SHADOW Chancellor John McDonnell made it perfectly clear at Labour’s Conference on the Economy that the Labour Party was now for ‘transforming capitalism’, and not for replacing it with Socialism – he did not mention the S word once!
In our radicalism, said McDonnell: ‘I want us to surpass even the Attlee government for radical reform.’ In fact the Attlee government was not a radical government. It was a reforming socialist government, with Bevan in its front rank, telling the Tories in the House of Commons: ‘We are the masters now!’ while tens of millions of workers, many just returned from the war, drove it on with their determination never to return to the conditions of the 1930s.
The Labour government brought in the NHS, and the Welfare State, and nationalised the railways. The Bank of England and civil aviation were nationalised in 1946. Coal mining, the railways, road haulage, canals and Cable and Wireless were nationalised in 1947, electricity and gas followed in 1948. The steel industry was nationalised in 1951. By 1951 about 20% of the British economy had been taken into public ownership.
The only way that McDonnell and Co could surpass Attlee, is in defence of these great gains, to complete the job of expropriating the bourgeoisie and going forward to a socialist republic. However, completing the British socialist revolution that was begun in 1945 – when the working class returned Labour and dumped the warlord Churchill – is the last thing that McDonnell and Corbyn want to do.
Instead they have embraced the paupers’ broth of corporatism, the notion that ‘we are all in it together’ is to be given an organisational structure that will allow a ‘radicalised’ capitalism to continue. And this is after the banks have already collapsed once, and even worshippers of capitalism like the last chief of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, are forecasting the inevitability of an even bigger banking crash emerging out of the current crisis.
Putting his blindfold on in a pathetic attempt to keep this crisis at bay McDonnell declares: ‘Our aim is that in the life of one Parliament we lay the foundations of a new society that is radically fairer, more equal and more democratic, based upon a prosperous economy which is economically and environmentally sustainable and where that prosperity is shared by all.’ This is a fairy tale!
He added: ‘When we return to government, I’ll be looking to set up an Economic and Innovation Forum which will provide a space where representatives of businesses, unions, and wider civil society can come together with government at a national level. We’ll create a real partnership in policymaking.’ We are all in it together, after all!
This is Harold Wilson not Aneurin Bevan.
Further, he declares: ‘Transformative councils like Preston in Lancashire are developing a “local entrepreneurial state”. The council there is working with major local institutions, like the university, to help support the local economy.’ However, McDonnell treads very gingerly as far as resolving the housing crisis is concerned. He says: ‘The cost of housing in London is arguably the biggest single blight on this city. Many, particularly young people, who are unable to get onto the housing ladder are then at the mercy of an unforgiving, unrestrained housing market.’
His solution is: ‘We’ll look to give local authorities the powers to impose rent regulation to secure fair rents where these are needed as Labour committed itself to at the last election.’ However it is to be up to the local Mayors who can overrule government. In London that means the new mayor Sadiq Khan who is opposed to rent controls will be allowed to protect the ‘sky-rocketing rents’ being imposed by landlords! McDonnell’s economic policy is more about placating Labour’s right wing than in ‘transforming capitalism’.
The Shadow Housing Minister has already informed McDonnell of his plans to build 100,000 new council homes a year to be funded by cuts in the housing benefits bill. Councils will be meanwhile encouraged to offer cheap local authority backed mortgages to first time buyers.
Labour’s plans to transform capitalism are being launched at a time when capitalism itself is in an ever deepening crisis, that demands its overthrow by a socialist revolution, not its renewal. We urge workers and youth to join the WRP and the YS today to organise the British socialist revolution.