly exist, this convergence of strategy within the labour movement represents an important development which requires recognition and analysis by all groups on the left. It is, therefore, unfortunate that, within the CSE, the AES has received only cursory attention, usually in a dismissive way .(1) This paper attempts to redress that balance, and argues that the AES represents an important set of demands around which working class struggle can be mobilised . More importantly, the AES offers a strategy for real advance by the working class in the direction of socialism .



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While we are in general agreement with the approach of the AES, we recognise its . : weaknesses and, therefore, the need to develop debate and analysis within the CSE as well as the labour movement . The paper falls into two main parts : the first aims to provide a theoretical justification for the AES ; the second to analyse its main components as put forward by the movement .

THE AES DEMANDS Before proceeding, it may be helpful to provide a short account of the AES . The main points of the AES may be summarised as follows (Bleaney, 1978) : (a) A substantial extension of the public sector, including the banks and insurance companies and a number of large manufacturing companies, coupled with a strengthening of the National Enterprise Board (NEB) . (b) The development of an economic plan to provide the framework for growth and investment programmes in the public and private sectors, to be enforced by planning agreements and sanctions on unco-operative firms . (c) An immediate improvement in living standards and the reversal of public sector cuts which, together with the expansion of investment, will cut unemployment . (d) A sharp cut in military expenditure . (e) Strict control over prices . (f) The imposition of import controls to protect the balance of payments, and the sale of overseas assets to pay off foreign debts . (g) A general democratisation of economic life through the involvement of trade unions and other popular organisations in every stage of the planning process, the development of industrial democracy etc . . This, of course, is a very bare summary(2), and we discuss parts of the AES in detail later . However, it is important to analyse the AES as a whole, since specific demands, and the struggles around them, cannot be viewed in isolation . Indeed, we argue that it is precisely the strength of the AES that it can unite otherwise diverse struggles and relate current demands and advances to longer term goals . SECTION 1 CRISIS, THE STATE AND THE AES

Crisis and Working Class Struggle We base our defence of the AES on the rejection of any idea of mechanical inevitability in capitalist development . Thus, the resolution of crises may occur in different ways, more or less favourable to the working class by blocking off resolutions favourable to capital and laying the basis for further advance . The concrete context for this is obvious enough : the failure of the left in Britain in the early nineteen seventies to carry through a broad democratic mobilisation around a left programme cleared the way



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for a resolution favourable to capital, carried through by the Labour Government, involving attacks on real living standards, public expenditure cuts, high and sustained unemployment, acceleration of the process of internationalisation, and increasing state intervention on criteria of private profitability . To illustrate this further, we may note that the course of a recession cannot be considered to be simply a process of competition between capitals, the interventions of the working class merely favouring one sector of capital or another. Rather, the recession represents primarily a reorganisation of the relations between capital and labour, one aspect of which is the competitive reorganisation of capital . Nor can it be presumed that the resolution of a crisis through recession is determined in advance ; that if the working class does not abolish capital, then its influence on future events is more or less circumscribed . Thus working class struggles in response to the recession do affect the course of the recession and the resolution to which it leads ; in other words, they influence the nature of the control that capital exerts over labour and, therefore, the framework within which class struggle is renewed . It might be argued that working class influences on the nature of the resolution of crisis are always negligible : that any element of control appropriated through class struggle is weakened by the existence of capitalism as a world system ; and that capital appropriates control in many forms, so that the loss of one form of control may be compensated by gains in others . These arguments are to be rejected as determinist, but they do raise the question of the limits to working class struggle at particular levels and the way in which these struggles can be developed into a revolutionary demand for socialism . These questions can only be answered on the basis of a specific consideration of the current period of capitalism . The post-war expansion of world capitalism rested upon two major points of departure from earlier periods : one is the form taken by the international isation of capital, and the other is the growth of state economic intervention . These developments embody a number of contradictory implications . First, capital becomes increasingly nationless as its circuits become internationalised . But second, the nation-state acts as an agent of competition between capitals in its economic and other interventions . However, third, the nation-state acts to guarantee social reproduction of classes within nations, despite the internationalisation of economic reproduction . In other words, whilst the state can act to internationalise capital, such interventions are conditioned by the need to guarantee social reproduction, a role increasingly undermined by the effects of capital's international expansion . (However, it should not be presumed that such interventions necessarily obstruct the development of the productive forces by capital, nor that they merely redistribute their location by nation according to their effect on competition between capitals . To do so would be to make a fetish of the role played by the development of the international division of labour at the expense of the role played by state economic intervention in reorganising capital .) Corresponding to these contradictions, there are definite political developments . On the one hand,the rise of transnational superstructures



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such as the IMF and EEC has the effect of restricting the extent to which state economic intervention impinges on international economic reproduction (though this does not mean that these organisations eliminate, rather than express, inter-imperialist rivalry) . These institutions only respond to working class struggle through the mediation of nation-states . On the other hand, it is in state economic intervention that class struggle is both moderated as a means of facilitating economic reproduction and focussed as a means of establishing the conditions of social reproduction . Hence working class struggle against capital takes the forms and objects corresponding to the interventions of the state . The struggle over employment takes the form of the demand for nationalisation, general reflation, control of international capital movements (commodities, finance and multinational companies) and for aid and subsidies to maintain production . Struggles over distribution are oriented towards income policy, taxation and subsidies, and price control . In addition, the working class can struggle for provision of services associated with the welfare state . (A vital struggle which we do not consider here is that over the extent of political democracy itself .) Thus the interests of (international) capital as a whole do not exist as some ideal abstraction, but are formed in economic competition and the struggle for state power. Nor do these interests exist in isolation from, and logically prior to, the organisation of the bourgeoisie to confront the working class . Conversely, the struggles of the working class have an effect on the process of competition between capitals and the direction of political power . The relevant issue is an understanding of the extent to which these struggles merely come to represent an aspect of the struggle between sectors of capital as the many levels of control exerted by capital over labour erode their effectivity as a confrontation between classes . (The classic illustration of these is Marx's consideration of the length of the working day .) Of course, it can be presumed that the more united the working class and the broader the arena on which it attempts to wrest control, the greater will be its effectivity . But this does not identify either the relative significance of different demands or their inter-relation .

The Struggle over Employment Consider, for example, employment policy . We base our analysis on capital's requirement for an expanded reserve army of labour (RAL) . State economic intervention in the form of employment policy represents the social regulation of the RAL and this regulation is a field of class struggle . In the case of nationalisation, for instance, the employment of productive labour may be maintained and capital reorganised without an immediate increase in the RAL, although in the longer run the pressure to cut employment of productive labour may be maintained and capital reorganised without an immediate increase in the RAL, although in the longer run the pressure to cut employment will continue . Again, workers in state sectors not directly productive for capital form part of an RAL that cannot serve as a lever for the centralisation of labour, even though they do serve to promote the social conditions of accumulation (health, education, etc .) . Consequently, the cuts in unproductive expenditure have the primary effect of swelling the RAL in a form in which it can function as a means



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of centralisation . Thus, although the RAL tends to expand during recessions, both its growth and the size of its various fractions are influenced by class struggle which can, therefore, affect the terms on which the subsequent accumulation takes place . These factors can also set up certain divisive tendencies within the working class over the regulation of the RAL, fuelled particularly by the notion that unproductive state workers are a drain on employment in the industrial sector through their absorption of resources . As a result, such white collar workers are subject to both an ideological and a material attack upon their employment, having the effect of dividing the working class. (Similarly, reformist conceptions of 'wage-push' inflation act as a divisive force within the working class, leading state employees and less well organised sections to oppose the demand for free collective bargaining .) In the face of such forces, the political unity of the working class becomes a vital factor in the struggle over employment . Related to the regulation of the RAL is the regulation of those who remain in employment. The recession intensifies the struggle over the reorganisation of production . The implications of this for workers employed by capital are well known . Within the unproductive sector, there can be the struggle to restore or establish `commercial' criteria, to impose capitalist relations of production directly upon employment, or otherwise to reorganise the conditions of provision and production of the services involved . In each case, workers' resistance can take the form of a struggle for the production of use-values according to social need and workers' control, rather then submission to the conditions imposed by capital for the production of surplus value and its social conditions . This is a struggle, based on the organisation of workers at the point of production, which forges a link with struggles over employment . And, since international pressures limit the state's intervention to regulate the RAL, the struggle can extend to these international conditions themselves . The State and Political Strategy The discussion above has tried to establish two simple propositions . Firstly, the whole course of capitalist crisis, including the terms on which it is resolved and the balance of class forces when accumulation is renewed, is deeply conditioned by class struggle . Secondly, in contemporary capitalism the formation and implementation of national economic policy is a key area of that struggle . In the light of these considerations, how are socialists in Britain to assess the political implications of the particular economic demands contained in the AES? Immediately we come up against the problem of criteria . For no firm conception of socialist strategy commanding anything like general support exists, no reliable yardstick against which we could measure the political content of such a programme . The present intense and prolonged crisis of capitalism, far from menacing its political structures, has so far only revealed with brutal clarity an equally deep crisis of socialist perspectives extending, in Europe, to every trend in the movement . On the one hand, the impotence of those parties which continue to think and act with the problematic of the



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Second International has only become more obvious since their historic failure of 1914 . Today the continuing acceptance of such leadership by millions of workers gives us-Schmidt, Callaghan, Soares . But those parties and groups whose frame of reference is Leninist are also faced with fundamental difficulties in their traditional view of the transition to socialism . Continuing turmoil within the Communist Parties of capitalist Europe demonstrates more clearly than anything else the necessity of deep ruptures with long-established analyses and practices ; and there are few CPs which have escaped the major splits in the course of their attempts at self-renewal . Nor has the Trotskyist variant of the Leninist tradition shown itself more adequate to contemporary realities : after forty years, even the most resolute militants are questioning the apocalyptic visions of the Transitional Programme . In the theoretical sphere, these major problems of strategic perspective have led to increasing concern with one question above all others : that of the capitalist state . This is for two main reasons . First there is simply the growth of the contemporary state : the hypertrophy of its apparatuses and functions . It is essentially this which has compromised classical views of capitalist development and given an unanticipated adaptability to the social relations of capitalist production . Of course, we can see here a confirmation of the central Marxist thesis that capitalism socialises production in increasing contradiction with its own structure of commodity relations. But the etatisation of every sphere of capitalist society is still an incompletely understood process . The most developed analyses of the forces behind it, which centre on the orthodox notion of State Monopoly Capitalism, have tended to collapse complex political processes into 'economic' laws of tendency-as with the theses, now largely abandoned, of a fusion of state and monopolies . What are the limits to the state's interventions? How is the contemporary state reproduced? Much of our analysis depends on these questions, which have been investigated too often on an a priori basis . This leads to the second theoretical focus-the politics of advanced capitalism . Classically, the capitalist mode of production has been seen by Marxists as resting on a radical separation of economic and political forms, a separation which makes possible democratic forms of political life but at the same time immunises, capitalist property from the dangers of popular demands for social control .' How is this division maintained and legitimised, and to what extent is it challenged, in an era of uniquitous state intervention? What kinds of politicisation contain the subordinate classes within the limits set by the expanded reproduction of capital? Firm strategic conceptions can only be based, once again, on concrete analyses of such questions . . No attempt will be made here to further the analysis of the contemporary state . But we will provide a discussion of the points relevant to an assessment of the AES, and will argue that some of their theoretical syntheses which seem to be emerging show an important congruence in certain respects with the AES .



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Contemporary Analysis of the State First we can stress the developing concept of the state not as a monolithic instrument of bourgeois rule, but as a complex and contradictory structure, from which follows the necessity of class struggle within the apparatuses of the state itself. This aspect is emphasised particularly by the tendencies within the CPs which are given the name of'Euro-Communist' . The importance of this political current and its theoretical positions (above all for France, Italy and Spain) would hardly need emphasis, were it not for the facile way in which such developments are often written off-as if, to use Poultantzas' phrase, they had reformism inscribed in them 'like original sin'(3) . The key question to be asked of'Euro-Communism' refers neither to the importance of struggle within state apparatuses in general, nor in particular to the cardinal stress placed on control of the legislature by workers' parties, since the centrality of the forms of parliamentary rule to the reproduction of bourgeois state power is now well established(4) . Rather, we can question the nature of the popular mobilisation envisaged to enforce the social transformations enacted within the constitutional structure . But here it is not enough to declare the abstract necessity of 'dual power' to the revolutionary process . The forms and modalities of dual power, the kinds of organs which will directly express working-class and popular demands, must be concretely specified, as must their relation to parliamentary representation . And such answers must face the repeated failure of Leninist soviet structures either to embody popular democracy at the level of the state or to protect the elementary individual and civil liberties essential to any political process with real democratic content . In Britain, we can note increasing efforts to move beyond the abstract antithesis of 'reformist' and 'insurrectionary' positions, or, what is the same thing in our domestic circumstances, beyond strategies based on parliamentary misconceptions as against those confined by their unreality to economistic agitation . The corresponding theoretical positions are well known : those which see the state and, in particular, state expenditure, as primarily a field of class conflict and those which insist on its connections with the logic of accumulation . The recent paper by Holloway and Picciotto

1977) makes an important move towards a synthesis in this debate . Although their arguments appear to reject the AES, we consider this to be a result of ambiguities and errors which are not intrinsic to their approach . Because of the importance of these writers to debates in the CSE, we spell out our differences with them in an appendix .) Directly on the question of political strategy, we can see an important

convergence in recent contributions by Hodgson (1977) and Miliband (1977) . Despite the major differences that remain, for example on whether the Labour Party can serve as a vehicle for revolutionary transformation, there is considerable agreement on the dilemmas of present strategic thinking, and on the kind of combination of constitutional action with mass mobilisation which could present a real challenge to the state in conditions of advanced capitalism .



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The Politics of the AES We believe the struggle for the AES could play a key role in such a mobilisation and such action . Its central demands are certainly limited-an expansion of the economy, real wage increases, restoration and renewed growth of public expenditure . Clearly, none of these measures in itself has necessarily even an anti-capitalist, let alone a revolutionary, significance . Their direct importance lies only in the possibility of mass support for such measures, since they speak to the immediate impact of recession, cuts, and wage freezes on the working class and its potential allies . However, three factors give the AES meaning as a potential socialist strategy if the labour movement can be brought to fight for it . Firstly, it is a unifying programme . Much theoretical attention has been paid to the conflictof interests which can divide direct producers from state employees ('productive' from `unproductive' workers) in this crisis. The AES advances a programme to overcome such divisions as the level of political practice . Secondly, the central demands of the AES take on major importance from the context in which they are advanced . The intensity of the crisis in which economic expansion is proposed means that such measures would necessarily conflict with the interests of big capital, since they break with the pattern of capital restructuring and reorganisation which is now being imposed jointly by the pressures of the world market and by state intervention . In the present situation, therefore, even the limited demand for

expansion can precipitate massive contradictions in the capitalist economy . Finally, and of key importance, is the point that the AES anticipates

the resulting conflicts, and outlines specific measures of democratic control to meet the first responses of capital to a popular expansionist policy . Thus effective measures are demanded to break the international freedom of big capital, with a programme of both nationalisations and indirect controls to guarantee the growth of production and the possibilities of further economic development . It is this that distinguishes the AES from reformist programmes aimed at stabilising capitalism, without challenging capitalist social relations . By contrast, the AES represents a transitional strategy(5), capable of mobilising working class struggle around immediate issues within an overall and coherent framework of advance towards socialism . It is this that determines the relationship between specific demands in the strategy . Thus the AES raises short term demands and advances solutions concerning immediate issues such as living standards, unemployment, social services, which offer the basis for a broadly based movement . At the same time, the solutions offered represent partial challenges to existing capitalist relations and the processes of restructuring that are taking place . If successful, such challenges pave the way for more fundamental challenges to capitalist relations raising the issues of democratic planning and control, and play an educative role in broadening and developing the movement . Thus within the AES may be found immediate demands, around which present struggles may be organised, but linked integrally with longer run demands within an overall perspective of advance towards socialism .

C. & C.-F



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Left Objections to the A ES The measures proposed in the AES to challenge the freedom of international capital have been strenuously attacked by some groups of the left . Import controls, for example, have been attacked for being chauvinistic, exporting unemployment and, therefore, dividing the international working class(6) . This argument represents a childish economic fallacy, for itignores the fact that any means of reducing imports (or, indeed, of expanding exports) threatens employment in other countries, and that this is just as true of currency depreciations and fiscal deflation as of quantitative restrictions . More importantly, it views this demand in isolation from the strategic demand for economic expansion, in the context of which the objective is not to reduce the level of imports, but rather to plan the growth of imports to match foreign exchange earnings and to determine their composition in accordance with social priorities . The objective of the AES is notautarky but autonomy . Other objections centre on the argument that obstructions to the international division of labour is a form of Luddism, blocking the progressive development of capitalism . This is an equally fallacious glorification of capital's crisis-ridden path of accumulation, and neglects the reorganisational potential of state economic intervention . It is also suggested that import controls are simply a reflection of inter-imperialist rivalry. This ignores the fact that capitals are increasingly nationless and that inter-imperialist rivalries cannot simply be constructed along the lines of national economies . The concrete problem for socialist strategy is this : internationalisation of capital is being accelerated by the present crisis, as regards both the international division of labour and, dictated by this, trans-national superstructures (as witness the growing trend towards 'multilateralism' in imperialist circles) . At the same time, however, the nation state remains the decisive focus for political power. In this context, the demand for greater national control represents a challenge to the process of restructuring through internationalisation that is currently taking place . Given the weakness of international working class organisation, such a challange can only be effectively conceived and implemented at the level of the nationstate . All socialist movements must confront this contradiction, which drives them to modify their analysis of the place of a national economy within an international structure which is largely beyond their control . Certainly there is no simple answer to such problems, but it is simply defeatism to renounce in advance any unilateral action in the sphere of world economy . On the question of nationalisations versus planning agreements or other coercive measures against monopoly enterprises which stop short of public ownership, it must be stressed that what is central here is neither legal (who is to 'own' an enterprise) nor moral ('nationalise everything under workers' control') . The central issue is political power, and this is not necessarily advanced by wholesale national isations, particularly when any left government will face intense resistance within state institutions . The genuine socialisation of the means of production depends on extensive democratisation of both the state and the organisation of industry . To



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saddle a workers' administration with a thousand detailed problems of economic management at a time when such democratisation is barely launched may only serve to seal its fate in advance .

The Importance of the AES Here, then, we have the strategic core of the AES : the initial economic expansion and redistribution of income are recognised as contradictory, and the response to the contradictory developments is essentially aggressive, attacking the power of big capital domestically and through its foreign connections . The outcome is not socialism-but a resolution of the crisis conditioned to the maximum extent by working class and other democratic forces . The perspective would then be for further and more decisive struggles in which the room for manoeuvre of capital is greatly reduced while the popular forces are in a position to advance more developed and radical programmes. In our view, the potential content of such an economic strategy cannot be lightly dismissed : it is rooted in the direct experience of economic crisis as it bears on working people ; it works to unify the demands of different sections of the working class ; and the developmental aspects of the strategy offer a resolution of the crisis in the interests of working people, which is to say that the alternative of the AES is concrete, not propagandistic. SECTION 2 THE AES AND THE LABOUR MOVEMENT The aim of this second section of the paper is to provide a critical review of the contributions to the development of an Alternative Economic Strategy from different sections of the labour movement . Whilst there are differences in emphasis and variation in content, what is most important from our point of view is the significant degree of consensus on the form and basic elements of such a strategy ; in this consensus lies the enormous potential strength of the AES as a focus for mobilisation . The analysis of the first section suggests two central criteria by which we may assess the individual contributions . Firstly, to what extent does the strategy proposed simply provide solutions to the crisis within the constraints of the existing political and economic relations, and to what extent does it envisage a progressive transformation of those constraints? This may be illustrated by reference to the widely supported demands for reflation and a return to free collective bargaining. These demands stem from the desire to improve working class living standards, to reduce unemployment and restore a measure of autonomy in pay bargaining to individual unions and shop stewards. However, as they stand the demands are insufficient, as they are met by intensified wage controls and by further deflation . The alternative is to relate these demands to a broader strategy which attacks the subordination of production to capitalist control and the law of value . This raises two important questions. The first is that the AES has developed in a situation in which the secular decline of British industrial capital has been overlaid by the world economic crisis . In these circum-



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stances the state has adopted what is in effect a

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for

restoring profitability, in which the effects of the crisis are mediated by state intervention to encourage the internationalisation and centralisation of capital, and by control of public spending and restraint of private consumption . The consequence is that it is not possible to challenge individual elements of that strategy without counterposing an AES . The outcome of a piecemeal approach is either subordination to the logic of 'sound economic management' or defeat. The former is a result not simply of ideological consent, but of a particular process of politicisation which takes the form of integration of trade union leadership into the formulation of government policy, most visibly exemplified in the Social Contract . This process involves a considerable politicisation of certain issues, most notably wages, but in such a way as to undermine the traditional economic strength of the workforce organised at the point of production, while other issues, in particular unemployment, are excluded from negotiation and thus 'depoliticised' . The failure to go beyond a piecemeal approach goes a long way to explain the defeat of the campaign against the public expenditure cuts. Consequently, and this is the second point, the demand for reflation is no longer simply a 'keynesian' measure, but poses a direct challenge to the constraints that are accepted in the strategy adopted by the state and expressed in their simplest form in the terms of agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) . The second, closely related, criterion by which we assess the contributions is the extent to which the strategy proposed is able to generate proposals which can be quickly political mobilisation by combining realised, and which meet present concerns within a strategic framework for medium and long term changes which move the economy towards socialism . There are three points here . Firstly a strategy which is not orientated towards the central concerns of the working class, principally unemployment and living standards, cannot hope to gain the widespread support essential for successful mobilisation (it is for this reason that we take as our starting point the debates within the labour movement rather than constructing an idealised strategy on an a priori basis) . Secondly, that mobilisation is an integral part of the AES ; it must not be seen as an alternative set of policies offered to the state and operated simply at the level of the state . In this context the contrast between the attitude of the labour movement to the international economy and the domestic economy is significant. International bodies such as the EEC and the IMF are viewed with scepticism, as enemies attempting to impose unnecessary and undesirable conditions upon the British economy, while the British government is often seen as simply pursuing mistaken policies which the advice of the labour movement can correct . Thus the AES can be seen to require a transformation of political practices as well as of economic objectives . The varying demands for industrial democracy may be seen as one example, unfortunately isolated, of the recognition of this requirement. The third point is that the form of the proposals is only meaningful in terms of the struggle for their implementation . Planning Agreements, for example, can be supported as an essentially technocratic planning measure



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as when the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs describes them as a better means of 'co-ordinating public policy and private industries' intentions' (ASTMS 1976) . The Institute for Workers' Control (IWC), on the other hand, sees planning agreements as an integral part of the movement for workers' control . Here we consider only three elements of the strategy : reflation with associated fiscal changes, the industrial strategy which is closely tied to industrial democracy, and international aspects of the AES . This implies major omissions-price controls, for example or the control of financial institutions-but is sufficient for a preliminary political characterisation . The demand for reflation

Central to the AES is the demand for a structured reflation of the economy. It stems from refusal to accept present levels of unemployment and as such militates against the entire thrust of existing economic policies based on regulation of the reserve army of labour. We begin by considering those policies geared directly to expansion of the economy and reserve for later discussion the constraints which are counterposed to these policies, in particular those associated with external balance . Each demand for reflation should be examined for the extent to which it goes beyond a simple keynesian dispute over the appropriate level of demand expansion and aims at the appropriation from capital of control over the means of generating output expansion . Although the demand for reflation is a common element in most formulations of the AES, there are significant differences in the approaches adopted to the problem of reducing unemployment, in particular between private and public sectors . The industrial unions tend to place faith in a policy of reflation that involves holding welfare expenditure under control whilst diverting resources to the manufacturing sector to raise the level of employment . However, under the control of capital such resources tend to be accumulated at the expense of the relative expulsion of living labour from the production process, and thus the increases in output have to be set against productivity in calculating the effect on unemployment . This is the point of departure of the public sector unions whose interests are most directly damaged by the policy of cuts in public expenditure as a means of expanding manufacturing investment . They see the expansion of employment in the public sector as the only means of reducing unemployment, as industrial employment must at best remain static . For the Civil and Public Servants' Association and the Society of Civil and Public Servants 'a solution to the problem of unemployment must be sought through a comprehensive policy of planned growth of the public sector . . . The starting point must be the acceptance of the fact that on any realistic estimates of the long term growth of the economy manufacturing industry cannot provide enough jobs for all those who need them .' (CPSA/SCPS, 1975) . On this rests their case for the restoration of the cuts in public expenditure. The issue of public spending cuts shows how damaging such divisions can be . While the public sector unions fought a consistent and cogently argued campaign against the cuts, the ambivalence of the industrial unions

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towards the fatal charm of diverting resources to the manufacturing sector stood in the way of united opposition . The TUC-Labour Party Liason Committee put it bluntly : 'We must give far greater emphasis to the needs of manufacturing industry. That is why the government has decided to level off public spending from April 1977 onwards .' The General and Municipal Workers Union (GMWU) was uneasy : 'While supporting the government's industrial strategy' the executive of the union recommended that congress should 'register its concern' at the implications of 'some of the cuts in public services and in public sector investment programmes .' The ASTMS was open in its concern at the'unmistakeable and alarming' trend in the purchase of government securities by financial institutions in 1975 . But even the Treasury is able to see that there is no necessary connection between the growth of public expenditure and the denial of resources to industry. It concludes in its evidence to the Wilson Committee that 'it is however doubtful whether the level of public sector expenditure and the size of the PSBR over the last three years have in fact made much difference on balance to the flow of funds to private industry or have inhibited investment. . . . There is no evidence that there have been real constraints on the supply of funds to industry' (Wilson Committee, 1977) . Thus the labour movement needs an overall strategy uniting sectional interests to ensure that investment takes place whether or not the bourgeoisie considers that there are financial constraints . Stemming from their view of the limited possibilities for an expansion of manufacturing employment, industrial unions have begun to argue for a redistribution of existing work, through reductions in the working week to 35 hours without loss of pay, reduction of overtime working, elimination of moonlighting, and earlier retirement . Although reflected in TUC policy this demand is promoted more with an air of wishful thinking than hard reality. The 1977 TUC Economic Review recognises that 'the unilateral introduction of the 35 hour week in Britain (without loss of pay) would cause difficulties in relation to international competitiveness and that is why an international approach is vital : There is unfortunately no recognition of the potential use by capitalists of work sharing as a means of intensifying the work process and ultimately leading to a limited effect on the expansion of employment even if output expands . Nothing illustrates better the absence of neutrality in the pursuit of economic objectives, and the need to wrest control and not just concessions from capital . Our view on this question is that the challenge to the 'three 49's' (the norm of working a 49 hour week, 49 weeks in a year for 49 years) has been and must continue to be a vital part of a long term working class strategy . But in the current crisis the demand for work sharing must not been seen as a substitute for an AES which confronts the restrictions on output rather than accommodating them . Without getting involved in technical questions of fiscal and monetary policy, it is worth mentioning the issue of taxation . A reflation necessitates, at least initially, an increase in the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR), the focus of so much attention and the target of so many attacks currently. The CPSA/SCPS note that on OECD figures the public sector

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deficit was a higher proportion of Gross National Product in Germany and Japan than in the UK in 1975-the year when public spending was supposedly out of control . And the TUC in its 1978 Economic Review quotes NIESR estimates that with current tax rates a level of 600,000 unemployed would give a public sectorsurp/us of £2 billion (as against the £7 billion deficit associated with present levels of unemployment) . An increase in employment would generate additional tax revenue and reduce unemployment-related expenditure to offset the initial rise in PSBR, and permit either tax cuts or, envisaged by the AES, the increases in public expenditure . (OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, to which all the advanced capitalist countries belong, NIESR, National Institute for Economic and Social Research, a semi-official research body .) Further most contributions recognise that a progressive restructuring of the tax system is essential to the programme . As well as challenging the spurious equation of incentive and inequality this would involve a number of specific measures to eliminate the poverty trap and remove particular imbalances in the tax structure . Taxation is an instrument of control and appropriation ; it can be used as such by the labour movement. Industrial strategy Intimately connected to the plans for reflation is the industrial strategy contained within the AES . It is also probably subject to the greatest variation of interpretation in spite of the unanimous and now ritual demands for £1 billion for the NEB and planning agreements (PA's) with the top 100 companies . We begin by reviewing the economic background to the strategy, a formulation developed by the Labour Party in opposition in 1970-74, and then consider the relation between this and the government's current strategy together with the ambivalent attitudes adopted by the labour movement . The decline of the manufacturing sector in Britain has been well documented . The low level of investment per capita in manufacturing industry is legendary (in 1962-73 it was roughly 30% of that in the US, 50% of that in France and 60% of that in Japan and Germany) and the flow of investment overseas is increasingly recognised (in 1976 the UK invested abroad £1,735m-37% more than Germany, 69% more than France and 176% more than Japan) . The structural imbalance of industry as a whole is indicated by the low income-elasticity of demand for UK exports (0 .57-OECD estimate) compared with the high income elasticity for imports (estimated by Panic at 1 .82) . Against this background of economic failure it is argued that traditional macroeconomic policies have failed to reverse the declining spiral engendered by these structural deficiencies, and consequently there must be a shift in approach which is both necessitated and made possible by the accelerated concentration of industry . As Holland (1978) writes, `100 companies account for some half of manufacturing output and employment ; 75 companies account for half of direct or visible export trade ; 50 companies account for some half of industrial assets or capital .' The industrial strategy ''was 'vital to the policies developed by the



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Labour Party in opposition . The 1973 programme wrote that 'the basis for our planning rests on three major pillars-each one of which is essential to its success : new public enterprise-and most especially the creation of a state holding company, to establish a major public stake in manufacturing industry ; the planning agreements system : a completely new system, which will place all our dealing with the major companies onto a systematic and coherent basis ; a new industry act-to provide the next Labour government with all the industrial powers it needs to meet its economic obiectives' . The role envisaged for PA's was essentially one of interaction between the plans of government and the large companies . Although 'a major move towards industrial democracy and a reassertion of parliamentary respons • ibility' were recognised as necessary, it is clear that the agreements would effectively exclude all but token working class participation . It would only be the state that could invoke sanctions, to ensure that individual firms acted in accordance with 'the nation's economic objectives' . The crucial question of the relation between the interests of the workers in an individual firm and those objectives was studiously ignored . As for the NEB the list of potential 'tasks' which it could tackle was impressive : 'These are briefly : job creation, especially in areas of high unemployment ; investment promotion ; technological development; growth of exports ; promoting government price policies ; tackling the spread of multinational companies ; the spread of industrial democracy ; import substitution' . The rationale was that through exercising controlling interests in 'some 25 of-our largest manufacturers' in 'potentially the most profitable areas of manufacturing', 'the previous gap between the economic plans of the government and the actual policies pursued in the private sector would be more effectively bridged' . Competition with dynamic, innovative, publicly owned firms would force the remaining firms to follow their lead in pricing, investment and plant building, 'in order to protect their market share and profits' . We recognise the inadequacy of these proposals . However, we do see them as an attempt to confront the central problem of the constraints on the labour movement, providing the instruments necessary to begin a challenge to the autonomy of capital . It-is important, therefore, to contrast the proposals with the actual industrial strategy adopted by the Labour government . The Industry Act passed at the end of 1975 established a NEB with limited financial resources (actually £700m over 5 years) to be operated under restrictive guidelines, and preoccupied with the transfer of ownership and control of firms rescued by the government, principally British Leyland and Rolls Royce . Of the 37 companies in which the Board currently holds a stake, in only 6 does the stake amount to over f5m and only one of these (Fairey Engineering) was acquired by the Board rather than transferred to it. The outlook of the Board owes more to Thomas Tilling (a private industrial holding company built up with money paid in compensation for the nationalisation of transport interests) than to the industrial policy subcommittee of the Labour Party. In the Act, PA's became a 'voluntary arrangement as to the strategic plans of the body corporate'. The only one completed is that with Chrysler, and £162 .5m



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for a confidential document with little bearing on the performance of the company hardly constitutes an advance towards socialist planning(7) . To the government's actual strategy these developments are peripheral . As spelt out in the White Paper (1974), 'The government intends to give greater weight, and more consistently than hitherto, to the need for increasing the national rate of growth through regenerating out industrial structure and improving efficiency. For the immediate future this will mean giving priority to industrial development over consumption or even our social objectives'. The principal elements of this strategy are the restoration of profitability through wage restraint and tax concessions (e .g . the relief on stock appreciation, November 1974), reduction in interest rates through cuts cuts in public expenditure, a series of investment and restructuring incentives (largely assistance under sections 7 and 8 of the Industry Act of 1972), and lastly sectoral studies undertaken by tripartite sector working parties within the framework of the National Economic Development Council (NEDC) . The position of the unions has been ambivalent . The TUC Economic Review in 1974 called for corporate plans to be published, and supported a 'public investment agency, but doesn't mention the NEB . In the 1975 Review the proposals of the White Paper- (1974), The Regeneration of British Industry (the prospectus for the Industry Act), were supported, and the importance of planning at all four levels of the economy-the

workplace, firm, industry and whole economy-is recognised, with a significant emphasis on the level of the firm where key decisions are made . However rather more attention is given to the NEDC and its associated network of industrial committees, which is regarded as 'ideally suited' to carrying out the role of coordination of strategy (an enthusiasm which contrasts with the TUC's justified suspicion of the NEDC when it was established by the Conservatives in 1962) . The 1977 Review states that the TUC is 'fully committed to the [government's] industrial strategy' as it emerged out of NEDC proposals at the end of 1975, but insists that 'any attempt to derive an industrial strategy based solely on the sectoral approach is doomed to failure'. This theme also came over strongly at a conference organised by the TUC in October 1977, the proceedings of which were published in TUC (1978) . A GMWU document reviewing the performance of four SWPs (sector working parties) in the chemical industry illustrates the importance of going beyond the identification of problems at the sectoral level, to the implementation of decisions at the level of the firm, the point stressed by the TUC . Given the indivisibilities arising from chemical technology, (the SWPs envisaged the construction of a maximum of four Ethylene Crackers in the UK over a ten year period, even if the potential for the utilisation of North Sea gas liquids as feedstock was fully exploited), participation by the state in such decisions .would be essential . It is precisely this shift to the level of the firm that is so steadfastly opposed by capital, as it raises

the issues of disclosure of information and the extension of collective bargaining into the crucial area of the firm's strategic planning . Even Varley's attempt to initiate 'planning discussions' as a compromise appears to have failed .



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In the light of this experience some comments can be made on the industrial strategy demands of the AES . Firstly, the problems are real : they cannot be dismissed on the ground that the responsibility lies with capital . The challenge is to enforce a resolution of the crisis which furthers the interests of the working class . Secondly, there is significant consensus on the form of the proposals, although as pointed out above the content is more important . Different contributions give differing emphasis to each aspect ; e .g. the Communist Party stresses nationalisation of key firms, ASTMS is concerned with the flows of capital more generally, public sector unions emphasise planning and the IWC naturally stresses the importance of workers' control . Thirdly, the demand for planning agreements is empty unless tied to the extension of union control over decisions, whether expressed in terms of the extension of collective bargaining, industrial democracy, or workers' control . Lastly the demand for more funds at the disposal of the NEB must be accompanied by a much deeper analysis of its potential role . There is a tendency to see it simply as plugging a gap in the capital market . The problem however is not the availability of finance but the control of the flows of capital . In particular such control must be made responsible to the workers in the firms affected, and must seek to replace commercial by use-value criteria as the basis for action . The Lucas corporate plan indicates the possibilities in this respect . Otherwise planning agreements become contracts ensuring that government resources are available for whatever plans have been previously determined by companies, while the NEB becomes an instrument to ensure the state-sponsored restructuring of production necessary to restore the conditions of capitalist accumulation . What we have tried to emphasise is that the industrial strategy pursued by government is fundamentally different in principle to the industrial strategy of the AES, which we see as developing out of the proposals for control of industry through planning agreements, an interventionist NEB, nationalisations, and control over the financial system . What is essential is that planning is not seen as either a technical question of coordinating flows of capital and investment decisions, but is recognised as requiring control through the exercise of sanctions by labour and the state . This clearly poses important questions as to the extent to which such control can be exercised over a capital which is international, but the move towards extending collective bargaining to cover issues of corporate strategy represents a vital element in this process .

International Aspects of the A ES An essential part 'of the AES is a policy on Britain's relation to the world economy, and elements of such a policy are contained in various contributions from the labour movement, covering (i) control of imports, (ii) control of capital movements, (iii) policy towards transnational companies (TNC's), and (iv) policy towards the f sterling . Here we shall be predominantly concerned with the first of these, partly because it has proved to be the most contentious issue on the left whilst remaining more or less uncontroversial among trade unions, partly because it has received



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the most attention within the labour movement, and partly because consideration of it sheds light on the broader approach of the AES towards the internationalisation of capital . In our view, the policies proposed represent a challenge to the control by capital of the internationalisation of its commodity, money and productive forms, and in particular to the role of British imperialism in the world economy. The economic control of capital requires and derives partly from the free circulation of its various forms, a process which leads to the establishment of parallel networks of social and political organisation . By challenging these aspects of the internationalisation of capital the AES, as will be argued below, represents a challenge to this important international dimension of the economic and social power of capital . Major sections of the British labour movement have expressed their support for the extension of controls on imports, and there is no doubt that this demand distinguishes the AES from the type of resolution of the economic crisis that is beingsoughtby the Labour government. Its adoption would also mark a significant break with the international rules and agreements that governed international trade since 1945, that is those rules embodied in thee constitutions of the IMF and the EEC. The questions that concern us here are the nature of the arguments for import controls, the types of controls envisaged and their relationship to a strategy of transition to socialist economy . One argument for import controls arises from the consequences of inflation for the balance of payments . A NALGO document expressed the point thus : "if the economy were to be re-expanded without selective limitation of imports, however, it is certain that the situation would present a trade deficit of impossible proportions . This factor lends powerful support to the argument for re-expansion with fixed limits on imports'(8) . However, if the balance of payments argument for import controls is not elaborated further, it presents the issue as a technical one of balance of payments adjustment for which a new instrument of state intervention is required, so that the existing structures of power and control may be granted a new lease of life . What then are the other arguments for import controls? Probably the most detailed case for import controls from within the labour movement has been put by the TUC in various issues of the TUC annual Economic Review. The TUC has put a number of arguments for extending what it is careful to refer to as 'temporary selective import controls'. Its main argument is that import controls are a necessary measure for the short term protection of domestic industries that may in the longer term be expected to become efficient, but for various reasons (low investment, poor management and organisation) are being forced into decline and possible extinction as a result of foreign competition . Controls on imports are thus seen as part of its programme to restructure industry, via state intervention and trade union participation through planning agreements, and are thus an element in the industrial strategy. Another argument identified by the TUC is the increased pace of technological change . It has called for the establishment of a 'social clause' under the GATT which would permit protection for industries 'where the



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spread of technological change outpaces the rate at which resources, both of capital and labour, can be shifted to alternative uses . . . . This will mean the linking of trading measures to an active employment policy' . The TUC also calls for powers to restrict imports if these are produced where conditions, of health and safety of the work force are inferior to those permitted in the home economy . The TUC argues that the relocation of production in areas of low labour costs and poor working conditions is a consequence of the reorganisation of production by TNC's, and calls for a system of planning agreements to be established which would involve government and trade unions in scrutiny of investment, pricing and financial policies of TNC's operating in the U .K . There is no doubt that the TUC views represent a progressive and radical challenge to the existing policy whereby the U .K . and other weaker economies attempt to persuade the stronger to ref ate, while the latter are more concerned about the inflationary consequences and the benefits (to capitalist control) from imposing `financial discipline' on the weaker . The policy asserts the primacy in the short term of restructuring domestic industry and improving living standards over the criteria inherent in the rules of the IMF and the GATT. These rules were designed precisely to prevent or make difficult the discretionary intercession of governments to alter the pattern of production and trade that would result from the operation of the law of value on the international level . The TUC approach is however inadequate and contradictory in one important aspect . It is in fact unable to reject the law of value as the fundamental basis upon which international trade should be conducted and determined . Its measures are seen as means to restructure the U .K. economy so as to be better able to compete in world markets in the future, presumably when import controls can be removed . It does not seek to challenge explicitly and openly market principles (which mean capitalist control) in trade, but advocates measures to alleviate and remove the element of crisis that is an inherent part of restructuring under capitalist social relations . However, there is no doubt that were its policies to become adopted, and commodity trade to become subject to even the low degree of planning that import controls along TUC lines would entail, it would surely be difficult to reverse the process. A more thorough-going and explicit rejection of liberal trade rules is argued by Sedgemore (of the Tribune Group) and by the Cambridge Political Economy Group (1974), and a similar theme is taken up in various publications of the IWC and in policy statements by Benn . `The international monetary system and the rules of world trade have broken down', argues Sedgemore (1977) . `They can no longer provide for full employment or sustained growth in the Western world . . . We shall only emerge from the slump of the seventies through planning and protection inthe 1980's'. Subservience to the rules of the IMF, the GATT and more recently the EEC have meant that the external position-the trade balance-has been the independent factor in determining economic events while domestic employment and public expenditure have had to be varied to accommodate the balance of payments. Sedgemore argues that this should be changed, and imports, especially of manufactured goods, should be the dependent variable, with output, employment and public expenditure being planned



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over the long term . The Cambridge Political Economy Group sees possibilities in increasing trade with the Third World and Socialist countries through bilateral agreements, if necessary, as part of a move towards the planning of trade . It seems likely that following a break with the liberal trading system, the U .K. would find it advantageous to develop this type of trading relationship, and indeed if the U .K . met with retaliation or a boycott by other leading capitalist nations such a development would be necessary and inevitable . However such an extreme scenario is not implicit in the demand that trade should be planned and be made subject to democratic control and to domestic policy objectives, and it is quite possible to imagine that a major portion of trade patterns would be retained . The important difference is that trade would be subject to new forces, and new patterns of control . Left political objections to import controls have been discussed above, but there are in addition a number of practical objections that have been raised within the labour movement and which demand more serious consideration . These are (i) that they will lead to retaliation, a contraction in world trade, a worsening slump and declining employment and living standards, (ii) that commodity flows are increasingly determined by the international organisation of production within the TNC, and to interfere with those flows would disrupt production without attacking the root of the problem ; and (iii) that they would contribute to a sheltered, backwardlooking and inefficient economy . The first objection is inspired by the experience of the 'beggar-myneighbour' competitive currency depreciations associated with protection during the 1930's Depression . There are a number of reasons why the analogy between the situation then and the situation today is misleading . Firstly, the choice being posed today is between deflation and recession, imposed as a consequence of subjecting the domestic economy to an external balance of payments constraint without trade controls, (which inevitably relinquishes control of the foreign sector to international capital), and the directed reflation embodied in the AES . This latter leads not to less production overseas (the consequence of the 1930's trade war) but to more production in the domestic economy . As such the policy of the AES provides no ready ground or excuse for retaliatory measures by other countries in the name of defending output or employment ; any such attempts would be readily seen as explicit moves to reimpose the rules of free commodity circulation where their rejection poses possible threats in other countries . Another difference with the 1930's is that today international imbalance is largely associated with a few persistent surplus countries and these, by virtue of their large export based manufacturing sectors, have more to lose from a move towards wider protectionism . Moreover, when in the past Italy and the U .K . imposed temporary general restrictions on imports the move was accepted without retaliation or threats thereof. The second objection to import controls-that international commodity circulation is increasingly associated with the multinational organisation of production-means that the question of import controls must be seen in relation to the policy of the labour movement towards the TNC . It has



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been estimated that84%of UK direct exports came from TNC's (companies with production facilities in the UK but with their head office or subsidiaries in other countries) . Overseas production by subsidiaries of UK-based TNC's was estimated (in a U .N . study) to be twice as large as total UK direct exports. Nearly half of exports from the UK were accounted for by 50 TNC's (two-thirds by 135 TNC's) while 30% of UK exports are intragroup, or in-company trading . The UK is second only to the US in direct overseas investment . The policy of the labour movement on TNC's can be summarised in three principal demands : (i) that Planning Agreements be made compulsory on all Category 1 firms (turnover in the UK of over f50m) ; (ii) that a body to monitor inward and outward investment be set up (International Investment Review Agency-TUC ; Foreign Investment Unit-Labour Party) ; (iii) extension of industrial democracy . In its publication on the chemicals industry the GMWU made the point as follows : 'The GMWU believes in purposeful economic . planning. We have persistently advocated the introduction of Planning Agreements in order to ensure the future viability of our industry . Industry cannot develop properly without developing progressive manpower and investment policies and this is where the fundamentals of real industrial democracy need to apply' (GMWU, n .d .) . The final objection, on the tendency to stagnation, would apply if the policy were applied in isolation from the other elements of the AES . To the extent that the demand is part of a full working class programme, it loses its force . Finally, as one would expect, all sections of the labour movement have expressed opposition to the relaxation of existing controls on outward portfolio and direct investment that have been demanded recently by certain sections of British capital . As far as sterling is concerned, its role as reserve currency must be phased out since the implied restrictions on the activities of the City will forestall its status in the world economy. Conclusion In conclusion we wish to stress once again the importance of the issues raised by the AES and their centrality to any discussion of working class strategy in contemporary Britain . Firstly, the AES represents the actual thinking of the most advanced sections of the class itself . The organisations in which it is developing are all of the labour movement or closely tied to it: strategic thought in such circumstances has the impressive strength of continuous dialectic with thousands of working class militants . Secondly, as we have argued above, the commonplace dismissal by marxists of the AES as 'reformist' is absurdly simplistic . Certainly some formulations are weakened by social-democratic conceptions . But in general the AES is not only sophisticated economics, it also rests on an advanced political understanding of economic policy as a process of class struggle . By striking at the free circulation of capital in its commodity, money and productive forms and seeking to impose greater working class political control at each stage in this process, the AES seeks to render explicit the political assumptions and choices normally hidden in capital's circulation . As we haveshown the AES is at present highly amorphous-the various



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presentations always differ in particulars and often on essentials . But given the structure of the labour movement in Britain it could hardly be otherwise-any living political idea must necessarily exhibit variations of both form and substance as it penetrates organisations at once so broad, so decentralised and so heterogeneous . There are other, associated failings : the frequent subordination of key parts of the strategy to sectional interests, the frequent failure to spell out the measures involved as a coherent strategy in convincing detail . Further difficulties relate to political instrumentality-the 'how' and 'by whom' of implementation . As we have shown, many formulations of the AES are weak in this respect-often seeing the implementation of the programme as purely parliamentary, a series of tasks for a future Labour government (or even this one) . The question of mass struggle for the programme and of the organs of direct democracy which would be necessary to counter-balance the inevitable reaction in monopoly enterprises and state institutions is often neglected . It is significant here that demands for workers' control are often presented as an after-thought, when they are not absent altogether from the agenda . The dangers of these limitations in perspective are obvious . But in our view, the correct response by socialist intellectuals is not to retreat into abstract considerations divorced from the immediate concerns and debates of the labour movement . On the contrary, socialist scholars can do a great deal to overcome such weaknesses, all of which are obstacles in the fight for a powerful programme on the left . Criticism, analysis, discussion to deepen the content of the strategy and sharpen understanding of the complex problems involved would be, we suggest, a major scientific contribution to the present advance of the British workers' movement . APPENDIX HOLLOWAY AND PICCIOTTO ON POLITICAL STRATEGY Recent analysis of the state within the CSE has been very much influenced by the work of Holloway and Picciotto (1977), which represents

an important theoretical advance . Here we do not attempt a general assessment, but only to bring out as sharply as possible the differences with our own position . Holloway and Picciotto (H & P) would, we suspect, dismiss the AES as merely an expression of the 'constant undertow towards a reformist conception of revolution' . The basis for such a judgement is, however, not apparent, for H & P lack the conceptual framework even to analyse the AES, let alone to dismiss it as reformist . This weakness is symptomatic of a deeper failure, which is that H & P provide only a very underdeveloped economic analysis . Thus the laws of motion of capitalism are analysed in a very general and abstract way, as for example in their treatment of the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which is neither able to deal with the specifics of the production, distribution and circulation of surplus value, nor approach the analysis of particular historical forms, such as nationalisation . Thus, statements concerning the economic are either arbitrary or erroneous, and H & P fail to provide the framework for



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analysing political strategy, which requires a capacity to analyse the concrete effects of state intervention in the specific context of contemporary British capitalism . Again, H & P argue that `as capital is forced, in the struggle for accumulation, to strive to overcome the limitations of the state form, it tendentially undermines that particularisation of the state which is a precondition of its own existence . . . The undermining . . . does pose a threat to the mystification of the political . . . . Reformism . . . is increasingly abandoned' (p . 97) . This seems highly dubious . Indeed, in many areas, increasing state intervention may well have the opposite effect of consolidating the appearance of the neutrality of the state . Thus any political strategy based on the conception that growing state intervention will dissolve the neutrality of the state, and hence in itself lead to increased revolutionary consciousness in the working class, is in our view doomed to failure . What is required is a careful consideration of the implications of state intervention for revolutionary strategy in contemporary capitalism . This H & P fail to provide beyond a few banal prescriptions . Third, within their analysis, class domination, not class struggle, is the starting point for H & P's theory of the state . In consequence, their theory inevitably becomes not dialectical but functionalist . It is almost by sleight of hand that class struggle cedes its place to class domination . If we let it pass, H & P are on strong grounds for the subsequent development of their case . Is it not after all true that the capitalist class, capitalist interests, capitalist values and modes of social and political expression are dominant? It is, however, quite inadequate to leave the matter there, unless it is believed that the working class movement has been so weak and unaware as to have had no formative influence on the nature and form of state intervention in economic and other spheres . Such a belief must, of course, be rejected and the state recognised as an arena of class struggle . Indeed, this conclusion would seem to be necessitated by H & P's assertion that the state is `stamped throughout in all its institutions, procedures and ideology with the contradictions of capitalism'. Yet H & P's paper contains no serious discussion of the effects of working class intervention in the state . What we find instead are examples of how the state acts to mobilise the, countertendencies to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall-the Donovan Commission, the Industrial Relations Act, In Place of Strife, the Social Contract-suggesting a manipulative and monolithic state with solely the interests of the dominant class in mind . Yet what has become of industrial relations' legislation, and where did the initiative and political support for the social contract come from? To put the point somewhat differently, the labour movement attempts political intervention in the formation of economic policy . By implication, H & P choose not to call this class struggle . For us, it is class struggle, that must be broadened and developed, but which nonetheless provides the basis for any coherent political strategy for working class advance . Perhaps it would not be too impolite to suggest that in matters of political strategy H & P should learn from the movement that they seek to patronise, since their idealist programme hardly provides the context within which the ideas of socialist intellectuals will be acceptable to the labour movement .

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Finally, we may note that H & P offer nothing that passes as a political strategy, apart from general and abstract assertions concerning the necessity of a total struggle, unifying political and economic struggles . We agree but argue that it is only a concrete programme, combining class struggle in and around the state with popular and democratic mobilisation at all levels that offers the prospect of such a unification . The central weakness of H & P's analysis is the failure to investigate fully the relationship between class struggle, the state form and the capital relation . Thus their prescriptions for working class strategy become arbitrary and vacuous.

NOTES This is a revised version of a paper first presented at the 1978 CSE Conference and written jointly by David Currie, Ben Fine, John Grahl, Tony Millwood and Adam Sharpies . Each contributor would not agree with every point of analysis, though they agree on the substance of the argument. Our thanks are due to the other members of the London CSE Group who contributed to the discussions on which this paper was based but are in no way implicated in its conclusions . The Group, which is continuing work on the AES, can be contacted at the CSE Office, 55, Mount Pleasant, LONDON, W .C .1 . 1 See, for example, McDonnell (1978) where the AES is dismissed by an easy and false identification with the policies of the present Labour government . 2 A slightly different summary, based on TUC policy, is given by the Labour Research Department (1977) . 3 Weber (1978) is a recent example. He contrasts the specific positions of Western European CP's with a general call for 'imagination' . 4 See, for example, Anderson (1976) . 5 We use the term 'transitional' simply to mean linking two levels of struggle . We completely reject the elitism of Trotskyist transitional demands, which are supposed to precipitate revolutionary situations without the masses being aware of this implication . 6 See, for example, McDonnell, op . cit . 7 This was written before the Peugot-Chrysler takeover ended the intervention in complete fiasco . 8 We reject the strategy of devaluation, which is generally regarded as incompatible with the AES .

SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE AES Trade Union publications ASTMS, 1976, The Crisis in British Economic Planning and a Draft Planning Agreement: A Discussion Paper, London . c. & C .- G



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ASTMS, Quarterly Economic Review, various issues. CPSA/SCPS, 1975, Cuts that Puzzle, the Case Against the Cuts, London . GMWU, n .d . U.K. Chemicals-The Way Forward, London . NALGO, 1977, The Economic Situation and the Cuts in Public Expenditure, London . NUPE, 1976, Time to Change Course, London . TUC, 1978, The Trade Union Role in Industrial Policy, London . TUC, Economic Review (every March) Other Publications on AES Barratt Brown, M ., Coates, K., and Eaton, J ., 1975 An Alternative, Spokesman Pamphlet 47, Nottingham . Barratt Brown, M ., and others, 1978, Full Employment: Priority, Spokesman Books, Nottingham . Benn, T., 1976, A New Course for Labour, I WC Pamphlet 51, Nottingham . Benn, T., Cripps, F ., Morrell, F., n .d . A Ten Year Industrial Strategy for Britain, IWC Pamphlet 49, Nottingham . Bleaney, M ., 1978, 'Alternative Economic Strategy', Comment, Vol . 16 .8, (April 15) . Cambridge Political Economy Group, 1974, Britain's Economic Crisis, Spokesman Pamphlet 44, Nottingham . Holland, S ., 1975, Strategy for Socialism, Spokesman Books, Nottingham . Holland, S ., 1978, 'Social Costs and the Crisis, Workers' Control, 2 . Labour Party, 1976, Labour's Programme, London . Labour Party, 1977, International Big Business-Labour's Policy on the Multinationals, London . Labour Research, Vol . 66.11, (November) . Sedgemore, B ., 1977, The How and Why of Socialism, Spokesman Books, Nottingham . Articles on AES appear regularly in Labour Research and Workers' Control . Other References Anderson, P., 1976, 'The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci, New Left Review, 100, (November-January) . Hodgson, G ., 1977, Socialism and Parliamentary Democracy, Spokesman Books, Nottingham . Holloway, J ., and Picciotto, S ., 1977, 'Capital, Crisis and the State', Capital and Class, 2, (Summer) . McDonnell, K ., 1978, 'Ideology, Crisis and the Cuts', Capital and Class, 4, (Spring) . Miliband, R ., 1977, Marxism and Politics, O .U .P., Oxford . Weber, H ., 1978, 'Eurocommunism, Socialism and Democracy', New Left Review, 110, (July-August) . Wilson Committee, 1977, Evidence to the Committee to Reviewthe Functioning of Financial Institutions, Vol . 1 ., HMSO, London . White Paper, 1974, The Regeneration of British Industry, HMSO, cmnd . 5710, London . White Paper, 1975, An Approach to Industrial Strategy, HMSO, cmnd . 6315, London .

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BRITISH TRADE UNIONS AND THE CUTS R.H. Fryer

THE LIMITS OF BRITISH UNIONISM Persistent amongst `left' critiques of British trade unionism have been the charges of irredeemable economism, divisive sectionalism and the emasculations of bureaucracy (1) . The declared forms of these retrictions are equally familiar ; incorporation, accommodation and reformism, facilitated by the initiatives and responses of capital in general and by the state in particular and compounded by express acceptance of Labour parliamentarianism . Often linked together, these characteristics are said to have established remarkably narrow limits to British trade unions' potential as class organisations, able to mobilise, unify and focus working class action in the pursuit of socialist demands . Explanations for these disabling features of unionism have been variously sought in labour's everyday experience of exploitation through the medium of wages and the labour market ; in the uneven and fragmentary development of capital and its associated institutions, including those of the labour process, factor markets and collective bargaining ; in organisational (and psychological) tendencies toward oligarchy and centralism deriving from the stabilisation and routinisation of trade union activity and in the focus of political struggle on constitutional reform, suffrage and parliamentary representation . Incapacitated in these ways, trade unionism at best appears to fragment working class action and confine it to the very margins of class struggle ; at worst, it threatens to demobilise the class completely. By their practical acceptance of the bourgeois separation of the realms of the economic and the political and by their uncritical use of the fetishised and distorted concepts upon which social democracy is predicated, the unions themselves appear to have partially prepared the ground for their virtual appropriation by the state at large and by individual capitals at the point of production(2) . For all this, critics usually acknowledge the potential and significance



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of trade unionism as the primary and most deeply rooted expression of class antagonism in contemporary Britain . By virtue of the sheer numbers of workers involved, the density and strength of organisation in particular industries and the initiatives and relative independence of shop floor action, trade unions defy easy exclusion from a proper consideration of British working class politics . Even at times of palpable set-back and defeat, trade unionism remains crucial to resistance against attacks on working class life ; Labour and Conservative Party attempts to constrain unionism within a legal framework were quickly frustrated and apparently successful impositions of incomes policy have been typically short-lived . In recent years, determined attempts at the wholesale restructuring of capital and employment relations, not infrequently initiated at the behest of Labour governments, have invoked novel forms of trade union action ; assertions of the 'right to work', work-ins, factory occupations, workers' inquiries, broad-based resistance to hospital closures and, the focus of this paper, the campaign against cuts in public expenditure . The cuts campaign, in common with other examples of struggle by organised labour, can be expected to embody the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the unions . What needs to be established is the extent to which identifiable limitations and possibilities are inherent qualities of trade unionism as such, and the degree to which they are best understood as contingent features of unionism, comprehensible within relatively specific historical circumstances . As a contribution to such a task, it is the aim of this paper to measure the well-established criticisms of British unionism outlined above against an examination of the trade union campaign against cuts in public expenditure . As McDonnel (1977) has written, 'the most important source of opposition to the cuts has been the trade union movement' . While McDonnel's claim is plainly valid, it is worth remarking at the outset that opposition to specific cuts has come from many quarters-Conservative Party, military, sections of the state administrative bureaucracy, sections of capital etc . It is also important to underline the fact that, organisationally at least, there has been no single trade union campaign against the cuts, although it is possible analytically to identify the key elements of opposition which make up the campaign . In so doing, attention may be concentrated upon the promise of the union campaign and upon what appear to be the reasons for its demise . BACKGROUND TO THE CUTS Public expenditure has expanded dramatically in Britain during the present century . At the end of the first decade of the century, public expenditure accounted for about one eighth of GNP ; by 1974 the proportion had grown to over half. In 1974, the 'big spenders' in public expenditure terms were Social Security, £6,845 million, accounting for 16 .4% of the total, followed by Commerce and Industry (f5,374m ; 12 .9%), Defence (f4,889m 11 .7%), Education (f4,864m ;11 .7%), Health (f4,778m ;11 .5%), Housing (f3,942m ; 9 .5%) and Debt (f3,732m ; 9 .0%) (3) . An elaborate division of responsibilities and complex system of controls over public



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expenditure have arisen between central and local government and within the National Health Service, prompting the Layfield Committee (19,76) (4) to comment that, when it examines Local Authority finance in order to discover the system, `instead of a system it found a collection of Whitehall controls, whose role and impact were imperfectly understood by those required to use them, taxes imperfectly related to expenditure and a system of grants which had served to conceal from local councillors and their electorate the actual cost of local government services' . A key argument of those calling for limitations on and cutbacks in public expenditure has been precisely the inherent inefficiencies of the system, together with its alleged central contribution to the rate of inflation, through a growth in taxation and the money supply, and the serious consequences for manufacturing industry of alternative employment untempered by incentives and the discipline of a requirement to compete in the market . The recent chronology of reductions in public expenditure by the Labour Government is familiar enough : the Public Expenditure White Paper for 1976 (Cmnd 6393) envisaged a levelling off in public expenditure ; Cash Limits on Public Expenditure (Cmnd 6440) of April 1976 imposed cash limits on about three-quarters of central Government expenditure other than social security benefits ; additional measures affecting 1977-78 were announced in July 1976 and a further set of cuts resulted from the IMF visitation in December 1976 and were designed to affect 1977-78 and 1978-79 . The 1977 Expenditure White Paper (Cmnd 6721) envisaged a further reduction in expenditure for 1977-78 and a year of overall stabilisation or minor improvement in 1978-79, but with continuing reductions in Education, Defence, Roads and Housing amongst the `big spenders'. The expected cumulative effects of these successive announcements of cuts have been set out, programme by programme, in Breakdown : the crisis in your Public Services produced by the trade union National Steering Committee Against the Cuts . For example, the expected out-turn in roads and transport was successive expenditure reductions of 1 .9% (1975/6), 7 .3% (1976/7), 19 .9% (1977/8) and 24.5% (1978/9) . While the volume of the road and transport programme had grown by 7 .4% annually between 1971-75, it was expected to reduce annually by the same amount (7 .4%) each year from 1975 to 1979, despite an expected traffic increase of ten per cent over the same period . In housing and other environmental services, cuts were expected to bite deeper as the years passed : in 1978, on top of previous cuts in expenditure, spending on housing was planned to reduce by 10.8% and on other environmental services by 19 .5% . In education (together with libraries, science and arts) the planned cuts in spending were 0 .8% in 1976/7, 6 .0% in 1977/8 and 10 .3% in 1978/9 . The expected impact of the successive rounds of cuts is sharply revealed by expenditure index figures, with 1974/5 as a base of 100 in each case . By 1978/9, it was envisaged that the reductions would result in indices of 80 in roads and transport, 83 in housing, 86 in other environmental services and 98 in education, libraries, science and the arts. Such growth as was expected by 1978/9 was modest, again revealed by expenditure index figures with 1974/5 as the base at 100 : 102 .5 in defence, 109



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lending to nationalised industries, 109 law and order, 106 health and personal social services . Exceptions to this were a growth in overseas aid (1974/5 = 100) up to 147 .6 and in social security up to 119 .7, with overseas aid representing a very small fragment of public expenditure (1 .8% in 1974/5 and 2 .8% in 1978/9) and social security a very significant proportion (19 .5% in 1974/5 and 23 .9% in 1978/9) . In the event, the impact of the cuts was, in many areas of expenditure, even greater than planned, with widespread examples of underspending in central and local government, notwithstanding the large reductions already imposed upon expenditure targets. As the Expenditure White Papers (Cmnd 7049 vols . I and II 1978) demonstrate, actual expenditure in 1977/78 amounted to an underspend of £2 .4 billion . By comparison with what had been originally planned in 1975, public expenditure in 1977/78 was reduced by almost £5 billion . Underspending it seems, was at least as significant as planned cuts in reducing public expenditure in 1977/78 . A key difficulty for the unions was, of course, the 'phoney war' nature of the initial announcements of cuts, most of which were planned for future years against previously announced expenditure programmes, especially in capital projects. This elusive feature of the cuts was only complicated as far as trade union resistance was concerned by the gradual and insidious naturee of the implementation of reductions, carried through as they were by a variety of public authorities operating in a diversity of spheres and in a sector of the economy characterised by fragmented and dispersed employment. Moreover, the cuts were more likely to take the form of reductions in the quality of provision, lowered standards of service, repair and maintenance, and the substitution of inferior materials rather than large-scale and dramatic redundancies or the sudden slashing of projects . There were some large scale dismissals, but reductions in employment were mostly achieved by non-replacement of labour lost by turnover and so-called 'natural wastage' . From September 1976 onwards to the end of 1977, Local Authority Manpower Watch statistics revealed successive reductions in numbers employed for each quarter . Over the two years from March 1976 the number of whole time equivalent local authority employees in England and Wales was reduced by almost thirty thousand in a period when there was also a marginal incerase in part-time local government employment . (5) At the same time as cuts were being implemented in central and local government, the long restructuring of the National Health Service was being carried a stage further, with first the re-allocation of resources between regions and specialisms and subsequently a declared shift in emphasis from secondary to primary care . (6) Amongst other consequences of this continuing restructuring were hospital closures and reductions in services. Trade union responses were early characterised as part of a fight against 'cuts' and were later assimilated to the wider campaign, embracing workers in all sections of public service employment. It is against this difficult and complex background that the union campaign against the cuts must be assessed, especially given the relatively



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underdeveloped organisational form of many of the unions concerned, few of which could call upon the experience of a well-established shop stewards' movement or a membership steeped in working class struggle . In short, the cuts represented a severe challenge to organised labour, in a section of the movement unaccustomed to lengthy and complex confrontation . THE GENESIS OF THE CAMPAIGN The origins of current union opposition to cuts in public expenditure date from responses to the Labour Government's proposals set out in The Attack on Inflation (Cmnd 6151) presented to Parliament in the heat of the crisis of July, 1975 which documented the terms of the £6 limit agreed with the TUG and, remarkably, included an extract from the TUC document The Development of the Social Contract. In response to government strategy, the National Union of Public Employees published an agitational document, entitled Inflation : Attack or Retreat?, which argued that a proper recognition of union responsibility for maintaining a Labour Government in office implied a duty to oppose 'short term palliatives' and to suggest instead a comprehensive set of alternative policies designed to deal with what the union identified as 'deep rooted faults in the economy . . . which require radical political intervention by the Government' . As far as NUPE was concerned, the alternative would mean that it was 'inconceivable' that the union could fight to defend its members' interests 'simply by acting through the wage negotiating machinery', there would have to be trade union action 'on a broad political level' . A little over one month after NUPE's statement, a joint publication of two civil service unions, the Society of Civil and Public Servants and the Civil and Public Services Association, set out to contradict 'the big lie' that was being perpetuated by, amongst others, the Press against civil servants . The pamphlet, Cuts that Puzzle, detailed the poor international showing of Britain in terms of the propotion of the national product taken up by public spending and went on to reject the idea that a programme of cuts would contribute to the solution of Britain's 'fundamental problems of inflation and unemployment' . The joint union publication again charted an alternative strategy to that proposed by the government, including advocating a need for the state to assume responsibility for injecting new capital into plant and machinery ; for curbing the outflow of capital ; for implementing a planned growth of the public sector and for unions to seek a shorter working week, earlier retirement and a reduction in the level of overtime working . Later in the year, at the 1975 Trades Union Congress in Blackpool, the National and Local Government Officers' Association successfully moved a composite motion critical of the government's 'arbitrary decisions in the public expenditure field' which it saw as a 'fundamental breach of the social contract' . Despite union opposition, the Government's plans went ahead and represented little more than a foretaste of the main course of cuts to be announced throughout the following year . In the meantime, the trade union response to 'cuts' and, especially, to the restructuring of the health service began to take organisational form .



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Throughout the country union branches and shop stewards committees formed organisational links to fight back . In October, 1975 the National Co-ordinating Committee against Cuts in the National Health Service was elected at a delegate conference organised by the Medical Committee Against Private Practice . The Co-ordinating Committee produced a bulletin entitled National Health which set out the implications of government spending plans for the NHS together with examples of workers' responses to the cuts. Joint union committees organised their own meetings, demonstrations, pickets and lobbies in South Wales, Birmingham, Sheffield, Tyneside, Humberside, Oldham, Manchester, Bristol, Portsmouth, Southampton and elsewhere . Some of these joint committees produced their own literature and publicised trade union demands . In Manchester, for example, a broad-based committee embracing ASTMS, ATTI, COHSE, FBU, MPU, NALGO, NUPE, NUT, The National Union of Students and National Abortion Campaign was formed in December 1975 . It published a bulletin entitled Fightback in which publicity was given to its own local demonstrations against cuts, to those of the Lancashire County Association of Trades Councils, to the National Rank and File Organising Committee's 'Right to Work' march from Manchester to London and to a Working Women's Charter conference planned for February . 1976 on 'Women and the Cuts' . It was in February, 1976 that the decision was taken to close the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital (EGA) ; the work-in by staff began later in the year, in November . In the meantime, the National Co-ordinating Committee against Cuts in the NHS, with support from NALGO and the Socialist Medical Association, began organising for a demonstration in London for the end of April . In London itself, supporters of the Hospital Worker group and the Hammersmith Hospital Joint Shop Stewards' Committee joined the TUC North West Region's Lobby of Parliament to protest against the level of unemployment . Hospital Worker also called for support to save Acton Hospital from proposed alteration of use . The trade unions nationally were also active in 1976 . In advance of the April Budget, NUPE again contributed to the debate in an economic review entitled Time to Change Course, once more calling for 'a radical interventionist industrial policy' to deal with the 'deep-seated nature of the structural problems of the economy' . In the absence of such a change of direction, NUPE proposed to confront the Government with the possibility of a general trade union retreat from an 'involvement in wages policy' (to which NUPE was already opposed in 1975) unless there was a reversal of the disastrous policies embarked upon already . If the Government cut standards of living and left only the channel of collective bargaining for unions to protect their members, then the sole route open to unions would be to seek compensatory wage increases . But this was not the approach NUPE preferred and advocated . This consisted of a long list of programmes organised under four main heads : an immediate attack on unemployment through a selective reflation of the economy, the introduction of socialist planning measures ; an end to the attack on public services ; and social measures to reduce the impact of inflation on working people and to redistribute income and wealth . These demands were repeated by



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the Union's General Secretary at the Special TUC in June 1976 where he also pointed out the dangers inherent in the social contract dialogues with the Government in which trade unionists could become 'mesmerised by the process' and fail to appreciate the power of 'international capital' and the threat of 'incorporation in the apparatus of the state' . At the same time as making such public statements, NUPE was continuing its joint meetings with NALGO at national level within which the possibility of a common approach to the government's policy of cuts was raised. The Executive Council of NUPE had also endorsed, in April two resolutions from different sections of the union ; one called for 'a massive campaign of publicity opposing the Government's present policy on public expenditure cuts' including 'organising public protests and demonstrations, where possible,'with other unions and pressure groups' and the other for 'a mass lobby of Parliament in conjunction with other sympathetic organisations to demand a reversal in the present Government policy' . Acceptance of these policies for the union coincided with the Government's proposals about Phase II of its social contract incomes policy and the TUC response, the special TUC congress and a meeting of general secretaries in public service unions . A letter was also received by the NUPE Executive Council from the CPSA and SCPS expressing a desire to be associated with a NUPE campaign against the cuts . For NUPE, discussion at the level of the Executive focussed around five issues : (i) how to combat the apparent division in the labour movement generally over public expenditure such as that exemplified by the recent speech by Hugh Scanlon (AUEW) recognising the need for cuts ; (ii) how to build unity within the government/public sector/public service unions ; (iii) how to mobilise the membership and build upon membership action against the cuts and against the hospital closures stemming from the inter-regional re-allocation of resources in the NHS ; (iv) how to reconcile the union's response to the Government's Phase I I proposals (and TUC response) with the union's overall policy set out in Time to Change Course and ; (v) how best to plan the mass lobby of Parliament . In the event, the NUPE mass lobby of Parliament was initially planned to coincide with a lobby being prepared for early November, 1976 by the TUC Southern Region, including a rally in Central Hall Westminster . Union information and propaganda circulars were distributed to branches; resolutions were prepared for the TUC and Labour Party Conferences ; a joint meeting between the entire NALGO and NUPE research staffs was held to discuss practical co-operation in the campaign against public expenditure' ; a special meeting of the NALGO/NUPE joint committee was arranged to explore an approach to other unions about a joint lobby of Parliament and NUPE itself organised for lobbies of the TUC at Brighton and Labour Party Conference in Blackpool asa build-up to the November Parliamentary lobby . Before the mass lobby of Parliament, the National Right to Work Campaign held a delegate conference in Manchester to protest against cuts and unemployment. The mass lobby of Parliament took place on November 17th, 1976 and from it developed the joint union National Steering Committee against the Cuts (different of course, from the IMG-sponsored National Co-



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ordinating Committee against the Cuts which also had a lobby of the TUC) . Part of the work of building official unity at national trade union level had been associated with another campaign, concerning private practice in the National Health Service, culminating in a joint statement distributed at the TUC by five trade unions - ASTMS, COHSE, GMWU, NALGO and NUPE (Private Practice has no p/ace in the NHS) . Initially known as the 'November 17th Steering Committee', the membership of the National Steering Committee at first comprised NUPE, NUT, NATFHE, CPSA, SCPS, ASTMS, NALGO, The National Union of Students and the TUC South East Regional Council . Meetings including COHSE in addition to the other unions were held in September and October to plan the details of the mass lobby . On the day of the mass lobby, estimates of the numbers of trade unionists taking part in the demonstration ranged from 40,000 to 80,000 and it was claimed to be the largest weekday demonstration in London since before the Second World War . In some places, one day strikes were held to coincide with the lobby and special trains and buses brought thousands of rank and file unionists into London to register their opposition to the Government's policy of public expenditure cuts. The member unions of the National Steering Committee all produced their own publicity and propaganda for the national demonstration, which also drew support from a minority of local union groups whose own unions e .g. AUEW, TGWU, GMWU, EEPTU - were not part of the Steering Committee, from a wide range of leftist political groupings (who also produced their own literature for distribution) and the Right to Work Campaign . As at the previous lobbies of the TUC and Labour Party Conference, the trade unions were careful to distinguish 'their' supporters and members from those of the latter groups, to the extent that full time officers were engaged in replacing Right to Work posters and favours given out to the union members with posters and slogans produced by the unions themselves . At the same time, care was taken not to refuse the support of political groups, whose involvement in local struggles against the cuts and in the NHS were known to the unions and valued by members from particular localities . In the wake of the massive demonstration, a meeting of General Secretaries and National Officers was held under the auspices of the National Steering Committee and decided (i) to re-establish the Steering Committee on a continuing basis ; (ii) to hold further meetings of senior full time officials of unions ; (iii) to initiate a further stage of the campaign, including egional 'days of action' of stoppages, demonstrations and lobbies ; (iv) to establish regional and local joint union committees ; (v) to explore the possibility of a delegate conference on the Social Wage and (vi) to prepare and publish joint literature setting out the argumepts against the cuts and the case for the alternative strategy . Within such a strategy particular attention was to be given not to create the impression that the constituent unions were attempting to organise a mini-TUC or alternative to the TUC. It was further agreed that each union should keep the others informed of its data collection and policy statements . NUPE, as the initiating body, would continue to provide the secretary of the National Steering Committee .

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Throughout late 1976 and the early months of 1977, the local demonstrations and days of action took place, often with strong local support from `non-member' unions of the Steering Committee (e .g. British Leyland shop stewards in Birmingham) and local struggles and campaigns (especially in the NHS) drew some strength from the general ambience of official opposition to the Government's strategy, although particular struggles were always threatened by their isolation . In March, the national delegate conference on the Social Wage took place in Central London . The Conference, addressed by two academics (John Hughes of Ruskin College and Peter Townsend of Essex University) as well as by national union officials, was attended by 200 delegates from twenty-three different unions . Although called to discuss the social wage, the conference ranged widely on the positive contribution public expenditure could make to fight the crisis of working class unemployment and falling standards of living as well as to the `rejuvenation' of the economy . (7) A few days earlier Hospital Worker and the Right to Work Campaign sponsored the National Save our Hospitals Delegate Conference, at which major arguments were that cuts cost lives, hit women especially and create a climate of opinion in which private medicine and demands for charges to NHS patients flourish . Again, the connection was made between cuts in public expenditure and unemployment . In May, at its National Conference, NUPE published the most comprehensive union review of the operation of the Social Contract to date in its Economic Review 1977 (later entitled Fightback) which also set out a detailed critique of the Government's economic strategy and the union's version of the alternative strategy to fight for . In the summer of 1977, the joint pamphlet of the unions, Breakdown : the crisis in your public services, was published in advance of a new phase of the campaign, a national week of action to start on 21 November, 1977 including a further rally and lobby of Parliament . In the event, the impact of this new phase of struggle against the cuts was far less public and less well supported and, although the National Steering Committee continued to meet, the debate in wider trade union circles began to centre more around incomes policy, tax cuts and unemployment. Ironically, it appeared that, just as the TUC extended its economic policies to include reference to the virtues of public expenditure (TUC Economic Review, 1978), the focus and determination of the union struggle itself became diffused . Again NUPE attempted to inject new initiative into the campaign by taking up the arguments of the Government about oil reserves (the Challenge of North Sea Oil, Cmnd 7143) to suggest that the 'labour movementshould not become mesmerised by the beguiling vision of alleged oil wealths' and should instead implement the alternative economic policy, including the immediate injection of £2,000 million into public spending (North Sea Oil and Economic Strategy) . Struggles in the NHS also 'continued, notably around the closures in London of EGA, Hounslow and St . Nicholas, and a rank and file group with its own paper, Fightback, was formed in February 1978 because `sheer desperation is forcing us to protest and get organised' and because, as the second edition of the paper put it, there was a need to reject 'as useless the idea of "mass pressure politics" as illustrated by the 80,000 strong march against the



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cuts in November 1976 organised by the Public Sector Trade Union Leaders' . (8) THE PROMISE OF THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CUTS Set against the routine critiques of British trade unionism, the cuts campaign excited optimism and particular features of . the struggle promised much . In the first instance, the campaign appeared to challenge traditional sectionalism, both between and within trade unions. Relations between unions, such as the NALGO/NUPE and CPSA/SCPS links, and in the National and Regional Steering Committees, represented an extension of inter-union solidarity that was impressive by any contemporary standards . A second, related feature of the promise was that the principal unions leading the campaign appeared to have leapfrogged into the front of the organised working class struggle from a position of relative inaction and obscurity a decade or so earlier . It was no accident that this had happened ; the combined effect of the increased imposition of managerialism and rationalisation by the State since the mid 1960s, the 'front-line' experience of these unions in both official and semi-official incomes policies, internal struggles for union democracy and quite phenomenal growth all contributed to the rapid transformation of the unions' positions in the class struggle . In NUPE, for example, as recently as 1970, no less than 39% of branches had no shop stewards at all . In 1974, after the 'dirty jobs' strike of 1970 and the ancillary workers' dispute of 1973, only 11% of branches had no stewards . (9) Third, the cuts campaign also offered the hope that trade union demands would transcend the limitations of narrow economism and the focus upon wages issues which had appeared to grip shop stewards and the national leadership, especially under successive phases of incomes policy . In this respect, the defence of the 'social wage' as a collective achievement universally available to the working class and the arguments in favour of the validity of the social infrastructure of education, health care etc . represented embryonic socialistic perspectives in the minds of trade unionists opposed to pure market rationality . Fourthly, the trade union struggle became the chief locus of a challenge to the monetarist orthodoxy of Treasury and IMF economic policy and represented the major pressure upon the Labour administration to carry through into policy the rhetoric of its 1973 platform and 1974 election propaganda. In this, left groups inside and outside the Labour Party drew their inspiration from and oriented their own policies towards the unions' campaign . This was especially true of the so-called Alternative Economic Strategy . (10) Although principally a trade union campaign, the operation of the struggle against the cuts went beyond the boundaries of trade union organisation and embraced political, community and issue-based groups on a broad basis, notably womens' groups concerned with health-related struggles such as that conducted at the EGA and Hounslow and groups involved in housing struggles . (11) Fringe political groups also found a forum in the campaign, in both its general and particular dimensions,

1 04 enjoying a degree of acceptance and even of legitimacy in the cautious eyes of trade unionists that was scarcely customary . Sixth, the cuts campaign provided a basis for a wide range of local actions and workplace initiatives . The implementation of state policy, the very administrative form of the state itself and neo-state bodies (Civil Service, local government, health service etc) and the varieties of political profile exhibited at the level of the local state, meant that fights against the cuts would necessarily vary in form, organisation and tactics according to local situations . This limited the scope for bureaucratic restrictions and uniformity . In this respect, the cuts campaign was both beneficiary of and contributory to the struggles for internal union democracy that were being conducted within a number of the unions involved . Seventh, an important aspect of the widening involvement within the unions and key elements of fights against the cuts was the part being played by women, including large numbers employed on a part-time basis, who were traditional targets for cuts, redundancies and rationalisation as well as being the single largestgroup by-passed by the established operation of the unions' democratic machinery . These same members also made up a sizeable section of the low-paid trade unionists who were also drawn into the fight against the Government's public expenditure policy . For many women, the struggle to save the EGA provided a focus and a symbolism that was of value in their own fights . THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN Taken together, these different elements of the union campaign against the cuts represented a distinctive phase of organised working class struggle in Britain and collectively amounted to a considerable promise of the extension of class activity . In practice, it is difficult to assess the results of the campaign especially in its predominantly bluntest form, the fight to save jobs and protect the living standards of union members . There can be no question that the mid-1970s have represented a retreat for labour in general, with unemployment rising, the value of wages falling and the welfare state in decline . Whether or not the trade union campaign against Government policy minimised or reduced the impact of the cuts and what might have been the extent of the reverses in the absence of the struggle is difficult to judge . No doubt, determined action has in some placed delayed and even reversed decisions to close or reduce hospitals and residential homes . Collective action has also obliged Councils and Area Health Authorities to tread warily where redundancies have threatened . But, equally important have been the achievements in organisation and in the heightening of consciousness. Perhaps the most lasting effect of the cuts campaign, and the one that will contribute most to other, future union struggles, has been the breadth of the campaign . For all the difficulties encountered, genuine inter-union co-operation was established in certain areas and in respect of certain issues . Members whom the union machine had traditionally passed by or excluded, especially women, were able to find a voice in the campaign, if only for a moment. Where local organisation thrived, and it did not every-



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where, workers in different occupations, different unions and different sectors of state employment began to talk and listen to each other . Nonunion organisations also found a basis for joint action with the unions in fights embracing women's struggles, housing campaigns and the defence of other local services . In each aspect of the campaign, trade unionists were engaged in active opposition to the simple-minded argument that extensive public services were luxuries made possible only by a_private manufacturing sector freed of the constraints of taxation, price and dividend control and other statutory and working class limitations on unfettered capitalism . At the same time, it is possible to identify inherent limitations and contradictions within the campaign which undoubtedly lessened the potential effectiveness of working class resistance . To some extent, the limitations appear as a logical corollory of the organisation and operation of trade unionism in general, but it also appears that the weaknesses of the campaign were specific to the current phase of union based class struggle in Britain, especially given the dominant delineation of the realm of the 'political', the unions' own links with the Labour Party and the political limitations of the Alternative Economic Strategy . The cuts campaign, in common with the cuts themselves, represented a test of British unions in a section of the organised working class which suffered as well as benefitted from its previous relative exclusion from the centres of trade union struggle . The limitations explored below help to understand why the cuts campaign is now in something of a lull, if we have not already been witnessing its demise . LIMITATIONS OF THE CUTS CAMPAIGN In general terms it can be said that the union cuts campaign has suffered as much as anything from the limitations of its virtues . The goal of inter-union solidarity has proved elusive and its pursuit has sometimes threatened to divert the unions leading the campaign from their original objectives . The wider context and political channels through which unions operate, especially their relations with the TUC, Labour Party and Government, have been sources of ambiguity, and have represented constraints upon the initial promise of the campaign . The politics and economics of the Alternative Strategy (in its many variations) have not received the careful and detailed union critique necessary and the 'alternative' has thereby constituted the least well-developed and most contradictory feature of the cuts campaign . While it would be a gross oversight to underestimate the vigour and extent of local cuts campaigns, the elaboration of the strategy and campaign nationally has been carried forward much more than at local level . In the circumstances, local struggle has proved difficult to mount and maintain and has rarely been generalised . Isolation has also typified the campaign on a whole, separated as it has been from arguably the major trade union problem during the same period ; the Government's successive phases of incomes policy . Each of these limitations on the cuts campaign requires some elaboration . While it cannot be denied that the unions involved in the cuts campaign have achieved a noteworthy degree of unity, the establishment



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of a genuinely common interest as the basis for solidarity has eluded them . A number of reasons can be suggested for the fragility of the solidarity . Although some unions can with justice defend the activities of their members in terms of the production of use values for working class consumption and reflecting working class achievement, it has not proved possible to legitimise the employment of all members of all the unions involved in the campaign in such terms . NUPE and other health service unions could with some justification argue in advocacy of the National Health Service that 'it cannot be evaluated or operated by reference to the commercial consideration applied to the production or provision of goods and services within market place economics' but rather be understood as providing 'every individual within the community' with every possible means of achieving a 'state of complete physical, mental and social well being'. (Good Health! A Policy for the NHS) (Although arguably such a goal is not sought within the current organisation of the NHS nor could it be every wholly achieved within a health service alone .) By contrast, civil servants employed in defence or in the administration of the state could scarcely defend themselves in similar terms . By the same token, the unions could not establish thorough grounds for unity as either 'public service' or 'public sector' unions . Unions organising gas and electricity supply were missing from the 'service' category and those organising steel, mines, cars, etc . were missing from the broader 'public sector' group . It has been suggested that the campaign has involved workers in the 'non-commoditised' sector of the economy and however true that may be from an analytic point of view, such a categorisation has not proved a popular rallying ground for the consolidation of thoroughgoing unity. The establishment of genuine solidarity has also been difficult for other reasons . Traditional rivalries between unions are not overcome suddenly, even if rivals now see themselves as common targets of attack by hostile forces. This is especially true where the attack takes a different form upon each of the rivals and each on occasion feels that the other should, with more justice, have borne the brunt of the assault . Thus, while

an alliance between NUPE and NALGO has been forged at national level with relative ease, parallel forms of solidarity at local level have necessarily been far more difficult to achieve and maintain, especially given the authority relation obtaining between sections of NALGO and NUPE and within NALGO itself . A further limitation of solidarity has been the deliberate absence from the cuts campaign of big unions with a not inconsiderable membership in the health service, local government, water, railways, etc ., namely GMWU, TGWU, EETPU, UCATT, NUR. For some of these unions, the reasons for keeping at arms length from the campaign may be traditional sectionalism, but more important has been their feeling that the tenor and focus of the campaign represented a real threat to the future of the Labour Government and that the campaign amounted to an attempt to set up a rival to the TUC. These unions also represent members in private and manufacturing sectors of the economy for whom the government's declared policy of 'reconstructing the industrial base' through its so-called Industrial Strategy



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has been said to depend upon at least temporary restraint on the 'luxury' of the welfare state : Marxists do not have a monopoly over the counterpoint of 'productive' and 'non-productive'. The wider division between unions whose members are employed wholly outside the sectors selected for direct cuts in expenditure and the campaigning unions has already been referred to where the (then) President of the AUEW, Hugh Scanlon, accepted the necessity in the present climate for public expenditure restraint and even reduction . Of course, the unions against the cuts have been alive to this last problem and, shifting their ground somewhat from the working class 'use-values' defence, have opposed public spending cuts on the grounds of the public services indirect contribution to the production of wealth . The social infrastructure operated by the members of these unions is said to provide the wherewithal-skilled and health labour, transport and communication, efficient administration etc-essential for the combination of capital and labour elsewhere in the system to produce . Thus 'we do not accept that the value of the NHS can be quantified by reference to the return on investment ; but those people who are incapable of grasping any concept unless it is expressed in an account book should not overlook the fact that health, as defined by the WHO, is a tangible asset which adds to the productive capacity of any market institution . Workers who do not enjoy a "state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing" cannot be efficient . Those people who insist on reducing individual workers to factors of production therefore have a vested interest in maintaining those factors in good working order' (Good Health!) Understandable though the temptation into such arguments may be in the search for union-wide unity against cuts, the argument is both tendentious (clearly not all health care is oriented towards workers or future workers) and contradictory of the earlier perspective on working class values . It comes close to basing the case for public spending on the functions it performs for capital (probably at the expense of labour) . One area in which the anti-cuts unions have enjoyed limited success with industrial unions and the TUC has been in the eventual acceptance of the claim that public expenditure cuts, particularly in capital programmes, produce unemployment generally and in particular 'productive' industries . Thus, the GMWU has recognised the need to restore certain cuts to deal with the level of unemployment and the TUC has followed the same argument. UCATT has called for the urgent injection of Government funds into capital projects-factories, roads, railways, ports, water and sewage systems, schools, houses, hospitals and nurseries-particularly as the 'construction industry is vital to the success of the Industrial Strategy' which represents the alternative to and justification for cuts in public expenditure . (Let us Build) The dilution of argument in search of trade union unity has meant that the trade unions against the cuts have been drawn into a debate whose terms of reference threaten the very validity and promise of their own campaign . This is equally true of their promulgation of an 'Alternative Economic Strategy'. It must be said that, for the most part, advocacy of the alternative only represents a conclusion to critiques of government



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strategy, although mobilisation for the alternative is a key part of the campaign . Too often the case for the alternative is more assertive and summary than spelled out in detail . To a large extent, the alternative consists of a retreat from monetarism to a variant of Keynsianism . Not only does the alternative appear to draw the unions into a debate about who is telling the truth about British public expenditure and which variant of bourgeois economics is best for the sorry plight of British capital but, in seeming to stop short at throwing a protective ring around British capital, the unions (probably inadvertently) leave open the possibility that such a strategy is as likely to provide a breathing space for capital and the capitalist state as to provide the basis for socialist demands and advance . This aspect of the union campaign is, of course, understandable in terms of unionists' acceptance of the urgency of the practical question of what is to be done, in their desire to discredit IMF and Treasury argument and in their determination to avoid the disabling conclusion that the only possible arena is totally international . However, as a political strategy, the Alternative Economic Strategy always threatened to shift the struggle away from the unions and their direct influence, and to by-pass serious arguments about the qualitative restructuring occurring in public service employment, such as social work and the NHS . A further inhibition in the cuts campaign -has been the unions' proper commitment to work as far as possible within TUC policy, constantly endeavouring to shift that policy to coincide with their own, and their genuine desire to preserve a Labour Government that they had worked to install in office in preference to the anti-union government of the Tories . Large amounts of cash, electoral campaigning, political education and sponsoring of MPs had goe into the return of a Labour Government . The coincidence of a minority Government with a major economic crisis served only to complicate matters for the unions . Despite the programme of cuts, links were preserved with the Government and union leaders argued that direct access to ministers had actually lessened the extent of cuts . Nevertheless, defence of the Labour Government has increasingly had to fall back upon registering Labour's failure to deliver the promises of the Social Contract and seeking the support of Conference, Party and Manifesto fundamentalists . Just as the unionists deliberately chose to underline that the Social Wage Conference was not an alternative to the TUC, so too they have gone out of their way to indicate that they are not advocating the socialism of some `left' party other than the Labour Party, but simply that they are seeking the implementation of Labour's own declared socialist programme for Britain . But, just as the posing of the alternative strategy has meant accepting some of the terms of the debate of those they oppose, so too, involvement in the TUC and links with the Labour Party have meant acceptance of procedural manoeuvring and a parliamentary focus, neither of which offers great opportunity for mass pressure on a continuing basis which workplace oriented action might be expected to offer . It was argued above that the complexity and mediation of state policy and cuts provided scope for local action . Varied local action requires detailed planning, resources, for co-ordination and articulation to the wider campaign if it is not to appear as a series of isolated, unrelated struggles .



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Even well-known struggles such as that at the EGA have proved difficult to generalise, especially given the near unique circumstances of the EGA itself . Although critics are quick to challenge that unions have failed to mobilise mass action for particular disputes around the cuts, such mobilisation presents enormous difficulties, especially if certain sectors of membership feel that they are more likely to promote hostility and cuts in their own relatively trouble free areas by supporting solidarity action . The unions themselves are aware that, by attempting a reasoned and detailed critique, at national level, of the government's strategy, they are erecting the further task for themselves of translating a series of generalised and often abstract arguments into specific, concrete activities at other levels of organisation . That task has proved massive and sometimes has been even been attempted, depending for its success as it does upon detailed local knowledge of the relative strengths and weakness if labour and employer and the form taken by the cuts . Unions with such recent organisational development of shop stewards and only gradual improvements in membership involvement, where a characteristic feature of the employment context is dispersal and fragmentation, cannot be expected to overcome such odds easily . The point is not that the counter arguments of the unions have been too 'academic', as some opponents have claimed (although, of course, they may not be correct arguments), but that the further job of distilling from those arguments the detailed plans of action is daunting, especially within the framework of united action across a huge front . For some workers, a notable feature of the cuts campaign has been the apparent alliance between the unions and various left political organisations . In truth, there has been a large degree of common purpose, especially in the establishment of sheer resistance to cuts . Both groups have been surprised at their unaccustomed agreement and, rather than explore their own positions and the extent of genuine consensus, have luxuriated in the temporary cessation of mutual hostility . This has proved a mixed blessing for both the unions and the political sects, neither of which have been obliged to elaborate and sharpen the main components of their policies . As Carpenter (1978) has argued, there has emerged something of a 'left orthodoxy' where public expenditure is concerned which leaves unexplored the real political problems of a socialist programme, not merely in respect of the amount and direction of spending, but also in terms of the wide panoply of measures required to initiate genuine working class advance . (12) Finally, the cuts campaign has not been the sole arena for trade union concern during this period . The most distinctive feature of the context within which the campaign has been mounted has, of course, been the central plank of the Government's counter-inflation policy, wage restraint . The unions have, from time to time, implied that Government persistence with a policy of cuts would force the unions opposed to cuts to withdraw their support from incomes policy . In the event that has not happened, nor, because of the phasing of incomes policy and the apparent acquiescence of the wider union movement, has such a withdrawal been a real possibility. So often seen as the basis for economistic narrowness, it has been the unions' failure to link up the wages issue with the fight against



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cuts that characterises the final limitation on the campaign and one which, at the moment at least, appears most to be pushing the struggle into the background . Attempts have been made to link the two, most notably through the arguments about the material value of the social wage, but concentration on wages as such plus tax reductions has prevented the link being established . CONCLUSION What I have attempted to do in this paper is not to condemn the trade union campaign against the cuts . On the contrary, I have sought to explore the strengths of that campaign and to explain its limitations in terms of the organisational, material, and ideological resources of the unions fighting the cuts and in the light of the constraints imposed by social democratic parliamentarism . The campaign has had for a large part of its early phase a 'phoney war' element as the cuts announced were planned for implementation a year, sometimes two or three years ahead ; the effects of cuts have not always been easy to measure . The limitations of the campaign are not the universal limits of British trade unionism, but limits which have a specific form to be understood only within the phase of class struggle in which the campaign has been mounted .

FOOTNOTES 1

2

This is a revised version of a paper given at the 1978 CSE Conference at Bradford . The work is based on research focussed upon NUPE . The research was carried out jointly with Tom Manson and Andy Fairclough and was financed by NUPE and the SSRC . Much of the information in the text is derived from the author's fieldnotes . For crisp reviews of marxist, marxisant and anti-marxist analyses of trade unionism see Hyman (1971) and (1975) . Of recent marxist assessments of unionism, good early examples are Allen 1966 , Anderson in Blackburn and Cockburn (1967), and Lane 1974 . Clarke and Clements (1977) provide a useful collection of extracts . Most popularisations of 'left' critiques of unionism have been based upon the newspapers and journals of different political groupings such as International Socialism, Socialist Worker (and its associated publications), Red Mole, Workers' Fight, Workers' Press, Militant, Red

Weekly, Big Flame, Anarchist Worker, Solidarity, Socialist Review,

3

4

5 6

Marxism Today, etc . There is not space here to analyse the differences within and between different groups on . the left. Central Statistical Office (1972-77) . Local Government Finance (1976) . Department of Employment Gazette (1977 and 78) . See R. H . Fryer (forthcoming), "Trade Unionism in the National Health Service" in N . Bosanquet (ed .), Current Issues in Industrial Relation in the NHS : also T . Manson (1979), "Health and the Cuts"; Capital and Class, 7 and Carpenter (1978) .



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7 NSCAC, 1977a. 8 Fightback, 2, 1978 . 9 Fryer, Fairclough and Manson, 1974 . 10 There is not space here to examine the many variants of the Alternative Economic Strategy, The AES particularly requires critical evaluation as apolitical programme . 11 See, for example, NUPE/SCAT, 1978 and the mass of publications concerning fights in the NHS . 12 Carpenter's paper is available from the author at : School of Industrial and Business Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL .

BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, V., 1966, Militant Trade Unionism, Merlin, London . The Attack on Inflation (Cmnd 6151), 1975, HMSO, London . The Attack on Inflation : The Second Year (Cmnd 6507), 1976, HMSO, London . Blackburn, R ., and Cockburn, A ., 1967, The Incompatibles : Trade Union Militancy and the Consensus, New Left Review/Penguin, Harmondsworth . Carpenter, M . J ., 1978, Left Orthodoxy and the Politics of Health, Mimeo . Cash Limits On Public Expenditure (Cmnd 6440), 1976, HMSO, London . Central Statistical Office, 1972-77, Social Trends (Number 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8), HMSO, London . The Challenge of North Sea Oil (Cmnd 7143), 1978, HMSO, London . Clarke, T., Clements, 1977, Trade Unions Under Capitalism, Penguin, Harmondsworth . Department Of Employment Gazette, 1977 and 1978, HMSO, London . Fightback : Bulletin of the Manchester Fight The Cuts Committee, Jan . 1976, etseq ., MFCC, Manchester . Fightback : Bulletin Against Cuts In The Health Service, Feb . 1978 et seq., Fightback Team, Hounslow. Fryer, B ., Manson, T., and Fairclough, A. J ., 1974, Organisation and Change in the National Union of Public Employees, NUPE, London . The Government's Expenditure Plans (Two Vols .) (Cmnd 6721), 1977, HMSO, London . The Government's Expenditure Plans 1978-79 to 1981-82 (Two Vols .) (Cmnd 7049), 1978, HMSO, London . Hughes, J ., 1978, The Cuts: Strange Arithmetic, Institute for Workers' Control, Nottingham . Hyman, R ., 1971, Marxism and the Sociology of Trade Unionism, Pluto London . Hyman, R ., 1975, Industrial Relations : a Marxist Introduction, MacMillan, London . Lane, T., 1974, The Union Makes Us Strong, Arrow, London . Local Government Finance (Layfield Committee) (Cmnd 6453), 1976, HMSO, London .



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McDonnell, K ., 1978, "Ideology, Crisis and the Cuts", Capital and C/ass, Vol . 4, Spring. National Co-ordinating Committee Against Cuts In The NHS, 1975, National Health, NCCAC, London . National Steering Committee Against the Cuts, 1977a, Report of the Discussion Conference on the Social Wage, NSCAC, London . National Steering Committee Against the Cuts, 1977b, Breakdown : The Crisis in Your Public Services, NSCAC, London . . NUPE, 1975, Inflation: Attack or Retreat?, NUPE, London . NUPE, 1976, Time to Change Course, NUPE, London . NUPE, 1977a, Good Health!, NUPE, London . NUPE, 1977b, Economic Review 1977, NUPE, London . NUPE, 1977c, Fight Back!, NUPE, London . NUPE, 1978a, North Sea Oil and Economic Strategy, NUPE, London . NUPE, 1978b, Union Wages Strategy 1978-79, NUPE, London . NUPE/SCAT, 1978, Up Against a Brickwall : The Dead-end in Housing Policy, NUPE/SCAT, London . Private Practice Has No Place In The NHS, 1976, ASTMS/COHSE/GMWU/ NALGO/NUPE, London . Public Expenditure to 1979/80 (Cmnd 6393), 1976, HMSO, London . Society of Civil and Public Servants/Civil and Public Services Association, 1976, Cuts that Puzzle, SCPS/CPSA, London . . Trades Union Congress, 1975, Development of the Social Contract, TUC, London . Trades Union Congress, 1977, Economic Review 1977, TUC, London . Trades Union Congress, 1978, Economic Review 1978, TUC, London . Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, 1977, Let Us Build, UCATT, London .

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A CRITIQUE OF SOVIET ECONOMICS, by Mao Tsetung, New York/ London, Monthly Review Press, 1977 . £5 .90, 157 pp . Reviewed by Derek Sayer A Critique of Soviet Economics contains three of Mao's most explicit examinations of Soviet socialism (1) : his 1958 and 1959 critiques of Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, and his 1960 commentary on the Soviet textbook Political Economy. The years 1959-60 are a watershed, for Mao's own development, for China, and for the international communist movement : 1958-9 saw Mao's definitive abandonment of Soviet development strategies with the Great Leap Forward, 1960 the withdrawal of Soviet aid from China (2) . These texts are important historical documents with much light to shed on those years : for that reason alone their publication, in this well annotated and ably introduced MR edition, is greatly to be welcomed . But it is their theoretical rather than their archival value that prompts this extended review. These texts are high points of what is arguably the most serious and furthest reaching attempt to theorise the historical experience of socialist construction that marxism has yet produced . And this theorisation calls into question far more than just the `Stalinism' that is Mao's overt target . Though he does not explicitly recognise the fact, Mao rejects - and in rejecting, exposes to view-much that is central to the problematic of Bolshevism as such . His critique, in other words, extends to-and reveals -shared parameters, both practical and theoretical, of all major forms of Bolshevism, including those associated with the leaderships and oppositions in the CPSU, from before 1917 to the present day . Herein, I believe, lies much of the value of Mao's theoretical legacy . For the Bolshevik problematic, in one or another of its forms, has dominated revolutionary socialist practice and analysis for most of this century . This essay, then, is specifically concerned with Mao's critique of Bolshevism . Two preliminary qualifications . First, in speaking of a common Bolshevik problematic I do not seek to efface the often profound (and profoundly important) differences between Bolshevism's distinct forms . To point to a common framework for debate (and action) is not to deny



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differences of position (and practice) but merely to focus on what is not in contention . But at times, what is not in contention may be more significant than what is . Second, in what follows constraints of length have led me at times to oversimplify . I have neglected the struggles, contradictions, and alternatives within Bolshevism, and I have emphasised its emancipatory qualities far less than they deserve . I have sought to provide a very much fuller discussion elsewhere (3) . Having said that, I believe the perspectives outlined here to be those which have proved historically dominant, particularly since 1917, in Bolshevik approaches to socialist construction . This essay is about socialist productive forces . It is with these-with what they are, and how they are to be expanded-that Mao was enduringly concerned . "The purpose of our revolution is to develop the society's forces of production" (p . 41) (4) . To draw attention to this is to reject that picture of Mao which The Times and Pravda have been equally eager to propagate : that of a utopian, a moralist, an indefatigable idealist (in both the everyday and the specialised senses of the word), who was ever ready to sacrifice economic development on the altar of revolutionary purity . This is, to put it plainly, ignorant rubbish (5) . But revealing rubbish . What it bears witness to is a definite conception of production, within whose confines Mao could not be comprehended otherwise . Production is understood as a quintessentially technical realm governed by purely economic laws in which the moral, the political and the cultural have no part to play. Marx (6) long ago showed this separation -in reality a naturalisation of production and idealisation of morality, politics, and culture-to be firmly rooted in the forms in which capitallism's essential relations present themselves to our experience . This conception is substantially replicated in Bolshevism . To be specific . Bolshevik theory understands certain basic concepts of marxism more or less as follows . Productive forces : the instruments of production (tools, machines, etc) together with the techniques and skills necessary to their utilisation . Production relations : relations of ownership (7) of these and the other means of production (land, labour, raw materials) . Economic base : the combination, in a given society of forces and relations, thus defined . Superstructure : the rest of social life, including, in particular, politics and ideology . Given this perception of these as discrete realities (structures, levels, instances, choose your naturalistic poison) Marx's claims for the centrality of production to social existence have then to be read causally . 'Last instance' and 'relative autonomy' caveats apart (8), forces are held to determine relations, and base to determine superstructure . This has two inescapable implications for socialist construction, especially in circumstances Bolshevism would consider 'backward' . First, development of the forces of production is a condition of and must precede transformation of its relations (and, relative autonomy aside, superstructures) . And second, such development is basically a technical matter . I shall spell out some of what this means in practical terms later . For the moment, my concern is to draw a theoretical contrast . Mao explicitly disavows the first of these propositions, and implicitly rejects the second . Throughout this collection he consistently argues that even if "revo-



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tion in the production relations is brought on by a certain degree of development of the productive forces . . . . the major development of the productive forces always comes after changes in the production relations" (p . 66-my italics) . "This rule is universal" (p . 93) : it was true of the emergence of capitalism from feudalism (p . 66) and applies equally to socialist construction : "All revolutionary history shows that the full development of new productive forces is not the prerequisite for the transformation of backward production relations . Our revolution began with MarxistLeninist propaganda, which served to create new public opinion in favour of the revolution . Moreover, it was possible to destroy the old production relations only after we had overthrown a backward superstructure in the course of revolution . After the old production relations had been destroyed new ones were created, and these cleared the way for the development of new social productive forces . With that behind us we were able to set in motion the technological revolution to develop social productive forces on a large scale ." (p . 51) This appears simply to invert Bolshevism's priorities : instead of the sequence forces-relations-superstructure we now get a sequence superstructurerelations-forces (9) . But there is, in my view at least, far more to Mao's critique than this . Behind this apparent inversion hides a quite different conception of what production is . And this conception, let it be said, has its phenomenal roots too : in the socialist achievements of the peasants and workers of China and the Soviet Union when freed-however partiallyfrom the yoke of capital . It is they who ground, and validate, Mao's theory (10) . To be sure, Mao habitually uses the terms forces, relations, base and superstructure in their orthodox Bolshevik senses . But what he says stretches that vocabulary to its limits, for he repeatedly repudiates the theoretical tenets which make it meaningful . He begins his 1959 text, for example, with the comment : "Stalin's book from first to last says nothing about the superstructure" (p . 135) . He thinks this omission so salient because he regards the transformation of the traditionally superstructural as a condition for the transformation of the production relations themselves . Of the socialisation of agriculture, for instance, he writes : "Again and again the text emphasises how important machinery is for the transformation . But if the consciousness of the peasantry is not raised, if ideology is not transformed, and you are depending on nothing but machinery-what good will it be?" (p . 55) At this point, it is pertinent to ask : in what sense is it still meaningful to talk in terms of 'superstructures' at all? Manifestly not the classical one, for if superstructures are conditions for specific forms of production they cannot at the same time originally have been their consequences . Indeed, the very possibility of conceiving production relations independently of their supposed superstructures becomes distinctly dubious .



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This book (and Mao's writing generally) abounds with hesitations, apparent clumsinesses of formulation, ad hoc qualifications and so on on this and the related issue of the forces/relations relationship (11) . Mao also, to a greater extent than almost any other major marxist thinker, lays repeated stress on the 'dialectical' connectedness of things, the allpervasiveness of contradiction being a metaphysical absolute of his theory (12) . Both, I think, are indicative, not of Mao's ineptitude as a theorist, but of a struggle to express profoundly new ideas (13) in an old and inappropriate vocabulary, that of orthodox Bolshevism . Within that vocabulary, as we have seen, forces, relations and superstructures are conceived as distinct and externally related entities . Mao, in my view, is attempting to say something utterly different. Production cannot be fractured like this . Our categories do not describe different realities but different facets of a single activity . Technologies involve social relations . These relations have their cultural and political dimensions . In both cases the latter are part of what the former are. It is not a question of antecedents and consequents, but of a complex and extended network of internal relations (14) . There is, therefore an important sense in which forces are relations and relations forces (and superstructures both) (15)-always of particular modes of production, in this case capitalism and socialism . To grasp this must decisively alter our perception of the physiognomy of transition from one to the other . We cannot continue to talk in terms of separating and serialising the transformation of forces, relations and superstructures . They involve each other . Nor, by the same token, can we any longer conceive development as a primarily technical matter . No technology is socially neutral . Capital is not merely a form of property : it is the entire repertoire of forces/ relations-ways people see, feel, think, act, are-through which the phenomenal forms of surplus-value production are defined, enforced and experienced as reality. The (class) (16) struggle to overthrow it is correspondingly wide-ranging, arduous and protracted (as Mao does make explicit : later he was to write of "one to several centuries" being required [17]) . This is to state the negative implication ; a crucial one, in whose context the Bolshevik's faith in the sui generis benefits for socialism of development (irrespective of its form) and the ability of "our State" (irrespective of its relations) to control any resulting short-term political strains appears as wildly, and dangerously, utopian . But them is also a positive rider. To conceive production thus allows a parallel recognition (literally, rethinking) of the resources of socialism . The latter can no longer be reduced to machines or the 'possession' of 'political power' : but such a view is exposed as a reduction, a foreclosure of possibilities . Socialism is an equally extensive network of forces/relations : in . this case, ones which enable increasing satisfaction of people's needs through their increasingly conscious and collective control over their productive processes . Its resources are all (and only) those ways people see, feel, think, act, are, which advance this end, the traditionally relational and superstructural included . It is here that the bankruptcy of that picture of Mao with which we began this discussion becomes most evident . When Mao urges the need to pay attention to ideology and consciousness or to



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put politics "in command" he is not downgrading production . Far from it : he is pointing to the conditions necessary to any socialist development . And, it is worth adding, he sees such development as being able to produce more, faster, better and more economically (18) than capitalism . Put polemically, what Mao is saying is that the emancipation of labour is socialism's greatest productive force . Let me now try to illustrate these arguments . The 'Soviet economics' (in reality far more than just an economics) Mao attacks here is devoted to creating the infrastructure of 'modern' industry, which Bolshevism considers the indispensible technical requisite of socialist transformation . This is held to involve certain imperatives which, I stress, all the major variants of Bolshevism acknowledge (19) . Two are crucial . Both flow directly from

the general perspectives outlined above . First, it is assumed that the labour, funds and markets for industry must initially be generated via a capitalist development of agriculture ('peasant differentiation') (20) . Cooperation, it

is argued, cannot anticipate mechanisation and the latter demands this process of 'primitive accumulation' . Second, industrialisation itself is held to require the short term retention of the hierarchy of technical and managerial 'expertise' (and with it, appropriate 'material incentives') typical of capitalist industry . This is seen as an intrinsic feature of the labour process corresponding to a particular level of development of 'the' productive forces, whose elimination is conditional upon an expansion of productivity which it must first bring about . In sum (and to use Mao's own terms) the "Three Great Differences" that mark the capitalist division of labourbetween town and country, large-scale industrial and small-scale agricultural production, and mental and manual labour-are regarded as unavoidable, and hence desirable concomitants of developmentperse . Before we go any further it needs emphatically to be pointed out that this is a politics, entailing in particular what Marx with precision called a "corresponding specific form of State" (21) . Recall that in 1917 around 90% of Russia's population were peasants, and the force of the first as-

sumption immediately becomes apparent . The overwhelming majority of the people were systematically prevented

(22)

from transforming their

own production practices. Socialism was defined from the start as something to be donated : from above (the State), from outside . (the towns), and in the indefinite future . Given the sheer numerical weight of the peasantry this deserves particular stress . But the second assumption has similar effects : Trotsky in 1922 was abundantly clear that experience 'in the workshop' cannot show the workers that the USSR is their State (23) .

Negatively, this is a politics of exclusion : a systematic cutting off of the means through which people can collectively shape their own futures . I intend this in the fullest sense : people's images of their own expertise, for instance-which are as central to the materiality of capitalism's division of labour as its institutional incarnations-are very powerful means for their subordination or emancipation . It is also, positively, a statist politics . Where capitalist production remains untransformed, the producers cannot exercise socialist power through it ; at best, socialist power can be exercised on their behalf over it, by a Party wielding a necessarily mighty machinery of State . The above programmes demand this : consider-the kind of appar-



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atus required to effect them and stem the capitalist forces they systematically generate . Lenin, to be sure, wrote The State and Revolution ; he also penned The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, whose conceptions of how to increase production (Taylorism included) erode any possibility of every cook being a statesman . His 1919 lecture on the State, which sees the latter as a "bludgeon" to be used and (eventually) "thrown away" precisely captures the tension, and stands at the head of a long chain of Bolshevik argument which runs through Trotsky's Whither Russia to Stalin's overt theorisation of the State as the main agency of socialist transformation in his Marxism and Linguistics (24) . Soviet statism is neither specifically Stalinist nor a `deviation' . It is the political form of Bolshevik production programmes. To return to Mao . His own development strategies, discussed in great detail in this volume, have been admirably expounded in Jack Gray's seminal articles (25) . I may therefore be brief . Having rejected the Bolsheviks' "no tractors, no co-ops" assumption he is able to envisage agricultural cooperation as the starting-point of a spiral of social revolution and productive growth . Initially small-scale cooperative ventures (Mutual Aid Teams, lower APCs [26]) save labour, thus making new economic construction (say, irrigation or terracing) possible . This latter stretches available labour-power, and creates a demand for labour-saving light industrial products, and funds to finance their production . Their use frees more labour, allowing further construction (say, more extensive land reclamation or crop diversification) . Cooperation is further extended (higher APCs, People's Communes) to provide a framework within which this can take place . This produces the demand and the funds for further industrial goods : and so on . It is worth emphasising that Mao sees this as a strategy for expanded reproduction via rapid accumulation, which aims to achieve rapid industrialisation (p . 53) : "the phrase 'concurrent promotion' in no way denies priority in growth or faster development of industry than agriculture" (p . 97, my italics) . In this context he repeatedly criticises Soviet policy for what he elsewhere describes as "draining the pond to catch the fish" (27) . If one is to industrialise on the basis of agricultural surpluses, one must first ensure their creation ; to leech agriculture of the resources for this does not help industry. "Priority growth in producing the means of production is an economic rule for expanded reproduction common to all societies [But] if agriculture does not make gains few problems can be resolved . The experience of the Soviet Union, no less than our own, proves that if agriculture does not develop, if light industry does not develop, it hurts the development of heavy industry ." (pp . 76-7, my italics) Resources here must be taken in more than the narrow economic sense . The Soviet pond is drained quite as effectively by Bolshevik politics : consider the wholesale slaughter of live-stock that followed Stalin's 'pacification of the villages' (his description of Soviet collectivisation) or, even more revealingly, the comparative figures for production on the kolkhoz



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against the private plot (28) . What makes Mao's strategy work (and what distinguishes it most strikingly from Bolshevik alternatives) is its politics :

"To increase production we need 'More! Faster! Better! More economically!' And for this we need politics in command, the four concurrent promotions, the rectification campaigns, the smashing of the ideology of bourgeois right ." (p . 133, my italics) The spiral outlined above hinges on the producers' own willingness and ability to increase production by transforming their social relations : it is their experience of what their cooperation (note : their cooperation) makes possible that provides its continuing dynamic . Politics is the only means through which such transformations can be brought about . As such, it is quite literally a means of production . But we are into the realms of a very novel kind of politics . It is a politics of people's se/f-emancipation . Hence Mao's attribution of failure of collectivisation in eastern Europe to its being "a top-down royal favour" (p . 93 ; cf p . 44), his contention that "if construction of revolution is attacked with executive orders . . . . there is bound to be a reduction of production [NB] because the masses will not have been mobilised" (p . 87), his observation that "under no circumstances can history be regarded as something the planners rather than the masses create" (p . 79) . And if it genuinely is to be a politics of self-emancipation, it must squarely be rooted in production : as Marx noted of the Paris Commune ("the political form at last discovered under which to work out the emancipation of labour"), "the political rule of the producer cannot coexist with his [or her?] social slavery" (29) . The distinction between the Soviet ko/khoz ("a unit of production, nothing more" [30]) and China's People's Communes perfectly captures the contrast I am trying to draw : the latter are productive units which are organs of popular power, and they can be organs of popular power only because they are socialist production units . If statism is the political form of Bolshevik production strategies, an unfolding attack on the State/civil society dichotomy is the equally necessary political form of Mao's . I have exemplified agriculture at such length because (aside from the fact that it feeds people) how its producers are treated is central to what kind of socialism can be constructed in such overwhelmingly peasant societies as the Russia of 1917 or the China of 1949 . But Mao extends his arguments equally to industry . In this case, it is the Bolshevik presumption of the necessity to replicate capitalism's divisions of mental and manual labour in the interests of productivity which is centrally under attack . Significantly, this is explicitly discussed in terms of the inadequacy of Soviet perspectives on production relations (pp . 67-8, 110-12) . Mao argues that the Soviet textbook "has completely failed to come to grips with the substantive issues" of "relations among people during productive labour" (p . 111) as distinct from ownership relations. This comes down concretely to the question of "how enterprises owned either by the whole people [State enterprises] or the collective

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[Communal enterprises] are administered" (ibid) . Here Mao's rejection of Bolshevik orthodoxy is sharp and immediate : "Throughout, the text [Political Economy] speaks of 'managing production according to the principle of the single leader system' . All enterprises in capitalist countries put this principle into effect . There should be a basic distinction between the principles governing management of socialist and capitalist enterprises ." (p . 73) His own recommendations have a very different emphasis : "With respect to administration of enterprises owned by the whole people, we have adopted a set of approaches : a combination of concentrated leadership and mass movement ; combinations of Party leaders, working masses, and technical personnel ; cadres participating in production ; workers participating in administration ; steadily changing unreasonable regulations and institutional practices ." (p . 111-2 ; cf p . 67-8) Note that Mao speaks of "two participations" (as they are-or were-called in China) : and contrast bourgeois notions of what "participation" (initiation into the mysteries of boardroom practice, but never their transformation) entails . This is congruent with Mao's more general attack on relations which foster any cult of expertise (again Marx's Civil War comes to mind : to perpetuate these disarms the producers by sustaining "the delusion as if administration and political governing were mysteries, transcendent functions only to be trusted to the hands of a trained caste" [31 ] ) . And characteristically, he stresses the internality of attitudes to these relations, and their implications for production . In a socialist society there are still "academic overlords" who control the organs of scientific research and repress new forces (p . 73, my italics) : " 'Master of the house' attitudes make the workers reluctant to observe labour discipline in a self-conscious way." (p . 86) "Larger factories may have superior facilities, newer technology, and for that very reason the staff all too often assume airs of selfimportance, are satisfied with things as they are and do not seek to advance and reach out ambitiously . All too often their creativity does not compare at all with that of the staff of the smaller factory ." (p . 117) "Their [Soviet] rules and regulations hamstrung people ." (p . 139) "Which enterprises should be managed by whom? . . .When the centre cannot depend on its own initiative it must release the enthusiasm of the enterprise or the locality. If such enthusiasm is frustrated it hurts production ." (p . 67, my italics)



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The message is clear : the 'superstructural' is internal to production relations, and these are always productive forces-or fetters . Of particular note in this context is Mao's extended polemic against Soviet reliance on "material incentives" (pp . 69-70, 78-9, 82-4, 89-90, and elsewhere) . Contrary, again, to popular prejudice he is not merely privileging the 'spiritual' over the material . His attack is on strategies based on individual material interest : "Material interest can not simply be discussed as individual interest . .What they do not say is that individual interest will be satisfied when the interests of the whole people are satisfied . The individual interest they emphasise is in reality myopic individualism

(p . 84) "One part of consumer goods is individual property, another is public property, eg, cultural and educational facilities, hospitals, athletic facilities, parks, etc In too many places this book speaks only of individual consumption and not of social consumption . . . (p . 69) He does, however, emphatically and repeatedly make the point that "whether a worker is diligent or enthusiastic or not is determined by political consciousness, not by the level of technical or cultural expertise" ; "conditions being equal, these are the ones who will produce more" (p . 83) . Conversely, individual incentives are divisive . Piece-rates, for instance, "create contradictions between older and younger, stronger and weaker labourers . . . . This makes the primary concern not the collective cause but the individual income . There is even evidence that the piece-rate wage system impedes technological innovation and mechanisation ." (p . 89) Here, as elsewhere, the organisation of production embodies a politics, and socialist forms of politics further socialist production . After all, "if a socialist society does not undertake collective efforts what kind of socialism is there in the end?" (p . 69) There is much else in this book-discussions of war and revolution, 'peaceful transition', planning, the law of value and commodity production, the capitalist world market and 'self-reliance', marxist methodologythat I have not had space to deal with here . And it is wise to temper the above with a cautionary note . Mao was to go beyond some of the formulations here in later years : hardening his views, for example, on the class character of the kinds of struggles of which we have been speaking, or the importance of overcoming the division of labour . But much that I have tried to bring out in this essay remained at the level of implicit critique . That it did so has amongst other things smoothed the path for many reversals-which mark a return to orthodox Bolshevik perspectives rather than any straightforward 'counter-revolution'-evident in China since Mao's death (32) . Marxism needs to go beyond that . But Mao has given us a con-



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siderable start. We British, in our European arrogance, have not given Mao a tenth of the attention we have been accustomed to lavish on Lukacs, Gramsci, Althusser, or any of the other "western marxists" New Left Review has successively lionised and dropped for us in recent years . It is time we woke up .

NOTES

1

2

3

4

5

Derek Sayer works at the Department of Social Science, Glasgow College of Technology. These were previously published, in suspect translations, in Miscellany of Mao Tsetung Thought (2 Vols, Virginia, joint Publications Research Service, 1974 : JPRS 61269-1, -2), a collection of otherwise untranslated material from the unofficial Wansul compilations (1967, 1969) of Mao's post-1949 writings and speeches . S . Schram, Mao Tsetung Unrehearsed (Penguin, 1974) is the other main English anthology from this source . In the early 1950s the CPC initially adopted Soviet-style development policies (see this volume, p . 122) . Mao's progressive break from this is recorded in his writings of the mid-1950s on . See, in particular, his editorial comments to Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside (Peking, FLP 1957 ; extracts, Selected Works, V, Peking FLP 1977) ; "On the Question of Agricultural Cooperation" (SW, V) ; "On the Ten Major Relationships" (SW, V ; alternative translation, Mao Tsetung Unrehearsed) ; "On the correct handling of contradictions among the people" (SW, V) ; "Sixty points on working methods" (in J . Ch'en, Mao Papers, Oxford UP 1970) . The themes of these texts are central to the CPC/CPSU polemic, of which see, inter a/ia : "On the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat" (Peking, FLP, 1959 ; actually authored by Mao), and the 1961-3 documents collected in The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement (Peking, FLP, 1965 ; reprinted London, Red Star, n .d .) . Both sets of texts are closely connected with those in this volume . See P .R .D .Corrigan, H . Ramsay and D . Sayer, Socialist Construction and Marxist Theory (Macmillan and Monthly Review Press 1978 ; hereafter SCMT) and For Mao (Macmillan, 1979 ; hereafter FM) ; cf. C. Bettelheim, Class Struggles in the USSR (Harvester, 1977, 1978) and C . Claudin-Urondo, Lenin and the Cultural Revolution (Harvester, 1978) . For further documentation of this central theme in Mao's work from the 1930s to the 1970s, see FM, pp . 34-41, together with the first three studies in Part II . Mao's productive strategies are superlatively expounded in Jack Gray's writings (listed in full in FM) . See particularly his "The Economics of Maoism" (in H . Bernstein, The Economics of Development, Penguin 1972) and "The Two Roads" (in S . Schram, Authority, Participation and Cultural Change in China, Cambridge UP 1973) for general



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discussions ; "The High Tide of Socialism in the Chinese Countryside" (in J . Ch'en, Studies in the Social History of China, Cambridge UP 1970) and 'Mao Tsetung's strategy for the collectivisation of Chinese Agriculture" (in E . de Kadt/G . Williams, Sociology and Development, Tavistock 1970) for more specific background to this essay . Also FM, Part II, essay 2 . For the prejudices of The Times, read any of David Bonavia's reports ; of Pravda, E . Korbash, The Economic "Theories" of Maoism, Moscow, Progress 1974 . 6 See my Marx's Method (Harvester, 1979) Ch 1, Ch 4 Pt 1 ; SCMT, Ch 1 and Appendix . 7 Bolshevik theoretical statements usually include (a) 'work' relations (b) distribution relations . In practice, as Mao notes in this volume (pp . 110-12), ownership alone was taken seriously . See further, SCMT, Ch 2 . Actually very important in Bolshevism, allowing the possibility of 8 'premature' revolution (which Trotsky, revealingly, defined as "part of the superstructure"-see SCMT Ch 3) . The 'relative autonomy' thesis also sustained a less fortunate perspective on the nature and role of post-revolutionary State power, discussed below and at length in SCMT. 9 Where Mao has been taken seriously by western marxists at all he has usually been read thus : notably by Charles Bettelheim, whom Sweezy as a result has (rightly) accused of relapsing into idealism . See their debate in On the transition to socialism, Monthly Review Press, 1971 ; continued in Sweezy's reviews of Bettelheim's Class Struggles in the USSR, Monthly Review 26 : 6, 8, 1974-5, and 29 : 5, 1977. 10 Amongst the contrasts Mao draws in this volume are between his methodology (superbly stated in "On Practice", SW, I-cf FM, Part I) and that of the Soviet texts with which he deals . I have argued the empirical basis of Marx's method at length elsewhere : Marx's Method; 'Science as Critique', in D . Ruben / J . Mepham, Issues in Marxist Philosophy, Harvester 1979 . 11 These go back a long way . See, eg, the passage in his (1937) "On Contradiction" on the issue (SW, I, p . 336) . 12 A position with its dangers : see FM, pp . 8-10, and Introduction . 13 New ideas : with respect to Bolshevism . Elsewhere I have argued that the perspective on production outlined below was also Marx's . See material cited in note 10 ; "Method and Dogma in Historical Materialism", Sociological Review 23 :4, 1975 ; P .R .D . Corrigan and D . Sayer, "Hindess & Hirst : a critical review", Socialist Register 1978 . 14 Cf. B . Olmann, Alienation (Cambridge UP 1976) Part I and Appendix . 15 To work this through adequately would involve substantial redefinition of the concepts of forces and relations, and abandonment of any variant of the base/superstructure model as traditionally conceived . See Marx's Method, Ch 4 ; "Hindess & Hirst : a critical review". 16 In this volume Mao talks of the survival and replication under socialism of "conservative strata and something like 'vested interest groups' " (p . 71) . By the time of the GPCR any ambivalence had disappeared ; the struggle to overthrow, in particular, the division of labour was



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unambiguously considered a class struggle . The continuation or otherwise of class struggle under socialism was a central issue in the open CPC/CPSU polemic of 1962-3 ; for documentation, see note 2 . 17 Fifteen theses on socialist construction, quoted in "On Khrushchev's Phony Communism . . .", in The Polemic on the General Line . 18 The "general line" of the Great Leap Forward period . 19 SCMT, Ch 3 exemplifies in detail for Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin (and, more briefly, Bukharin), Ch 5 for Bolshevism after Stalin . 20 Of note here : a universal necessity for 'backward' countries to undergo the equivalent of NEP is accepted both by Trotsky (History of the Russian Revolution, Sphere, 1967, Vol 3, p . 371) and modern Bolshevism (see eg the editorial note on the subject in Lenin on the Soviet State Apparatus, Moscow 1969, p . 442, quoted in SCMT, p . 56) . 21 Capital, Vol 3, Moscow, Progress 1971, p . 791 . 22 Actively so : SCMT, Ch 3, Part 3 documents Party and State suppression of peasants' socialist initiatives from below throughout the 1920s . 23 The Position of the Republic and the Tasks of Young Workers, Plough Press, 1972, p . 11 . 24 Lenin's lecture is in Vol 29 of his Collected Works. These, and related texts are discussed at length in SCMT, Ch 3 . 25 See note 5 above . 26 Lower APCs (Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives) involve pooling of labour with return on labour and land ; Higher APCs, pooling of land too, with returns on labour alone . 27 Quoted Jack Gray, "The economics of Maoism", p . 46 . A significant metaphor : Mao earlier applied it of Chiang Kai-shek-see SW Ill, p . 114 . 28 In 1967, according to Jacobs (in P . Wiles, The Prediction of Communist Economic Performance, Cambridge UP 1971) 2 .9% of Soviet arable land consisted of private plots : these produced 26% of total of agricultural output . 29 The Civil War in France, Peking, FLP, 1970, pp . 71-2 . 30 G . Thomson, Capitalism and After, China Policy Study Group, 1973, p . 123 . This book, together with its companion volume (From Marx to Mao Tsetung, CPSG, 1971), represents virtually the only exception to the otherwise universal neglect of Mao as a marxist theorist on the British left . 31 The Civil War, p . 169 . 32 See C . Bettelheim, "The Great Leap Backward", Monthly Review, July/August 1978, P. Tissier, "La ligne economique de la nouvelle direction chinoise economique pendant I'ani e 1977", Communisme, 31/32, Nov . 1977/Fev . 1978 .

PARTY GOVERNMENT AND THE CLASS INTERESTS OF CAPITAL CONFLICT OVER THE STEEL INDUSTRY, 1945-1970 D . McEachern

State theory typically ignores inter-party conflict in securing the class interests of capital in favour of general propositions concerning the state and the logic of accumulation . Such theory must be supplemented by investigation of the specific characteristics of political parties, and their different capacities for the recognition and advancement of the class interests of capital . The example of UK steel nationalisation is used to show how the Labour Party, in certain circumstances, is better able than the Conservative Party to formulate policies which rise above the special interests of fractions of capital to that of the class as a whole .

INTRODUCTION It is in the nature of general theories, concerned to establish the essentially capitalist character of the state in a society dominated by the capitalist mode of production, that they should ignore the part played by the political parties, and the conflicts between them, in securing the class interests of capital . State theory is not addressed to the analysis of either political parties or party government . The policies of governments of different party political complexions are not relevant to arguments about the defining characteristics of the capitalist state . However, a state theory, in establishing that the state is a capitalist state, necessarily locked into the logic of the accumulation process does not abolish the need to analyse either the political structure or the particular ways in which the political parties act to secure the class interests of capital . The need to investigate the specific characteristics of the political parties, and their different capacities for recognising and advancing the class interests of capital, has also been obscured by those who have studied either the Labour or Conservative Parties. Work on the Labour Party has legitimately sought to



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expose the hollowness of its socialist pretentions and to prove that the actions of the Party are compatible with the interests of capital (Miliband, 1973a. Coates, 1975) . Studies of the Conservative Party either confirm the popular assumption that it is the party of capital or else show that the Party is more subtle in its recognition of the needs of capital than crude interpretations would have it (Harris, 1972) . These arguments have encouraged the popular view that there is little to choose between the two parties . Though it is true that the Labour Party is as unlikely as the Conservative Party to advance the class interests of labour, it does not follow that the differences between the two parties are without significance for the way in which the class interests of capital are assured . In this paper I want to consider a set of events involving a sequence of governments of different party political character to see what can be learnt about the consequences of party government for the class interests of capital . Party government refers to a situation where the tasks of government, as the focus of activities of the state, are undertaken by political parties which have succeeded in an electoral conflict . It is not that the government is the most important part of the state system, or that in all circumstances it dominates the rest of the state system, but that the actions of the state are expressed, either in action or inaction, through the policies proposed and implemented by governments (Miliband, 1973b, pp . 46 &ff) . As a basis for the argument about the way in which the class interests of capital are advanced by the Labour and Conservative Parties, I want to use the various disputes about the nationalisation of the steel industry between 1945 and 1970 . At the centre of the argument is the proposition that it is not a matter of indifference to capital which Party forms the government, but that, in certain circumstances, it is the Labour Party which is most capable of recognising the class interests of capital, devising policies and implementing them against the opposition of significant sections of the class . The general polition is not new but I hope to show how the point can be sustained when dealing with such important developments as the nationalisation of steel . THE STEEL INDUSTRY TO 1945 The late industrialisation of Germany and the United States provided a basis for the supercession of Britain as the major steel producing nation (Burn, 1940, Chs XIV-XVI . Carr and Taplin, 1962, Chs XXXI-XLVIII . Vaizey, 1974, Ch . 1 .) . From the eighteen nineties onwards, Britain's share of world steel production declined and its technical and economic weaknesses became increasingly obvious . This was evident in the different rates at which technical innovations were introduced in Britain, the United States and Germany . By the early nineteen hundreds, leadership had passed to the two newcomers . Mechanisation advanced more rapidly in the United States and Germany and as the major steel historian, Duncan Burns observed, "Against these imposing advances the British work in massproduction steel making was astonishingly slight". (Burn, 1940, pp .184-5 .) The structure of the British industry mitigated against the introduction of improved production techniques . The industry argued that the size of the



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steel market made it uneconomic to build larger and better blast furnaces, but these calculations rested on an unrationalised structure of small firms, each calculating the return on such an investment . To the extent that imported steel prices provided the framework of such calculations, the commitment to free trade further undermined willingness of the steel firms to modernise the process of production (Burn,_ 1940, pp . 220 &ff.) . World War One and the peace which followed saw a rapid but incoherent expansion of steel capacity in Britain which quickly turned into a recession and collapse (Burn, 1940, Ch . XIV .) . The period of boom provided no basis for improving the structure or health of the industry as it merely duplicated the pattern and problems of the pre-war situation (Burn, 1940, p . 356 .) . That this was so can be seen in the speed with which the boom collapsed and the industry sank even more rapidly into decline . There was a degree of modernisation with an improvement in the size and technique of, for example, blast furnace operation, but this did not restore the industry's previous advantage ; " . . . advance was very unevenly distributed between the various stages of production and between the different branches of the finishing industry ; there were branches where the average equipment was astonishingly below the best ." (Burn, 1940, p . 362 .) The poor state of the steel industry was one of the featurs of the economy during the depression of the nineteen twenties and thirties . The British- industry's share of the home market was undermined by the dumping of steel by the German dominatated International Steel Cartel . Given the immense competition between national capitals in Europe, it was clear that the steel industry was a problem for capital in Britain . Even though cheap steel imports were available, they were not a secure supply, and political considerations, for national defence, were enough to ensure that attempts would be made to improve the health of the British steel industry. Theindustry was a problem because it could not compete with even genuine competition from foreign rivals . It could not produce steel in the right volumes, qualities and prices for the needs of British manufacturing industry . The economic structure of the steel industry was extremely backward . Plants were often too small and badly located ; the production techniques were similarly primitive if compared with steel production in either Germany or the United States . The financial structure was also weak in that the companies were too small, unrationalised and heavily in debt after the post war expansion . These weaknesses in the industry did not go unnoticed by several important groups of people. They were noticed by the capitalists who owned and ran the steel firms (Burn, 1940, Ch . XIV.) ; they were noticed by the workers in the steel industry whose employment and future prospects were badly affected by the industry's condition (Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, 1931) ; they were noticed by the banks and other financial institutions that had lent money to the industry (Clay, 1957), and they were noticed by the governments who held office in these years (Cd 9035 and Cd 9071) . Each group proposed solutions : the steel capitalists wanted tariff protection and a restriction on imports so that they could earn a profit despite the conditions of the industry ; the steel trades unions wanted the industry nationalised so that their jobs would be



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secure while the industry was rationalised and reequipped ; the banks, as far as they had any thoughts on the matter, wanted the financial structure of the industry improved so that their investments would be more secure ; and the governments wanted the structure ,_arrd health of the industry improved through tariff protection, a comprehensive organisation of the industry, rationalisation and modernisation . None of these positions was fully met . The steel industry at this time lacked a competent central organisation, and„ only developed one as a result of pressure exerted by_ both war time and post war governments Burn, 1940, pp . 375-6 and pp . 452 and ff.) . The, National Federation of Iron and Steel Manufacturers was superceded by the much mare comprehensive British Iron and Steel Federation as part of the government's package for restoring profitability to the industry . In the initial period after World War One, the industry was divided over the question of tariff protection . Those who dealt with imported and semi-finished steels favoured free trade . As conditions in the industry worsened, the call for a considerable measure of protection became stronger. But the industry wanted a tariff with as few strings attached as possible . It was its contention that protection was needed before any significant improvements could be made in the structure and efficiency of the industry . It was a matter of restored profits before reform (Burn, 1940, Ch . XVI, Carr and Taplin, Ch . XLIII .) . Successive governments took a different view . They were indeed reluctant to abandon a liberal free trade policy and would only consider doing so in extreme circumstances and at a price . The price was a new central organisation for the steel industry, capable of unifying the industry and coordinating its development with a substantial amount of rationalisation and modernisation . In the government scheme, reform was to precede protection and restored profitability. In the dispute between government and the industry over protection and reform, the gradual worsening of the depression worked in favour of the industry. Eventually the situation became so bad that the government granted a significant degree of protection-certainly enough to give the British industry success in its negotiations with the European Steel Cartel over shares of the British market . In an attempt to protect the steel consumers and the public from the consequences of the government sponsored domestic steel cartel, the Import Duties Advisory Committee, the body which recommended the tariff, was given the task of supervising the conduct of the industry . In the long run the IDAC failed to enforce the sorts of changes that had been suggested or that were required for the industry's restored vitality . Consequently, the period between the granting of the tariff and the start of World War Two provides no evidence of general innovation, modernisation or rationalisation . Things went on much as before, with the added bonus of a relatively secure home market and the prospect of increased profit . With the approach of another European war, demand, production and profitability increased and the industry's internal price fixing arrangements were working quite smoothly . In the wake of the Jarrow incident, the IDAC was required to report on the conduct of the industry and, unsurprisingly, found that the Federation and the industry were doing as much as could be expected from them (Cmd 5507) .



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The steel trade unions responded to the collapse of the post World War One boom with a call for the investigation of the industry (Burn, 1961, pp . 114 and ff., Ross, pp . 14 and ff.) . They could see that any rationalisation forced by the bankers or the government would be labour saving and a threat to their livelihoods . Realistically, it was recognised that the only way in which the needed dramatic changes could be made was by breaking the pattern of private property relations in the industry, and nationalisation was the only way to ensure that the process would not have too harmful consequences for the steel workers . Nevertheless, the call for nationalisation was slow to develop, and the advocated form of public ownership was remarkably limited . The policy was endorsed by the TUC in 1934 and subsequently became Labour Party policy . The position taken by the banks on the question of what should happen to the steel industry during the depression was of quite an important kind . Reluctantly, the Bank of England and Sir Montagu Norman became involved (Clay, Ch . VIII, Burn, 1940, pp . 437-8, Boyle, 1967, pp . 207-9, Skidelsky, 1976, pp . 151 and ff.) . On the basis of a plan drawn up by a firm of American management consultants, the Bank of England used the debts of the steel industry to force the rationalisation of the industry's financial structure . As Burn commented "put quite bluntly, the policy advocated here was that the industry should be forced to reconstruction by extensive bankruptcy which would allow reform to be imposed by financial groups" (Burn, 1940, p . 437 .) . The amalgamations and bankruptcies gave the industry the company structure it maintained until the nineteen sixties and the struggle against the nationalisation of steel . Government policy during the Second World War seriously affected the shape and health of the steel industry . As was the general case, the industry was formally supervised by a Control largely staffed by people prominent in either the Federation or the industry (Hurstfield, 1953, Ch . 4) . The officials from the Federation were seconded to the government for the duration of the war . The policies of the industry_ were reinforced by being sanctioned by government approval . The Control was responsible for setting steel prices and regulating the industry's profits . A complicated rebate scheme was devised to preserve the pattern of profit ability that had existed immediately prior to the war (Ashworth, 1953, pp . 164-176) . Given that price control produced more than adequate profits for the industry, complaints about the relationship between the Control and the Federation were common and often investigated (Select Committee on National Expenditure, 1943, para 194) . The government introduced a moratorium on capital investment which, coupled with the high rate of working, meant that the war saw a decline in the quality of the machinery in use . The amount of plant that was either obsolete or worn out increased . The industry applied for financial assistance from the government but this, with a few insignificant exceptions, was refused (Hurstfield, pp . 335 and 342) . In general terms, it is possible to conclude that the industry



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ended the war in a strengthened and profitable condition . The internal organisation was strong and effective : the price/profit arrangements were working well . Indeed the industry had enjoyed its longest period of prosperity in the twentieth century . NATIONALISATION, DENATIONALISATION AND RENATIONALISATION At the end of the Second World War then, the industry faced a complicated situation . Capital investment was urgently required to replace run-down and obsolete equipment . The industry still suffered from all the technical and economic problems that had been evident in the inter-war years . Much of the plant being used was technically outdated, many plants were located in uneconomic positions far from their raw material sources, adequate transport facilities or their markets . Frequently, the size of these production units was far too small and the relations between them were unrationalised . There was very little vertical or horizontal integration in the industry. All these factors continued to increase the unit costs of steel production in Britain, and productivity, measured against equipment, capital investment or labour, was low . It was for these reasons that steel was a problem both to the owners and managers of the industry and to the rest of manufacturing industry for which steel was a basic raw material . The leaders of the industry, effectively Sir Andrew Duncan and the Federation, recognised these difficulties and the threat of nationalisation posed by the election of a Labour Government. To counter these, they announced a development plan that would dramatically increase output, modernise techniques and rationalise the shape of the productive process . Targets were outlined in a document submitted to and published by the Government (Cmd 6811) . Leaving aside Labour's move to nationalise, which will be discussed below, there were a number of dubious features in the announced plan (Burn, 1961, Ch . IV ; McEachern, Ch . 4) . No details were given about the way in which the targets were decided or how it was decided where developments were to be located . How, for instance, were firms persuaded that they ought not to introduce a particular scheme which would benefit them but not the industry as a whole? Further, there was the price policy and quota arrangements that were operating in the industry. The net consequence of these was to insulate high cost producers from the full effects of their inefficiency as they guaranteed all producers a share of the markets and the industry's profits . These policies eliminated price competition, and profits were redistributed amongst the various producers . Given the shortage of steel and steel capacity in the period of high demand immediately after the end of the war, the industry was able to sell every piece of steel that it could produce . However, this merely concealed the structural, technical and economic weaknesses of the industry for, apparently, all the targets in the plan were fulfilled . Output rose faster than declared and large sums were invested ; these were provided by the price stabilisation policy . But the success of the plan concealed the fact that the location of plants had not been rationalised ; obsolete, worn out and technically outdated equipment



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had not been replaced ; and modernisation had not occurred on the scale implied in the initial plan . Indeed most new projects consisted in the grafting on of new plant to processes and works, with the net effect that the structural weaknesses of the industry were reinforced . In the years of high demand there were many difficulties with supply, bottlenecks, delays and . shortages of appropriate quality steels . Before considering the details of the successive . plans for steel and the various changes in the industry's ownership and management, it is useful to summarise the broad changes in the fortunes of the industry in the period between 1945 and 1967 . Between these years profitability varied, sometimes better, as during the fifties under public supervision, and sometimes worse, as in the early sixties when the technical inadequacies of the British industry exposed it once again to foreign competition . Indeed, profit figures show a very clear pattern, declining from a level of around 20% in the late fifties to near 5% in 1963 and below 2% in 1966 (McEachern, pp . 211-12 and p . 248) . The capacity of the industry was expanded and there was a degree of technical modernisation but this never altered the structural weaknesses of the industry. Throughout the period the industry was characterised by too many small plants operating with outdated technologies. The extent to which steel was a problem for the rest of manufacturing industry caried throughout the period . At the end of the war, the weakness of the industry was concealed by its profitability and th high level of domestic demand and the availablity of steel imports, although there were many complaints about delays in the delivery of steel products . In the period of expansion during the fifties, the requirements of manufacturing industry were generally met . By the start of the sixties all the old problems had returned. Sharp booms and recessions plagued the industry : its profitability declined as did capital investment . No longer could the steel industry supply steel in the quantities, qualities and at the prices required by industrial capital . The problem of the steel industry was once again obvious and requiring a solution (Iron and Steel Board, 1966). When the Labour Party came to office in 1945, it had an electoral commitment to nationalise the steel industry. This was not its highest legislative priority . The Labour Government postponed nationalisation and set up an Iron and Steel Board staffed by representatives of the steel firms, steel workers, steel consumers and the government . Its tasks were to supervise the implementation of the industry's own development plan and to determine prices (Burn, 1961, Ch . V.) . In the period prior to nationalisation, the supervision of the Iron and Steel Board was little more than a formality, endorsing the Federation's development programme and supporting its price fixing arrangements . The move to nationalise steel remained as part of the government's intentions partly as a result of pressure from the left of the Party and from some trade unionists, if not from the steel unions themselves . The situation of the industry required action, especially if viewed from the perspective of a Labour Government involved in an attempt to create a mixed economy, with an efficient, publicly owned base for expanding and profitable production in a privately owned manufacturing sector. There was the problem of the monopoly and cartel policies operating in the industry . The price policy eliminated price



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competition which had two consequences . Firstly, it provided a barrier to improvements in the efficiency and quality of steel production . Secondly, it provided the basis for the exploitation of steel consumers with prices being high to provide exceptional profits which were supposedd to encourage investment, expansion and modernisation . Though the Party recognised these aspects, its propagandists more normally concentrated on the ways in which a private steel monopoly constituted a threat to democracy (Cole, 1948, Fienberg and Everly, 1948) . The significance of steel in the economy was such that a private monopoly could threaten the plans of a democratically elected government . That basis for potential action needed to be broken . The argument that nationalisation could form the basis for rationalising and modernising steel production was a subsidiary part of the case . The delay in nationalising steel related to the absence of clear proposals for organising the industry once it was taken into public ownership . When the nationalisation act was introduced, the Government became involved in a serious and debilitating conflict with the Iron and Steel Federation . A full account of the conflict has been given by Ross in his study of the first nationalisation of steel (Ross, 1965) . The Government was never willing to force its case, being genuinely unsure of what it was doing, and compromised continually. The Nationalisation Act provided for the setting up of a public corporation to own and manage the steel industry (Gumbel and Potter, 1951) . This body was to be staffed by government appointees who, it was hoped, would have had experience in the steel industry . Nothing in the legislation showed how the change in ownership would increase the possibility that the industry's structure would be altered-rationalisation and modernisation were an unspecified possibility . Indeed the terms of the Act were designed to placate the managers of the industry whose positions were not endangered by the proposed change in ownership . The Federation's opposition has been well documented (Burn, 1961, Ch . VI, Ross, Ch . 2) . The Federation prepared a full-scale propaganda campaign, more factual and less shrill than that of Mr Cube, and fed arguments to the Conservative Party for use in its parliamentary delaying campaign . The Federation based its defence on the health of the industry, (it was profitable), its planning programme, and its ability to meet unexpected increases in demand . It countered the charge of monopoly by reference to the Iron and Steel Board, which it argued guaranteed that consumer interests would be protected . After a series of complicated constitutional, parliamentary and electoral manoeuvres, the industry was nationalised in 1951 . The Federation sought to thwart the operation of the new corporation by a policy of non-cooperation, encouraging its senior members not to work for the Corporation . It also sought to prevent the Corporation from taking over such important functions as the collective importing of raw materials. At every stage the Government compromised with the Federation, and apart from a few hints about possible future changes, very little was done to the industry (Burn, 1961, Ch . VI) . The Federation's determined resistance was rewarded when the Conservatives came to office in late 1951 . One of the first acts of the new



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Government was to issue a memorandum preventing any changes in the organisation or conduct of the industry (The Times, 13 Nov. 51, p . 14) . This entrenched the position of the managements of the existing firms who continued unhindered while they awaited denationalisation . Trade union opposition to denationalisation was merely formal and the steel trades unions were willing to be involved in the process . The Labour Party, however, declared that steel would be renationalised as soon as possible and with no additional compensation to the owners . The Conservative Government took some time to decide on the form of denationalisation . It was not a simple matter of giving the industry back to its former owners, some of whom had already disposed of their compensation stock and others may have been reluctant to accept back firms which had little prospect of being profitable . In the end, ownership of the nationalised steel firms was transferred to an Agency, the Iron and Steel Holding and Realisation Agency, empowered to sell the firms to the public when it thought best (Iron and Steel Act, 1953, Pt. Ill) . Meanwhile it would provide funds for investment in the industry . Though it had the legal means to restructure the industry and give it a more viable shape, the agency preferred to alter the balance between equity and prior charge shares (Burn, 1961, pp . 539-47, Vaizey, pp . 153-6) . The Agency's aim was to sell off the equity and divest itself of formal control, and this they did at bargain prices . Though many firms were quickly sold to private owners, public funds were still important as loans for development and as prior charge shares held by the Agency . Gradually most firms were sold but Richard Thomas and Baldwins remained owned by the Agency throughout. As a consequence of the development encouraged and financed by the Agency, it became one of the largest and most modern of all the steel firms (Cmnd 3362, p . 19) . Nevertheless, it was not very profitable and stood as a warning to the rest of the industry who preferred to milk profits from the plant they had acquired cheaply : a policy for long term disaster but short term profit, especially in a period of high demand (McEachern, pp . 228 and ff.) . The other side of the Conservatives' denationalisation programme was the setting up of another Iron and Steel Board to supervise the conduct of the whole industry (Burn, 1961, pp . 657 and ff.) . Once again it was staffed by representatives of the steel firms, steel workers and steel consumers under an independent chairman . It was alleged that the new Board had more positive powers of direction than its predecessor, though these were actually illusory. The Board was responsible for controlling prices, and hence determining the level of profits for the steel companies, and supervising the development plans undertaken by the industry . In the late fifties the Board used the price policy to give the firms large profits so as to encourage a large and expensive development programme (ISB, 1953-4, Ch . 4 and 1957 . pp . 24-5) . The price policy ceased to be effective when there was a surplus of steel capacity and large quantities of cheap steel were available for import . In these circumstances, the Board sought to steer a course between the demands of the steel producers and the interests of the steel consumers . As time went on it was increasingly reluctant to assist the steel pro-



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ducers to ignore the consequences of their inefficiency, unrationalised structure of production and their more outmoded techniques . Generally, prices were kept stable but there were occasional large increases . On development policy, the Board and the Federation worked in parallel . The Board considered the projected level of future demand and sought to ensure that the industry's plans, processed and coordinated by the Federation, would be adequate to it (ISB, 1953-4, Ch . 3) . Overall, relations between the Board and the Federation were harmonious as long as the steel firms were profitable . The moment that this was undermined, as it was in the early sixties, tension entered the relationship . The Federation blamed the Board for the industry's low profits and the Board criticised the industry's limited improvements in technology and its inadequate rationalisation (ISB, 1968) . When the Labour Party returned to office, steel was once again an obvious problem . The industry's share of the home market was under permanent threat, profitability was declining quite dramatically and there were no signs that the industry intended to rationalise or modernise the production process by the introduction of large scale automation . This time, however, the ideological cover of the industry's planning was less effective and it no longer had its profits to prove that it was viable in private ownership . The industry and public supervision had failed the test set for them in 1953 when the industry was denationalised : the problem of the steel industry had not been solved . Despite the revisionist controversy that had led to the abandonment of most `socialist' commitments, the Labour Government was still pledged to nationalise the steel industry . Indeed, this appeared now as the only potential solution to the problem . State ownership, with its abolition of fragmented private holdings, was the essential precondition_ for rationalising the structure of the industry and implementing a genuine modernisation programme, only marginally fettered by the need to earn a commercial profit . The lack of a sufficient parliamentary majority prevented the Government from moving on the issue (Wilson, 1974, pp . 56, 142-5, 185, 231-2, 289) . After the 1966 election, with its position secure in the House of Commons, the task of renationalising began . This time the Government was more skilful in handling the Federation (McEachern, Ch . 8) . The basis of the Federation was undermined by the terms of the nationalisation proposals, as the fourteen firms to be nationalised would withdraw from the trade association . Similarly, the Government secured the cooperation of leading figures in the industry in designing the organisational structure of the nationalised steel corporation . It outmanoeuvred criticism that the new structure would be too bureaucratic by stressing that the new structure would be decentralised and leaving the details of that structure undefined in the nationalisation legislation (Cmnd 3362) . When previously faced with the threat of nationalisation, the Federation had organised its opposition with skill . But the decline in the health of the industry had undermined its position . Gone was the attempt to be undogmatic in its defence of the private ownership of steel . This time the Federation was shrill in its defence of private property as such, claiming that the nationalisation of steel would undermine the foundations of the liberal democratic system (BISF, 1963) .



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It desperately sought to find a compromise solution that would leave some, increasingly small, part of the industry in private hands . All these attempts failed and when the industry was nationalised there was very little chance that it would ever be denationalised, recent comments by the Tories notwithstanding (Financial Times, 20 Jan 77, p . 13) . THE MEANING OF STEEL NATIONALISATION Before going on to discuss the significant differences between the political parties in terms of their response to the problem of the steel industry, it is necessary to establish what the nationalisation of steel was all about. The move to nationalise steel came from the steel trade unions and became part of the Labour Party programme in the nineteen thirties . Party theorists, who were writing about the importance of planning, endorsed the call for a nationalised sector of 'basic' industries as these would provide a lever in the hands of a democratically elected government to control the character and development of the private economy . All moves for nationalisation were through socialist rhetoric, as part of a loosely conceived assault on the 'commanding heights' of capitalism . This was nowhere so strongly emphasised as in the argument about steel nationalisation (Cole, 1948 and Fienberg and Everly, 1948) . The mix was not, as some supposed, a transition between capitalism and socialism combining representative samples of each . Rather, it combined two forms for the capitalist domination of the production process . On the one side, there was the private sector in which capitalist domination was ensured by the combination of private ownership and management . On the other was state (not public) ownership, with the nationalised industries organised as public corporations, so that they operated to advance the needs of the private sector . The setting up of a state owned sector had no immediate implications for the struggle to abolish the commodity status of labour ie : labour-power. The industries nationalised by the Labour Government were similar in many ways . The Bank of England, which was only nationalised in a pseudo form, was meant to provide a lever by which the Government had the formal power to control the financial system . The other industries were all concerned with supplying the manufacturing sector with important raw materials or infra-structural inputs . Coal, electricity and gas provided the energy inputs : transport, the necessary circulation of both raw materials and finished products . Thus nationalisation was to produce a state owned sector providing the basic inputs for the manufacturing sector which was expected to remain in private hands . It was significant that all these industries were either already municipalised or facing severe problems under the direction of private capital . Also, the efficient and socialised costs of these industries would provide a stable base for the profitable operation of private capital working in the rest of the economy . The steel industry was not quite like all the others . It is true that the industry provided an essential raw material for large sections of manufacturing industry and was, in that sense, akin to the infra-structural projects of other nationalised industries . However, parts of the industry were more



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like manufacturing than raw material production . The finishing sections, and those which concentrated on the production of specialised steels, were almost indistinguishable from other manufacturing industries which used basic steel as their raw material . Thus the Labour Government's move to nationalise steel pushed at the limits of the logic behind the construction of a state owned base of a mixed economy . For the first time it attempted to nationalise an industry which was not unambiguously infra-structural . It did not recognise the distinction and made no allowance for it . Similarly, it tried to nationalise an industry that was profitable . Indeed, given the economic health of British industry in the post war period, steel was very profitable . These factors combined to help to explain the opposition of private capital to the nationalisation of steel and the conflict with the Labour Government. The Labour Government of 1945-51 lacked a theorised conception of what its nationalisation programme was doing or where nationalisation should end . The absence of a general argument in favour of nationalisation and the pragmatic points made'to support each new extension of state ownership showed that the Labour Party was not involved in an attack on capitalism as such and that it did not mean to take over the whole of the capitalist economy . Without theoretically defined limits, conflict over steel nationalisation was crucial in forcing the Government to conceptualise its task and to make explicit, not only the criteria for determining the size of the state owned sector but also the principles that would be followed in the relations between the state and the privately owned sector of the capitalist economy. In the process of the conflict with the Federation, the Party came to recognise that the division in the economy between manufacturing industry and those industries that provide basic raw material or crucial inputs such as energy, was important, and that the division coincided with its strategy for a state owned sector upon which private industry could profitably operate . The conflict also forced the Government to spell out details of the way in which nationalised industries would fulfil their obligations to the consumers of their products in terms of quality, quantity and price, effectively legislating the subordination of the state owned sector to the requirements of private capital . STEEL AND PARTY POLITICS It is now necessary to consider the character of the solutions proposed for the problem of the steel industry by the two major political parties . It is clear that they had different ways in which they thought the problem could be solved, and the conflict between the two parties, arbitrated by the electoral system, determined the order in which the different solutions were introduced and the duration of each attempt. Though the basic problem of steel was defined in the relations between capitals, and the requirements of the accumulation process as a whole provided the background to the solutions, it was the political process which determined which solutions would be attempted . The logic of politics was superimposed over the requirements of the accumulation process . The Labour Party's solution, proposed in 1945 as the nationalisation



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of steel in the context of setting up a mixed economy, was a progressive one in a particular and definite sense . It was progressive because the Party was willing to intervene in the internal relations between capitals and to alter the significance of some areas of production . It was willing to abolish the direct domination of the production of steel by units of 'private capital so that the industry could be modernised and rationalised and so be better able to meet the requirements of the class as a whole . Nationalisation was the basis of the solution because it would enable the costs of such a development programme to be spread across the whole of society . The costs would not have to be measured against the immediate prospects of profit for individual steel companies . The solution involved certain complications, proposing as it did an alteration in the forms of property relations and an expansion of state ownership and state involvement in the conduct of the economy . Such a move presented, in a distorted and ideological form, the opposition between private capital and the social character of production as an opposition between private and state capital . Though the Attlee Government's proposed solution was progressive in character, that did not mean that it was accepted by the industry, private capital as a whole or the other political parties . The circumstances in which it was being implemented were not conducive to its success . There was the vivid contrast between the steel industry and the other proposed nationalisations. Steel was profitable and had an extensive development plan in progress . The weaknesses of the industry were not as glaring as those of the railways or the coal mines, even though the potential significance of the industry's failure was as significant and as inscribed in the pattern of private ownership and the need to make a profit . In many ways it was the ability of the steel industry toearn substantial profits through the operation of the government sanctioned price policy that was its main protection against the proposed nationalisation . Profitability effectively concealed the consequences of the industry's organisation and policies . As argued above, the renationalisation of steel was the progressive solution applied to the steel industry in conditions when those consequences were no longer concealed . But what of the Conservatives' opposition to the Labour programme and the alternative that they introduced when steel was denationalised? As a first point, the high degree of cooperation between the Conservative Party and the British Iron and Steel Federation needs to be emphasised . In the opposition to nationalisation, the Federation provided the Conservatives with information and arguments (BISF, Iron and Steel Bill, 1949) . Indeed, they even sat in committees with the Conservatives and planned the parliamentary tactics to be used in the campaign . The main outlines of the Tories' alternative proposal were taken from the Federation's suggestions . The proposal either to maintain or to reintroduce the structure of public supervision set up by the Attlee Government was derived from the Federation . Even the strengthening of the powers of the Iron and Steel Board, to ensure that the industry was subject to `public' control, came from the

initiative of the Federation's president, Sir Ellis Hunter (Hunter, 1949) . The Iron and Steel Board, which supervised the industry between

1953 and 1967, failed since it could neither guarantee the steel firms'



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profitability, nor could it force the industry to modernise or radically to restructure the process of steel production . Though the Board and the Federation could quibble over whose fault it was that the industry's security had declined, neither could learn the real lessons of the failure of public supervision . In essence, property relations in the industry, with units of private capital 'competing' with each other under a compulsion to earn a profit on invested capital, were such that they hampered modernisation and rationalisation of the industry. There was no way in which the industry, operating according to its own perception of what was possible and profitable, could sufficiently improve the process by which steel was produced so that it would be available at the prices and in the quantities and qualities that would best meet the needs of manufacturing industry . The inability to come to grips with the changed circumstances and to devise a solution to the continued problem of the steel industry was fully revealed in the struggle over the renationalisation of steel . Though they had been the party of government when the steel industry confronted its most glaring problems, the Conservatives did nothing apart from reiterating their opposition to nationalisation . When the Labour Government stated its intention, the Conservatives promised to obstruct the move in every way. Vainly, Conservative spokesmen sought to defend the industry, to prove that it had reformed itself and that it would, if given proper freedom and incentives, rationalise its structure and modernise its techniques . To the obvious Labour taunt, asking how that was possible if so little had been done during the years of public supervision, the spokesman had no reply. The positive suggestion, made by a few Tories, was that a new Iron and Steel Board was needed, with more powers to influence the conduct of the industry . This was a tune that had been heard before . The lesson to be drawn from the Conservatives' inability to handle the problem of steel when it reemerged despite, or through, the implementation of their 'harmonising' solution, is that government by the party which most loudly proclaimed its loyalty to business (capital) was not always effective in assuring the interests of the class as a whole . It was not just conflict between the two political parties that was important, there was also the struggle between the Labour Party and that section of private capital directly involved in the production of steel, which had an institutional voice in the British Iron and Steel Federation . In the initial dispute over nationalisation, the Federation had sought a progressive solution to the general problems which faced government and capital in the period of construction of the mixed economy . In opposing their own nationalisation, the Federation did not oppose nationalisation as such but admitted that in certain circumstances it might be necessary . Nor did it present the move to nationalise steel as an attack on the rights of property or the freedom of citizens . It opposed the nationalisation of steel on certain clear grounds . The industry was profitable ; it was expanding production and cooperating with the Iron and Steel Board . The Federation also accepted that forms of public supervision were essential to plan economic development and to coordinate the actions of government and business . Surprisingly, the Federation even pressed for an increase in the powers of the Iron and Steel Board . This was to avoid the criticism that



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the Board could not really control the industry's well organised and highly determined trade association . Denationalisation by the Conservative Party very nearly implemented the Federation's view of how the problem of steel should be solved . When the failure of public supervision became obvious in the nineteen sixties, the Federation was as unable as the Conservative Party to find a way out . Its only answer was to call for a change in the price policy so that the industry's profitability would improve . No attempt was made to tackle the real problems of the industry until the threat of nationalisation was unavoidable . When it became obvious that the industry could not avoid nationalisation, for the first time there was an attempt to rationalise the process of steel production, by integration of the different parts of production and by the amalgamation of firms to give regional and product specialisation (The Benson Report) . These changes and proposals did nothing to help the Federation's case as each concession revealed a further weakness in their claims . THE REPRESENTATION OF THE INTERESTS OF CAPITAL On the basis of such an account of the solutions proposed for the problem of steel, it is necessary to ask "Why was it that the Labour Party found a better solution than the Conservative Party?" The superiority of the Labour proposals did not reside in the fact that the Labour Party's solutions were more widely approved than those of the Conservatives . Rather their superiority lay in the fact that the Labour Party's suggestions were more likely to achieve changes in the steel industry so that it might more effectively meet the requirements of manufacturing industry . Nationalisation was the better solution because, in this particular case, it more suited the class interests of capital, even though the class did not fight for that solution . Some general attempts have been made to explain why Labour Party programmes do not threaten the class interests of capital . Most often these have focused on the social democratic character of the Party, treated in terms of its ideology and strategic principles . These terms are used to produce elaborate descriptions of the situation that exists : the programmes of Labour Governments are compatible with the general interests of capital and this is expressed in the ideological acceptance of the formal rights of private property and the mix of the mixed economy. However, concentration on the Party's social democratic ideology or disposition cannot explain why, in a particular situation a specific policy was implemented . Nor can it explain why that policy was adequate or effective . If the basis of the Labour Party's competence is to be understood, it is necessary to return to the connection between the Party and the trade union movement, and to consider the consequences that this relationship has for the process of policy formation within the Labour Party . On the matter of steel nationalisation, the basic proposals came from the steel unions which were responding to the situation in the industry . They called for the nationalisation of steel to protect the security of their employment, fearing that any solution imposed by the private owners and managers C. & C. J



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would have increased unemployment in the industry . The call for nationalisation was further processed by the TUC, and, as a consequence, was incorporated in the Labour Party programme of 1934 . Thus it was on the basis of the steel workers' call for nationalisation to protect their immediate interests, and processed by the institutions of social democracy (the structure of trade union and Labour Party relations) that steel was nationalised and the class interests of capital were assured . What had started out as a move to protect labour, turned into a solution to the problems faced by capital in the process of production and accumulation . It is important to note that the steel unions not only alerted the Party to the fact that a problem existed in steel production, but that they also suggested the basic form of the solution . The attempt by the steel workers to break with the existing conditions of social domination and to find a radical solution, provided the impetus for a Labour Government policy which was attuned to the class interests of capital . The transformation of the policy, of both its meaning and social significance, occurred within the structures of social democracy . It was also affected by the conflicts with other political parties and sections of private capital . The ability of the Labour Party to find a solution to the problem of steel lay in its relations with the trade unions concerned with the industry . The relation between the trade unions and the Labour Party is not a simple and uncomplicated one . It is not that the trade unions, because of their experience of work conditions, recognise the problems faced by capital in the process of production and develop adequate solutions which are then handed to the Labour Party to be implemented when they come to office . Not all trade union proposals are compatible with the class interests of capital in the same way as the call to nationalise steel was . For example, at the same time as the steel workers made their demands, there was a move by the textile workers to have the cotton industry nationalised . Even though this gained some sympathy in the Party, it never became part of a government programme . The difference between steel and cotton, steel as a basic industry and cotton as a hopeless and declining sector, was recognised by the Labour Party . It was not just the connection with the trade unions that was important ; it was the way in which demands were selected and transformed so that those which emerged as government policy largely harmonised with the class interests of capital . It is obviousthatthe process by which the Labour Party in government selects and transforms the policies generated by the trade unions, needs to be more fully investigated . What is clear is that the trade unions and 'left wing' policy groups within the Party provide the range of proposals that are transformed to provide solutions to the class problems confronting capital . The trade unions are sensitive to the existence of problems in particular areas of the production process because of their concern with the economic situation of their members, but this neither means that they want to find solutions for capital nor that the solutions they propose will be adequate to that task . If trade union advocated policies do serve the interests of capital, it is either for reasons outside the unions or because the policies also gain some benefits for their members . As important as the generation of policies is the filtering, selection and transformation of these



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to serve more adequately the class interests of capital . Here it is the relationship with the Labour Party (as a government or potential government) that is important . The process of selection and transformation is not entirely based within the Labour Party and its relations with the trade unions . Though the process of transformation and modification largely occurs within the institutions and procedures of social democracy, some part is played by conflict with the Conservative Party and with sections of private capital itself. On the matter of steel nationalisation, it was the conflict with the Iron and Steel Federation, as the organised representation of private capital directly involved in the production of steel, that conditioned the Labour Government's modification of its proposals and forced the Government to be more explicit about the role of nationalised industries . The importance of that conflict cannot be underestimated, not for the part it played in taming the Labour Government (it was quite tame already), but for the way in which it forced the government to refine the details of the scheme so that it harmonised even more closely with the class interests of capital . Unrefined it would not have harmed those class interests but, refined through conflict, the nationalisation programme was more coherent and more effectively attuned to the finer details of the class interest of capital . In the dispute over steel, conflict with the Conservative Party was of some significance . Acting as if it were the voice of the Federation in Parliament, it was able to affect the timing of the move to nationalise steel . Without the ability to delay nationalisation, the conflict with the Federation would not have been as effective as it was . Why did the Conservative Party come up with the solution it did and why was it far less competent to advance the class interests of capital over the matter of steel? The close connection between the Federation and the Conservative Party over the issue cannot be ignored . In acting as the Parliamentary voice of the Federation, it could only produce solutions that would serve the class interests of capital if it were possible for the sectional interests of private capital in steel production to be harmonised with the interests of manufacturing industry and, hence, with the interests of the class as a whole . As such it sought compromise solutions that had to respect the existing set of property relations in both steel and the rest of manufacturing industry . As the account of developments in the steel industry has argued, this was only possible in the special conditions of demand and price policy in the nineteen fifties . The close connection with the Federation could explain the problems that the Conservatives had in finding a response to the obvious failure of public supervision . In this instance the Conservatives, because of their close relations with a section of private capital, sought harmony in a situation where it could not exist . Here then is one of the important differences between the two parties . The Conservatives have strong connections with the. existing sections of the class of capital, and this was the basis upon which they sought to create piecemeal reforming proposals that would meet the requirements of the different sections of capital which were affected by the problems in steel production . These proposals had to work within the existing relations between sections of capital and those relations formed the parameters for



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any possible Conservative solution . The Labour Party lacks such extensive connections with the class of capital . Undoubtedly it gets funds from business, especially in the runup to elections in which it seems likely that the Party might succeed . Overall, the Party's relations with capital are less strong than those of the Conservatives . Individual industrialists or businessmen who identify with, or consistently support, the Labour Party are exceptions . The Labour Party's lack of concern with the existing balance within the class of capital, its willingness to interfere and to remove some section of production from the direct domination of private capital must be related to this fact . The Party's attachment to social democracy, with its apparent desire to change the face of capitalism, works to reenforce this tendency . The Conservatives work within the given structure and balance of the class, but the Labour Party, through its connections with the trade union movement, is able to find more progressive solutions that face the long term interests of the class as a whole . Such an account raises the question of whether it is always true that the Labour Party will generate better solutions to the problems of capital or whether steel was a unique exception . Other studies of major policies are needed to supplement and qualify the general points made here. There are several points, however, that the argument is not trying to make . It is not trying to underestimate the important part that Conservative Governments play in finding solutions to some of the problems faced by the class of capital . In fact, in some areas the Conservative Party is better equipped than Labour to effect solutions within the class of capital . The Conservative Party's present policies, as articulated by Thatcher and Joseph, are not good examples . Nor can the contribution of Conservative Governments to working out the details of policies and proposals suggested and implemented by Labour Governments be undervalued . For example, the consolidation of the mixed economy owed as much to the thirteen years of Conservative administration as it did to the Attlee Government's intiative in the nationalisation programme . The only way to discover how it is, in particular circumstances, that the class interests of capital are assured by government programmes is to study the different capacities and abilities of the two major political parties to generate and implement such policies . It is also necessary to consider the extent to which conflict between these two political parties is a vital part of the process through which proposed policies are adjusted, more precisely, to the class interests of capital .

NOTE Doug McEachern teaches Politics at the University of Adelaide, Box 498, GPO, Adelaide, South Australia 5001 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ashworth, W . (1953), Contracts and Finance, H .M .S .O ., London .



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Boyle, A . (1967), Montagu Norman : A Biography, Cassell, London . British Iron and Steel Federation (1945-67), Annual Report . " (1949), Iron and Steel Bill, Some Arguments For and Against, London . " (1967), The Benson Report, London . British Steel Corporation (1967), Report On Organisation, Cmnd 3362 . Burn, D . (1940), The Economic History of Steel Making, 1867-1939 : A Study in Competition, Cambridge University Press . (1961), The Steel Industry, 1939-1959 : A Study in Competition and Planning, Cambridge University Press. Carr, J .C . and Taplin, W. (1962), History of the British Steel Industry, Basil Blackwell, London . Clay, Sir Henry (1957), Lord Norman, Macmillan, London . Coates, D . (1975), The Labour Party and the Struggle for Socialism, Cambridge University Press . Committee on Commercial and Industrial Policy (1918), Final Report, Cd 9035 . Cole, G .D .H . (1948), Why Nationalise Steel?, Revised Edition, Newstatesman and Nation, London . Fienberg, W. and Everly, R. (1948), Steel is Power : The Case for Nationalisation, Victor Gollancz, London . Gumbel, G . and Potter, K. (1951), The Iron and Steel Act, 1949, Butterworth, London . Harris, N . (1973), Competition and the Corporate Society. British Conservatives, The State and Industry 1945-1964, Methuen, London . Hunter, Sir Ellis (1949), A Stronger Board, British Iron and Steel Federation, London . Hurstfield, J . (1953), The Control of Raw Materials, H .M .S .O . and Longmans, London . Import Duties Advisory Committee (1937), Report on the Present Position and Future Development of the Iron and Steel Industry, Cmd 5507. Iron and Steel Act, 1953, Ch . 15 of the Public and General Acts and Church Assembly Measures, H .M .S .O ., London . Iron and Steel Board (1953-1966), Annual Reports . McEachern, D . (1977), Government Action and the Power of Private Capital, unpublished Ph .D . thesis, University of Leeds . Miliband, R . (1973a), Parliamentary Socialism, second edition, Merlin Press, London . " (1973b), The State in Capitalist Society, Quartet Books, London .

Report of the Departmental Committee Appointed by the Board of Trade to Consider the Position of the Iron and Steel Trades A fter the War (1918), Cd 9071 . Ross, G .W . (1965), The Nationalisation of Steel : One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?, Macgibbon and Kee, London . Skidelsky, R. (1967), Politicians and the Slump : The Labour Government of 1929-1931, Macmillan, London . Vaizey, J . (1974), A History of British Steel, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London . Wilson, H . (1974), The Labour Government, 1964-70 : A Personal Record, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth .

REVIEWS

CLASS STRUGGLE, THE STATE AND MEDICINE : AN HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY ANALYSIS OF THE MEDICAL SECTOR IN GREAT BRITAIN . By Vicente Navarro Martin Robertson (London : 1977) pp 156, £9 .50 . THE CULTURAL CRISIS OF MODERN MEDICINE Edited by John Ehrenreich Monthly Review Press (New York : 1978) pp 300, £8 .85 . Reviewed by Michael Carpenter Despite their cost, both these books merit attention, in the first instance because the politics of health has too long been ignored by all but a few Marxist writers . In the USA, however, a tradition of serious analysis is establishing itself, and both these authors are American based - even though Navarro's Class Struggle, the State and Medicine is the first serious attempt to account for the development of the NHS within a Marxist perspective . Two factors are perhaps of key significance in the emergence of a critical politics of health in the USA . The first, the emergence of women's liberation movement since the late 1960s, the second, a developing critique of the American medico-industrial complex . In this country, the widely-held view on the left of the NHS as one of the few genuine monuments to post-2nd World War socialist aspirations has undoubtedly held back the development of critical Marxist analysis on health and health care . Yet, despite 30 years of the NHS, class differentials in mortality rates are actually increasing at an alarming rate . For this, and many other reasons, it is an appropriate time to seriously think through what a Socialist politics of health might look like . Both these books - one focussed directly upon the NHS, the other a general collection of readings on the politics of health, can help set the terms for a theoretical debate, especially given the rather contrasting approaches of the two authors . The most positive feature of Navarro's Class Struggle, the State and Medicine is his departure from the prevailing tendency of bourgeois historians (continued by Asa Briggs in his two New Society articles of 16 November and 23 November 1978), to try to account for the development of the NHS with scarce reference to wider social and economic developments . Navarro primarily sees the NHS as the outcome of successive waves of class struggle at the level of the state . Within this perspective, a succession of Reports and suggested reforms are made more intelligible than ever before, because they are seen as determined largely by the degree to which the ruling class needed to dampen working class discontent or



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win its collaboration in other goals (such as winning the war) . On a superficial level, Navarro's analysis agrees with the orthodox left view that the NHS was a working class 'victory' . However it is central to Navarro's argument that though a concession, it was one which did not greatly threaten ruling class interests either in or outside the NHS . Rather than creating a truly socialist health service, it reproduced a hierarchy closely modelled on capitalist production relations . The result of this so-called 'class domination' by a teaching hospital elite was a distortion of the NHS towards acute and hospital centred 'industrialised' medicine, and away from care (as opposed to cure) and community services . Throughout its thirty years, Navarro argues, the NHS has operated very gingerly in relation to external ruling class interests : health care ameliorated but did not, and could not prevent, the 'diswelfare' generated by a capitalist mode of production . It channelled working class aspirations for better health into individualised, and hence containable, consumption of medical care . Medicine thus helps legitimate capitalism, by tending to . . . . make people believe that what is politically and collectively

caused can be individually and therapeutically cured' (p92) Part of Navarro's problem is that in such a slim volume he is only able to present an outline argument, leading him to assert a great deal without providing convincing supportive evidence . Yet I think there are also serious flaws in his analysis which is at best partial, and in some respects simply

wrong. For Navarro medicine serves ruling class interests

because

it is

ineffective and diverts working class attention from political change . Not only does this veer towards conspiracy theory, it implies that the ruling class has always seen through the inflated claims made for medicine . Unfortunately the evidence is to the contrary : ruling class faith in curative medicine led it to underpin both the creation and expansion of the NHS .

The notion behind the creation of the NHS in 1946 was the need to 'clear the backlog' of ill-health . Though there was alarm at rising costs in the

1950s, faith in curative medicine was reaffirmed with the Hospital Plan of 1962, on the assumption that the NHS needed to be given the tools to do its original job - new hospitals, technology and back-up diagnostic facilities . None of this is even mentioned by Navarro . The central emphasis placed upon class is also very one-sided, indeed almost vulgarised . The material rather than ideological needs of the ruling class are consistently under-emphasized throughout. Social unrest was an important factor operating on the ruling class and leading to increased state provision of health services . But also important was the need to physically reproduce workers and fighters, in collaboration with the family . Navarro only mentions such issues in passing but comes down

firmly, and one-sidedly, with the view that, for example in 1911 ' . . . it was primarily the social unrest, so widespread in the working class, that forced this British establishment to take steps to enact ameliorative legislation' (p11)



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Navarro's emphasis upon class struggle as the central explanatory variable is quite consistent with a view of the NHS as an institution conceded by the ruling class, which ameliorates the effects of capitalism without dealing with them at source . This is part of the truth, but as an analysis of the class character of the NHS it is patently inadequate . For Navarro, it is primarily the form which health services take - individualised, acute, urbanised and industrialised - which determines their class character, even though their content is apparently assumed to be ameliorative . There is no reference to the possibility that the class character of the NHS may also determine more explicitly its content . In other words, that health care can be oppressive and that as a result the ruling class has positive interests of its own to promote in providing it . This is the great strength of the Ehrenreich reader The Cultural Crisis of Modern Medicine, in that it embodies the perspective that health care, rather than being simply or always ameliorative, can also operate as a form of social control . What is more, the oppressive character of health care is seen as manifested through the form and content of health care at the point of patient contact within a professionalized service . What is entirely absent from Navarro is any conception of power relations between health workers and users . This is unfortunate, especially since he does not analyse one of the chief features of hospitalisation (despite the weight he attaches to it as a factor) - namely, that it facilitates medical control of patients . Most of his evidence relates to the misallocation of resources to the acute, urbanised, hospital sector. In other words, he sees the class character of the NHS far too much in quantitative rather than qualitative terms . The class character of the NHS is also manifested by the social purposes of both chronic and acute services . To assume otherwise is to implicitly assert the class neutrality of chronic, caring services. The essence of what Ehrenreich calls the 'cultural critique' of modern medicine is a detailed and concretised examination of the ways in which health care may be oppressive . In a joint article with Barbara Ehrenreich, they suggest that health services have two main dynamics, each associated with different modes of social control . The 'exclusionary' dynamic aims to restrict access to services or make acceptance of them degrading and is associated with a 'disciplinary' form of control ; while the 'expansionary' dynamic encourages take-up and thus is associated with a 'co-optative' or less apparently punitive form of control . The implication of this model is that a widening of access to health services does not simply involve spreading the benefits of a generally desirable commodity as widely as possible . (However John Ehrenreich's discussion of health care as a commodity, in his introductory essay, is not particularly illuminating .) It may represent a change in the form of social control thought necessary by dominant groups . The Ehrenreichs convincingly demonstrate this point by discussing the way in which 'outreach' health services in the ghettoes were concerned mainly with the pacification of the black population . On the whole their model is an extremely useful one, even though it is essentially descriptive rather than explanatory - it does not explain why the forms of control vary . A more serious weakness is that their model does not allow for the possibility of the disciplinary mode of control operating in the context of



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an expansion in services . A notable example in this country was the expansion of mental subnormality hospitals following the eugenicist concerns of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act . The sources from which they develop their approach - well represented in the book - in general show how little practical use Marxism, has yet been in constructing a socialist politics of health . The exception is the section on Medicine and Imperialism which contains articles of a consistently high standard, starting with a brilliant dissection of Western Medicine by Franz Fanon . In the introduction John Ehrenreich argues for a synthesis between the 'cultural critique' of medicine and the `political economic critique', though at times he comes dangerously close to counterposing the two. It seems to me that the selections on medicine and imperialism embody such a synthesis. What is missing, on the whole, is a successfully combined cultural and political economic critique of medicine in the developed capitalist world . For this, Ehrenreich has no option but to turn to the two major sources for critical writings, bourgeois sociology and the women's movement. Whatever may be said in criticism-of sociologists such as Parsons and Freidson, they have sought to understand health services by looking closely at what they do . The danger of Navarro's approach, in by-passing this literature, and that of the women's movement, and seeking to generate a theory primarily from Marxist categories, is that the health service is rather too simplistically seen as replicating the structure of control in capitalist industry . Such a perspective is of some use but only takes us so far . It places too much emphasis upon proving that doctors are members of the ruling class, and ignores the crucial role they play as agents for it . Seeing the health service power structure as parallel to private industry is inadequate also because it ignores the fact that the hierarchical division of labour spans not just doctors, nurses and other paid health workers but also patients (who hardly appear in Navarro's analysis), and relatives . These are significant differences from manufacturing industry, regardless of whether it is production for, or removed from, the market . This does not mean, of course, that no comparisons should be drawn, but that they should be applied cautiously, with recognition of the complexity of the labour process in health care . Though Marxism has generally ignored the politics of health, it has been a subject of central concern to the women's movement . Psychiatry has for some considerable time been considered by many on the left as a medium for social control . However, radical psychiatrists only questioned the appropriateness of the medical model in one sphere, and thus implicitly acknowleged its legitimacy on its home territory . The women's movement has started to take the critique of medical knowledge a good deal further. A socialist politics of health which by-passes this literature, the lessons embodied in it and the dilemmas which have emerged in practice, is simply not worthy of the name . Three aspects of health and sexuality have been dealt with in this literature : (1) The expropriation of women as healers and health producers, and their subordination and sometimes removal from a male supremacist, science-based division of labour . (2) The ways in which medicine aids and



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abets the expropriation of women from control over their own bodies and reproductive capacities, and intervenes to maintain oppressive social relations between the sexes . (3) The ways in which medical science has served to legitimate the oppression of women by promoting or reproducing stereotypes of women's behaviour and capacities, glossed over by `science' . In general, the reader better represents the last two rather than the first aspects of this literature . There are also serious gaps in the literature, anyway . For example, the literature on domestic labour has largely ignored its involvement in providing health care . The Ehrenreich reader suffers, however, from two serious weaknesses . First, though there are excellent articles on imperialism and health care, and sexism in health care, there is nothing about the health of the male working class in the developed capitalist world . A second weakness is the one-sided focus on the need to transform the social relations of institutionalized health care . Important though this is, it fails to articulate the full revolutionary potential of a politics of health . At one level, the politics of health is concerned centrally with the typical ways in which men and women relate to their bodies and ultimately to each other . At another it seeks to identify the forces in our society which threaten health and how they might be changed . It would be easier to extend the approach taken by the Ehrenreichs at the first rather than the second level . By focussing on institutionalized medicine, rather than health and illness, they tend to ignore the structural causes of sickness in our society . There is nothing, for example, about occupational health and safety or, since illness is increasingly thought to be related to dietary patterns, the role of the food corporations in helping to shape them . Such concerns are, it must be admitted, central to Navarro's emphasis upon the ineffective nature of medical interventions . But in moving to this perpective, it seems to me vital to retain the concern of the cultural critique that health should not be seen as a self-evident goal imposed from above . Ultimately, a socialist politics of health is one which fights for the right of the mass of the people not only to control the factors which affect their health, but also to define in their own way what health means. For at the centre of the cultural critique is the insight that notions of health cannot be divorced from, and often underpin notions of appropriate social roles for classes, sexes and races, and according to different stages of the life cycle. Therefore the politics of health is not peripheral but central to developing a socialist politics aimed at breaking down and replacing the oppressive roles associated with a class-divided society . SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION AND MARXIST THEORY : BOLSHEVISM AND ITS CRITIQUE . by Philip Corrigan, Harvie Ramsay and Derek Sayer . Macmillan (London, 1978), pp . xviii + 232, £8 .95 . Reviewed by Mark Harrison . The immediate target of this book is what the authors call the `theory of



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productive forces' . They trace this theory from Engels and the Second International to its emergence as an integral element in Bolshevism and the world Communist movement. Because Bolshevism has helped to construct socialist social relations encompassing a third of the world's population, the book's ultimate target is the practice of building socialism in . Russia, China and elsewhere . According to the authors the 'theory of productive forces' has had many historical forms, some of them rejected by the Bolsheviks and their successors . Its more enduring form is as follows . Marx held an extremely broad conception of the 'social forces of production', not just technical but human, moral and political, embracing modes of co-operation and organisation . In the 'theory of productive forces' this broad conception is reduced to technology and tangible means of production : material things, not historical, material forces . Therefore the economic development of society is seen merely as a process of improving technology and producing more things . In this view, the social relations of production can be divided into two groups . Some relations refer to the production and disposal of things in a narrow, immediate sense : these are the 'production relations' . With the 'productive forces' they make up society's economic base . The other social relations - legal, cultural and political - are determined therefrom, and form the social superstructure . Among these is the state, which is consequently seen as external to production and determined by it. On the contrary, the authors argue, Marxists should do away with this crude economic determinism in which the economic base determines the superstructure. Instead we should see the state as a set of social relations internal to production, as 'the entire repertoire of activities by means of which a ruling class endeavours to secure its collective conditions of production' (p .9, reviewer's emphasis) . The authors suggest that Lenin and the Bolsheviks rejected the crudest kinds of technological determinism (Russian backwardness, relative to capitalist technology, precludes the socialist revolution) . However the Bolsheviks embraced another kind, which made the viability of socialism in Russia depend on catching up with the technological standard set by the West . In order to do this, they happily adopted and intensified bourgeois notions of division of labour, expertise and factory discipline ; they believed that building socialism was a simple matter of capitalist technology + Soviet power . The decidedly negative experience of socialist labour which would accrue to the Soviet factory proletariat could be counteracted by possession of the Soviet state - a machine 'external' to the shop-floor . The authors describe this view as 'economism in production, voluntarism in politics' : economic determinism led the Bolsheviks to adopt capitalist standards of production and labour-repression, while voluntarism was reflected in their belief that they could use . their 'ready-made' 'state-machine' to borrow capitalist technology, impose it and cope with the results . These views became a mass material force, embodied in Bolshevik practices and institutions . The authors investigate these propositions in relation to the historical experience of Russia and China, with the following conclusions . Firstly,



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they emphasise that Bolshevism was a contradictory tradition, and that they are criticising only one aspect - but an integral one - of Bolshevism . Bolshevism was also the instrument whereby working people across a third of the world dispossessed their exploiters and subordinated the exploiters' system to . socialist social relations . As a result, the Soviet and Chinese peoples rescued themselves from famine, unemployment, cultural barbarism and so forth . These are termed 'great facts' which must not be forgotten . Secondly, within this Bolshevism lay also the seeds of bureaucracy and state terrorism which manifested themselves most vividly in the Stalin period, when the 'great facts' mentioned above were first being produced . The authors' position is that the Bolshevik 'problematic' lays down structural limits to building socialism, because of the capitalist methods employed, which constantly reproduce capitalist production relations and capitalist state forms . Consequently the USSR cannot be designated fully socialist ; it is a society 'in transition "between" capitalism and socialism', combining great socialist facts with subordinate but real capitalist ones . Thirdly, they argue that East European reformism of the Czechoslovak and Yugoslav kind replicates Bolshevism in another form . These reform movements turn towards capitalist methods of economic discipline (increased market relations and enterprise autonomy from the central planners) in order to find a faster route to parity with Western capitalist technology ; they pose production against socialist advance, seeing the state as an 'external' guarantee of working class power . Fourthly, the authors argue that the Chinese Communists have developed a real, although incomplete, critique of Bolshevism, which was elaborated by Mao and reached its most developed practical forms in the 'Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution' . This critique emphasises mass activity and mass culture as productive forces, poses political-technical culture against technical expertise and sees revolutionising production relations and the state as essential to solving China's economic problems . It therefore rejects both capitalist standards of modernisation as criteria of socialist development, and the externality and autonomy of the state in organising production . This work is very welcome, because it tries to do two unusual things . Firstly, it is not merely a doctrinal work but tries to create a materialist analysis of the relationship between Marxist ideas and socialist practice . Secondly, its task - the critique of Bolshevism - is one before which Western Mar*ism has shown a crippling reluctance . In both respects the authors can notch up a serious, thought-provoking and major piece of work . In particular this reviewer agrees with the emphasis on the 'theory of productive forces', and considers the sections on Lenin and Trotsky to be on the whole very successful . At the same time the book as a whole is not completely successful . Only the most important problems can be dealt with here . Maoism is not, as the authors assert, 'the only sustained . . . critique of Bolshevism' (p .xv) from within the Marxist tradition . This reviewer would argue that the authors have completely suppressed an important alternative . They reproduce several Stalinist slanders of Bukharin - that he 'ignored class struggle', that he stood for the rich peasant and for capitalist economic



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development (pp .82-89) ; and they adopt a similarly distorted view of the Czechoslovak Communists' 1968 reform movement as motivated solely by technocratic and inegalitarian forces (pp .45, 133) . They ignore altogether the Western descendants of this 'other' Bolshevism, the Eurocommunists . From the latter standpoint, the book combines a series of contradictory positions. Firstly, the authors recognise that socialist revolution and socialist construction are a continuous process of struggle . However they always reduce this struggle to one of capitalism versus socialism . They do not stop to ask whether authoritarian politics, for example, is a product of the capital-labour relation alone, or whether it is a tendency present in all class societies including socialist ones . In the same way commodity relations were not originated by capitalism, and may arguably help to organise some socialist tasks . The authors' search for capitalist dangers leads them entirely to suppress still other issues of socialist society - for example, the struggle for the emancipation of women . As for the 1920s, this reviewer would argue that the main danger was not one of capitalist degeneration, but a danger of feudal-bureaucratic degeneration -as history showed . Secondly, the authors pose mass participation in decisions as an essential part of developing socialist productive forces and social relations . However there is a lack of focus upon the state institutions which must be developed to bring this about. In real life, democracy means a set of institutions which give people direct control over immediate decisions, and indirect control (through representatives or referenda) over big decisions . However the authors adopt a definition of the state which is deliberately non-institutional . Another way of looking at democracy is as a combination of relations of consent and coercion, which mediate between society and the state, and in which consent dominates . The authors however reduce all relations of consent to coercion (p .10), and all collective relations of class domination to the state (p .9, quoted above) . Consequently both consent and society disappear . This makes it very difficult for them to formulate the problem of mass democratic control over the socialised economy or the central coercive state . They cannot see the mass democratic features of the Czechoslovak reform movement . Nor can they analyse the profoundly undemocratic features of Chinese national politics, which lent to the Cultural Revolution aspects of Stalin's terror, in relation to Chinese society and production (pp . 143-144) . Thirdly, the authors emphasise that solving production problems always means acting upon social relations of production . However at times they so intermingle these two facets of economic development that the advance of productive forces is reduced to the advance of production relations. It becomes possible for the authors to judge changes in social relations irrespective of production tasks, or even to deduce the solution of production problems from the adoption of more 'advanced' production relations . The advance of production relations is judged primarily by the dual elimination of market relations and of shop-floor hierarchy as means of economic discipline . Again absent from the analysis are the disciplines emanating from the coercive state, the popular control exercised over these disciplines, and their relationship to grass-roots initiatives and wants .



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Not even a socialist economy can run without some elements of subordination and discipline, whether democratically determined or not . In this light, the authors' description of Chinese planning (pp .131-132) can only be called appealingly naive . Finally, this reviewer would like to assess the book under review as a contribution to socialist practice, and believes the authors would desire this . The authors adopt Stalin's definition of Marxist theory as 'the experience of the working class movement in all countries taken in its general aspect' (p .xii) . They describe their stance as that of 'what Gramsci called an "organic intellectual" : one who seeks to found and validate his or her analysis in the historical experience of the working class' (p .146) . Now there are two points at issue . Firstly, it seems to me that the intellectual function means more than individual theorising . Part of it is about the unifying of theory and practice . And that part cannot be just an individual function either, to be carried out by one author, or even three, . or ten thousand individual writers . Somewhere there has to be that element of collective vision, of consciousness of all the other writers, and of that class in relation to which the intellectual function is being constructed . Secondly, and therefore, the authors have failed Stalin, because their work reflects nothing of the Western experience of working class politics since 1917, nothing of the elaboration and practice by other Western Marxists of other roads to socialism . It hasn't got any reference points in Western Europe since 1917 at all . Symptomatic of this uprootedness is the book's style . More than a quarter of the book is taken up with the academic paraphernalia of appendices and footnotes. The text itself is written with all the modest simplicity of a papal encyclical . History is said to experience 'scissions' and 'caesuras' (not breaks and breathing spaces) ; people and events present themselves 'simp/iciter' (not simply) ; the book itself is 'prolegomena' to future historical work, which means it was written first . This Bourbon erudition is oddly interlaced with the homespun wisdom of Chinese peasants . The book is not easy to read . Side by side with a serious theoretical contribution to the class struggle against the 'fetish of "expert" and cadre', the authors have written a formidable contribution to Marxism as a closed professional expertise, inaccessible to many potential readers who might actually want to educate themselves . This is a shame, because the book contains much original thinking of real educational value .

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ART, AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE By Roger L . Taylor Harvester Press (Sussex, 1978) . £8 .50. THE MARXIST THEORY OF ART By Dave Laing Harvester Press (Sussex, 1978) . £8 .50. Reviewed by Alan Lovell . Roger L . Taylor begins Art, An Enemy of the People, promisingly by asking whom he is writing for and discussing the problems of intellectual communication a radical academic faces . The thesis of the book is that the dominant concept of art is an essentialist, ahistorical one that enables art to function as an instrument of social subordination . Taylor wants to alert the subordinated to this and encourage them to oppose 'Art' . His book is therefore directly aimed at 'the masses' rather than other academics and intellectuals . Taylor's solution to the obvious problems of writing for potential readers with very different intellectual backgrounds than his is disappointingly insubstantial, however . It amounts to a determination to write unaffectedly and non-technically - with an injunction to readers coming across difficult sections either to stay with the book in the hope that the difficulties will eventually be resolved and/or to make allowances for the author's academic background . There is an impatient quality to Taylor's thinking which helps produce this insubstantiality not only in relation to the problems of making contact with his intended audience but also to the argument he is making for that audience . He never clearly establishes his own concept of society for example . At times society is conceived as functioning through a simple minority/majority division ; the minority consisting of the rich plus intellectuals, the majority of 'the broad masses' . The task of the intellectuals is to con the broad masses through their control of intellectual activity . At other times Taylor works from a more complex class analysis and recognises that language forms are deeply embedded in class divisions. Once a recognition of this kind is made, demystification of dominant concepts with the aid of unaffected and non-technical styles of writing doesn't seem such an easy and obvious solution . Taylor's argument against essentialist views of art and for an historical and empirical approach is given a practical application at the end of the book in a sketch of the development of jazz . His account of the relation between jazz as a musical form and New Orleans as a social form is really suggestive . Its a pity that the proportions of the book weren't reversed and the most substantial part of it devoted to this account of jazz. The intended readers of The Marxist Theory of Art seem to be students in higher education and people involved with the arts . But there is a taken for granted quality about the book's relationship to this readership which produces an uncritical acceptance of the rules of that unsatisfactory genre, the introductory survey, which Dave Laing avowedly set out to write .



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The main rules of the genre are brevity, fairness, and neutrality . So Laing deals with the important areas of Marxist aesthetics, gives each area roughly equal space and deals with it in the same way - a general sketch of the position supplemented by the criticisms that have been made of it . Laing has been conscientious in his reading and, with the exception of his account of the Tel Quel position, presents the areas fairly clearly . But the consequence of the introductory survey approach is that Marxist aesthetics is made to seem at best only mildly interesting, with all its ideas equally deserving of consideration and all equally open to criticism . Throughout the book there is a sense of low intellectual pressure which is unlikely to stimulate readers to develop an interest in Marxist aesthetics . I'm not sure the failures of The Marxist Theory of Art are entirely attributable to its genre . In a substantial way not just as a strategic decision, the book seems to lack a position . A claim is made for one in the introduction but it is described in a vague way . A chapter on the mass media is offered as something distinctive but I'm still unclear about Laing's attitude to the media other than that he thinks they're important. Finally he describes the debate between Screen and the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in a way that demands he state his own position . But the demand is evaded in favour of a weak affirmation of activism .

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