CP's British Road to Capitalism
Socialist Outlook magazine1980sPhil HearseScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
THE BRITISH ROAD to Socialism has gone through several transformations since the original 1951 version of the CP's programme dropped onto the mat at King Street in an envelope from Stalin. The most drastic revision was the 'Eurocommunist' version produced in 1977. Now the Communist party is revising its programme once again, and a new draft appeared in the September issue of Marxism Today. PHIL HEARSE looks at its content.
This new programme is significant not so much in that it presents very right wing ideas about socialist strategy – that is hardly something new for the CP – but in that it presents a series of ideas about objectives – the kind of society we should be fighting for – which are not in any recognisable way socialist at all.
Indeed this current draft abandons many collectivist, let alone socialist, aims and values.
Of course, Mr Martin Jacques and his co-thinkers are not so stupid as to put up a sign saying 'we no longer believe in socialism'. Their sales pitch has always been that they are adapting socialism to modern conditions.
They argue that capitalism is changing, the working class is being recomposed, the economy is being restructured – and therefore the old social-democratic post-war consensus is useless - we need a new way forward. This line of argument always catches right-wing social democrats and Morning Star stalinists on the hop, because at a descriptive level it's true.
There are massive changes to capitalism and the working class in the Thatcher era: the question is, what conclusions should we draw from these changes. Do they lead to an abandonment of class politics and collectivist solutions? That of course is where revolutionary socialists differ from Marxism Today.
The new draft puts forward a series of interlinked arguments which add up to a package for accepting capitalism. Each one of these arguments is either factually wrong, or a misinterpretation of developments.
Schematically, they are as follows:
• Economic and social restructuring means that the traditional demarcation lines — especially the division of society into two mutually hostile basic classes - are being eroded. The acquisition of skills and education means that many people are now in a 'contradictory class locations' and are both exploiters and exploited. 'Working class versus bourgoisie' models are old-fashioned.
• Thus 'class cannot straightforwardly provide the collective interest for modern socialism'. Socialism is thus not the objective interests of the working class expressed at the political level, it has to be constructed through the forging of alliances between disparate groups, whose interests are contradictory. The economic struggle of the working class is just one among many such interests.
• This is especially so since there is no such thing as 'pure class'. 'Everyone comes to their sense of class through their sense of gender, ethnicity, as well as regional or religious attachments'.
Socialists should counterpose to Thatcher's modernisation programme their own modernisation programme. This involves recognising that most of the economy will remain in private hands, but requires democratic regulation and control.
• Internationalism. Britain's international role is crucial for socialism. The labour movement should support integration in the Common Market and 'Europeanisation' in general - through a fight to democratise the Common Market.
When the chips are down, it is evident that what Marxism Today is proposing is an alternative capitalist modernisation to that of Thatcher - one which attempts to be more democratic, and goes along with the capitalist 'European option' in international affairs. Underlying these arguments are a series of quite crucial arguments which are quite widespread on the left.
First, there is an implicit assumption that Thatcherism is basically successful and has overcome the crisis of British capitalism evident in the 1960s and 1970s. Marxism Today is starry-eyed about Thatcher - just at a time when the economy is going into a nose-dive.
Second, while it's true that there is a major reorganisation of the working class - a decline of traditional industry, the rise of high tech and service industries - this does not at all mean that the working class as a collective subject or historical actor is being eliminated.
Third, it is just untrue that 'everybody' comes to their sense of class through their sense of gender, ethnicity, or religious faith. This is just an unproved and dogmatic assertion. Marxism Today sets up a false dichotomy between class on the one hand, and sex and race on the other, by confining 'class struggle' to the 'sphere of production' and the 'workplace' itself. Ironically, the idea that class struggle is confined to the 'workplace' and the 'economic struggle is a typically economist notion, one denounced by Lenin in a pamphlet written 86 years ago! The new draft also takes it for granted that the only progressive alternative to a stalinist, totally nationalised, bureaucratically planned seige economy is a democratically regulated and controlled capitalist economy.
The new draft of the British Road, then, continues the unhappy story of the official CP's race to the right. The emphasis is on securing individual rights in a democratic capitalist society, and a rejection of collectivism as a thing of the past. This reaches its apogee in the notion of the 'enabling state' (an echo of Neil Kinnock's favoured formula) to replace today's oppressive state.
The departure here from traditional Marxist ideas couldn't be more radical. No wonder the authors have received enthusiastic backing in their endeavours from Bryan Gould. But the underlying assumptions are identical to those of David Owen. And when we find a proposal for 'consumer choice in the health service' the inspiration seems more right wing still.