The Ghost of Labour's Past. posted by Richard Seymour

It is tempting to speculate that the blazing public hatred for all things Left evinced by many former socialists is a reaction-formation. One imagines behind the public zeal and rhetorical prestidigitation sad lumpen figures, wistfully thumbing their banned copies of Marx & Lenin and jacking off to the latest alluring edition of Socialist Worker. Ask not for whom the blood boils, comrades; if Melanie Phillips is any guide, it boils for you.

Yet, there is a sense in which those who have sold out (for example, Alistair Darling, once a bearded Trotskyist, is now an unappetising Blairite - a neat move from the animals to the vegetables) can claim to stand effectively where they have always stood. At least, those who moved from Labour Left to Labour Right have made no momentous shift, compared to those who have moved from Labour Left to "left Labour". And that is why when George Galloway announced that Respect was to be "the ghost of Labour's past", I shuddered. Surely he had come to praise us, not bury us? Yet he cannily followed it up with the qualification, "or the ghost of what its supporters wanted it to be". Is the spectre of Labourism haunting Oona King, then? I don't believe so, and fervently hope not, since an examination of Labour's past actually undermines the novelty of this Whig administration.

Teetotals and Benthamites.

Labourism is an atypical fixture of European social-democracy. Born in the lean years of defeats for the working class, it thrived only after the locust years of 1914-18. The New Unionism of the 1880s and 1890s notwithstanding, the bulk of the working class was still not unionised when the Labour Representation Committee was formed in 1900 from a coalition of the Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation, the Trade Unions Congress and the Independent Labour party. An employers' offensive, prompted in part by the Great Depression, was battering the working class (culminating in the Taft-Vale judgement of 1901), and the formation of the LRC was effectively a defensive move against this, given the unlikelihood of the hegemonic Liberals doing anything to defend the interests of workers. The bet was that it would be more possible to pressure a Liberal government into ventriloquising workers' interests if the working class had independent representation, with its own whips and policies. The intention was not, as with continental socialism, to radically alter the structure of capitalism either by reform or revolution, but to seek some melioration for the needs of workers within the existing constitutional arrangements.

After the Liberals won in 1906 on a 'radical' ticket, the LRC was re-constituted as the Labour Party. Just as it had been ally to and parasitical on liberal progressivism, the Labour Party's initial success in gaining MPs was part of the Liberal revival. Insofar as there was any commitment to socialism, it was either the 'state socialism' of the Fabians (which included, as well as patrician oversight of the workers and industry, the British guardianship of non-adult races) or the 'ethical' socialism of Kier Hardie, Ramsay McDonald and Philip Snowden. (McDonald, of the three, produced the most copious theoretical work in defense of his socialism). Religious-style language about 'the new Jerusalem' abounded. Structurally, a party of the trade unions (with unusual voting bloc procedures which still persist, thus providing the illusion that the working class was in some sense genuinely represented), ideologically there was no commitment to the working class that was not integrated into an appeal to nationhood. Privileging class struggle at best made a virtue of the necessary sectional fights for improvement within the system, or sorely misrecognised the commonality of British interests. McDonald was persuaded that between capital and labour were the general interests of the "community" (a totemic imprecation that has become a cynosure of British Labourism, old and new). The SDF, a sectarian outfit under the leadership of the former Tory Henry Hyndman, had already departed the LRC in 1903 - and was not mourned in passing. And, at any rate, the SDF did not approve of industrial struggle, holding that such activity was a diversion from the inevitable.

Only in 1918, with the approval of section four (subsequently, 'Clause 4') at the party's February conference, was socialism an explicitly formulated goal - although the formulations are in fact rather nebulous, and attenuated by the get-out clause in section three ("as far as may be practicable"). Ralph Miliband notes the Fabian tone ("secure for the workers") of what he says was effectively a Labourist prospectus for the higher regulation of capital rather than a commitment to democratic socialism (although the latter vocables would soon be conflated with welfare capitalism).

While Labour accepted the constitional arrangements of the British state (a striking fact in itself, given the undemocratic nature of the Crown-in-Parliament, the obsessive secrecy of the civil service bureacracy, the class-conscious obstruction of the Lords and so on), it did seek reforms, and was rewarded with a growing electoral base - beating the Liberals in 1924, with almost four times the number of seats. Yet, obsequious during the General Strike of 1926, the Labour Party practically gagged on the ruling class teat once in office. The undistinguished minority government, formed in 1929 with 288 seats, was doomed by the acquiescence with already-existing structures of power. Parliament, Philip Snowden told the Labour Party conference, should not intervene in the financial matters of the City, since "Parliament is not a competent body to deal with such highly delicate and intricate matters". Wall Street crashed, Labour remained enchained to the fiscal austerity and economic orthodoxy of its opponents, and unemployment doubled to 2.7 million during its brief time in office, before the formation of a National Government with Tories, Liberals and the remains of Labour united under the leadership of Ramsay McDonald under the invitation of the King. Labour had quelled a mutiny in India, placed unemployment policy in the hands of the Lord Privy Seal and Snowden had announced that public spending would be cut - the bulk of the cuts were to be found in unemployment insurance, further immiserating Labour's constituency. While the National Government terminated the Labour administration in 1931, the remainder of the Labour Party first radicalised, then swung right. McDonald's apostasy had guaranteed an impregnable Tory monolith, and it ruled until 1945.

Springtime for Attlee

If the reformist road to socialism, however construed, proved unavailing in the pre-war years, there is a great deal of mythopoeic writing about what persisted in the post-war years. The National Government had, during the war years, used Keynesian techniques of demand-management to stimulate the economy and keep the nation afloat. At the same time, the experience of fighting a war which was popularly conceived of and fought as one against fascism radicalised much of the working class. Clement Attlee, himself an uncharismatic and rather drab right-wing monarchist, benefitted from these two legacies of war. His government was elected with a 145 seat majority, and proceeded to implement a number of highly substantial reforms: the National Health Service, in which dentistry and prescriptions were initially free; the nationalisation of key sectors of industry (opposed by the executive in 1944, a young Ian Mikardo proposed a motion to commit Labour to extensive nationalisation, which was passed by congress); new council house-building; and the dramatic expansion of the welfare state.

Yet, it is precisely on this point that the post-war social democrats deluded themselves. Having rejected an unavailing reformist road to socialism, they now believed they had reformed capitalism substantially enough that the interests of workers and capitalists coincided. Through these reforms, they believed they had tied the Conservatives into an unwilling consensus which could not be broken, and had therefore provided the frame in which to pursue more limited reforms (Crosland). Even when the Tories won a majority in 1951, they were pledged to maintain the status quo. Butskellism was, for Labour's leadership, not a sign of their own accomodation to capitalism, but to the solidity of their own accomplishments. Yet, the reforms thus far achieved were, if too radical for the Tories, nowhere near as radical as they had promised to be - for instance, the commitment to the extensive nationalisation of industry was settled at 20%, mainly including industries that were of dubious pre-potency. The government therefore restored profitability to substantial sections of industry, and ran them as state bureacracies rather than as democratic socialist enterprises. Much of what was carried out by Labour would have been pressed upon any Conservative administration (and, of course, was). And such reforms as were acheived were coterminous with financial orthodoxy, a willingness to use troops to break strikes, and wage freezes. The continuation of war-time rationing squeezed living standards, while exports were increased. Foreign policy was no less continuous with past administrations. Labour's Ernest Bevin promised on election day that the new government's foreign policy would not be different from the previous one. Labour had, in 1944, supported the policy of crushing the Greek partisans and supporting monarchist forces. Similarly, it would go on in government to send troops to assist the French restoration in Vietnam, support Nato (despite noisy opposition from the Left), and develop nuclear weapons.

This was the zenith of reformism, even if it didn't represent the apex of reformist aspirations. It was argued that the new 'mixed economy' was in some senses a post-capitalist one, one that provided workers with growing income and employers with generous profit rates. But it was precisely the unusual health of the economy that demanded explanation more than it explained. As Larry Elliot & Dan Atkinson point out (in The Age of Insecurity), whatever else may be said of the post-war Labour governments, they were not Keynesians. Inasmuch as counter-cyclical measures were implemented, they usually involved 'taking the economy off the boil', suppressing demand rather than reflating the economy in a down-swing. If the postwar settlement relied upon the dynamic expansion of industry, the failure of that condition would surely infirm that consensus and with it the entire complacent edifice of post-war social democracy.

Of course, it was precisely that condition which did begin to absent itself toward the late 1960s - and it caught the Labour government, then with a solid majority, totally unprepared. Harold Wilson, whatever else he was not, was a keen accountant of his own legacy while still alive. His own government, first elected in 1964, was vigorously opposed by Lord Cromer, the governor of the Bank of England, in its policies of maintaining 'full employment', demanding a wage freeze and higher unemployment. The failure to implement these proposals led to a wave of selling sterling that ate away at reserves. Wilson found himself in an argument with Cromer, in which he describes Cromer confirming that, in fact, international speculators were sending a message that the policies on which Labour had been elected could not be implemented. They wanted an increase in unemployment to slow wage demands, and an incomes policy complementary to that aim. A $3 billion loan was obtained from central bankers, but it was not enough to staunch the attacks on the currency. Therefore, and behind the backs of cabinet, the government made a deal with the Johnson administration. In return for a bail-out of the currency, Labour would deflate the economy, impose a statutory incomes policy, back the war in Vietnam, and maintain a military presence East of Suez. This bought some time, and Labour won the 1966 election with 48.1% of the popular vote. Their first act was to take the fight to striking seafarers who were demanding a modest pay-rise. Although it would lift many workers out of poverty, the government said that it would "breach the dykes of the incomes policy". In July of that year, Harold Wilson announced a complete reversal of economic policy: there would be a mandatory wage freeze - the first total wage freeze since 1931 - as well as public spending cuts, in order to deflate the economy. The IMF were brought in to manage this process, and it was they who argued for the introduction of prescription charges among other things. Dick Crossman asked the Chancellor Jim Callaghan at the time if he might increase family allowances for the poor: "Sorry, old boy, the IMF won't allow it". Unto which: "So we're back under the control of the bankers".

The post-war consensus crumbles

'Democratic socialism' entailed neither much democracy nor a great deal of socialism, although it did involve a surfeit of parliamentarism, which is exactly what crippled Labour in government time after time. As the economy unwound, a new monster emerged from the Keynesian national welfare-state: stagflation. Rising unemployment, slowing growth and higher inflation ran confluently into the Seventies, particularly after the 1973 OPEC crisis, which re-introduced the world to that old forgotten stranger known as 'recession'. Social democrats, and Keynesian economists, were baffled. Having failed to restore profitability and stem the crisis through restrictions on trade union bargaining power (In Place of Strife), Labour's leadership must have gained profound satisfaction from watching Ted Heath's Conservative government founder on the same rocks. The attempt to rein in the workers through the Industrial Relations Act only exacerbated the growing militancy of British workers, and two massively effective miners' strikes broke first the Tory policy and then the Tory government.

How did Labour, restored to government in 1974 on its most radical postwar manifesto, handle the crisis of social democracy? Largely, by ditching it. Proposals for higher public spending, a workers' share in the control of industry, taxing the rich 'til their pips squeaked - all were dropped in favour of a Social Contract which coopted the union leadership into a national incomes policy which would not allow wages to increase by more than 5% a year, when inflation was running at 20% a year. Public spending, under an agreement with the IMF, was slashed. Benn's proposals for democratising industry were killed off by the civil service and the Labour leadership. A clamorous New Right, with its monetarist dispensations, found an unexpected champion in chancellor Denis Healey. Meanwhile, sectional and disorganised militancy erupted among workers against what was described as "the social con trick", and Barbara Castle sent the army in to break a firefighters' strike. (Even this total capitulation was not satisfactory for some parts of the Establishment. The MI5 launched a disinformation operation called Clockwork Orange, whose details were revealed in Spycatcher, and several high-ranking intelligence officials set up private right-wing paramilitary organisations to sieze power if the 'Communists' in the government brought down democracy).

Social reformism to neo-liberalism

The failures of the Wilson-Callaghan government, as well as the brutality of the incoming Thatcher government, contributed to a brief ideological revival of left-wing ideas in the Labour Party, exemplified by the near victory of Tony Benn over Denis Healey in the 1981 election for the Deputy Leadership. Michael Foot was the most left-wing leader of the Labour Party for some time, although he joined in the general flag-waving during the Falklands War. But the weakness of this revival could also be detected in the defection of the 'gang of four', whose Social Democratic Party succeeded in splitting the left vote at the 1983 election. The very fact that they could succeed in splitting the vote was indicative of a general degeneration and fragmentation of the Left. At the same time, Southern Europe had witnessed a revival of radical reformism that did result in governments styling themselves as socialist - yet, they (Pasok in Greece, Socialist in Spain, PS in France) all in various orders of alacrity threw aside their radical manifesto commitments and embarked on programmes that differed from Thatcher's only in the inordinate belligerence of their execution. Their ideological self-effacement was prompted in most cases by capital flight, or fear of the same. The parties of the Second International, refounded as the Socialist International after the war, had generally proceeded from a strategic reformism to a reformism of principle, to an acceptance of welfarist capitalism, and were now in practise implementing the agenda of the hard right. Even the Labour left compromised itself through its proceduralism, its commitment to party structures and internal bureacracy - what Gregory Elliott acidly called "the resolutionary Left".

No matter, for in short order the Labour left was reeling under a witch-hunt led by the belliferous Neil Kinnock, whose crusade was facilitated by the defeat of the Miners' Strike. Benn had deluded himself that the 1983 election had represented an unprecedented vote for a clear socialist programme, but in fighting a pitch battle against the Trotkskyists and radicals in his party, Kinnock proved that the Left was on the retreat. For Kinnock was not simply demolishing the little Temples of Bronstein within the party; he was deliberately discarding every policy that could possibly be associated with socialism - unilateral nuclear disarmament, full employment, a planned economy, withdrawal from Nato, renationalisation of public utilities and so on. Thatcher had destroyed the industrial base with fanatical cruelty, with an impugnity largely supplied by the obsequiousness and weakness of the opposition. She had introduced laws that seriously weakened the bargaining power of labour. She had decimated a great deal of Labour's voting base, encouraging whether by accident or design a growing atomism and social break-down. Kinnock soon proposed that none of this would be altered by an incoming Labour government. Already in 1986, a joint Labour-TUC document expounded a mildly meliorist agenda which incorporated many of the Tories' changes to labour legislation. In the 1987 election, they campaigned on a modest programme of Keynesianism and job-creation, and pledged to renationalise British Gas and BT. But by 1988, after only a small revival in electoral fortunes, a new document entitled Democratic Socialist Aims and Values, signalled a new depth of surrender to the neo-liberal orthodoxy. In particular, full employment was re-defined as "satisfactory modern employment"; equality was replaced by equality of opportunity ("genuinely fair competition"); any invocation of the interests of labour or the working class was replaced with those of the "community"; regulation and public ownership was discarded in favour of "market allocation" in which it is agreed that "the competitive system" (the one that dare not speak its name) is enjoined to pursue the interests of choice, freedom and equality - as if markets could be infused with the prerogatives of social democracy.

The shambles of the poll tax campaign, in which Labour councils prosecuted non-payers en masse exemplified the obsessive parliamentarism of the party, at the expense even of its voting base. A 20% lead in the polls was frittered away on fudging around the poll tax and support for the Gulf War, as Kinnock attempted to represent Thatcherism-with-a-human-face and was outbid in that necrophilic auction by John Major.

The Blair "Revolution"

The speed and facility with which Blair, effectively an SDP viper in the breast of the Labour Party, and his allies took over the party machinery, gutted its constitution and banished even a nominal commitment to socialism (the famous 'marketisation' of Clause 4) astonished the grassroots and even traditional Labourists. Out-manouevred on every front, what was left of the Left could only resign itself to the miserable hope that Blair's warmed up liberalism would provide government - one that, if it did not advance the cause of socialism, would at least attenuate some of the worst Tory policies. They could not predict that even those policy nostrums that 'New' Labour allowed to define itself in opposition would be ditched once in government, but they similarly put up little resistance either in conference or in the PLP or even in the unions to the appropriation of even the most ridiculous Tory policies. Cuts in benefits for single mothers and the disabled, the imposition of immediate cuts in public spending, the private finance initiatives, the old familiar tincture of moral imperialism and the elevation of the consumer and community above the interests of labour marked a return to very old Labour territory, as well as a full-circle return to the cynosures of liberalism. The 'ethical' pieties of reformists past was reborn in a peculiar moral fervour embedded in the Christian Socialist tradition to which Blair belongs. Communitarian moralism was abetted by the staccato stock of Blairite conjugations ("rights and responsibilities", "firm but fair", "fairness not favours" etc).

If Labourism has never led an offensive against the power of capital, it now - like the Oedipal child - seeks to deny its own vulgar parentage, and disown as far as possible the movement which gave birth to it. A tributary of liberalism, it never properly belonged even with the renegades of the Second International. In an era in which the very power of national governments of reformist pedigree to deliver reforms is under question, Labour gainsays the question. Reforms that are desirable are barely aimed for, while the word 'reform' has been captured for a neoliberal discourse that seeks to introduce the 'efficiency' of the private sector to even those treasured and sentimentalised achievements of Labourism past.

The one thing that Labour has been entirely consistent about is its pettifogging parliamentarism, its proceduralism, its gradualism and its timidity before capital and the Establishment. The only boldness it has ever shown has been in disciplining its own 'extremists', shocking its own supporters and punishing its natural constituency. It is therefore no good for socialists, whatever concessions to contemporary political realities they may be obliged to make, to try to reformulate the Labour Party, to create an upgraded and more robust version of the same. Respect is both more and less than the Labour Party: more radical than it is ever again likely to be; less structurally embedded in trade unionism; more than an offshoot of liberalism; less than a hegemonic party of the Left. It is not at its final stage - there are many directions that Respect can take. But in its emphasis on grassroots politics, on the working class and on the streets, it eschews mere electoralism. This gives it as good a chance of any of avoiding the calamity of Labour's past.