CENTENARIES Rosa Luxemburg the Paris Commune Aspects Of
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CENTENARIES Mike Faulkner on Rosa Luxemburg V Penn on The Paris Commune Mike Cooley on Aspects of Technological Change (PARr rwo) Wages & Inflation Number Seventeen Price lOp FROM THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE We are pleased to announce that, in spite of rapidly increasing costs. we are able, due to new production methods. to maintain the price of this Journal at its current level of 10p. Original subscribers will recall that the price of the initial copies in the period 1966- 1967 was 2/6d. We hope that the new production will not compare unfavourably with our previous technical standard. An increase in our circulation will enable us to maintain our present price stability for a longer period in an inflationary economic situation. In the widening arena of struggle against capitalism we believe The Marxist serves the interests of the revolutionary forces in Britain and has a part to play in the development of a Marxist-Leninist party. 'Jf you share our view. you can assist us in the following ways: (a) Introduce new subscribers to the journal (b) Sell The Marxist. (Up to fifteen copies sent on Sale-or-Return terms) (c) Send a donation. Cheques and Postal Orders to be made payable to The Oasis Publishing Company. Subscriptions, requests for Sale-or-Return copies, donations, etc. send to: Tom Hill, 11 Barratt Avenue, Wood Green, LONDON. N.22. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Mike Cooley Jim Kean Mike Faulkner Colin Penn Tom Hill '"Re9 Wagland Frank Huscroft Subscriptions Surface mail (unsealed). All countrie.s '1~... (Six issues) Single copies 15p post paid. " COMMINT firms. It is equally well known that our Rising Unemployment counterparts in other countries are being fed on the same diet. The ruling class are showing their skill by refusing to be put on the defensive by Productivity Oeals the growing unemployment . They are not resting content with the belief that higher Whilst it is true that Productivity Deals une~loyment will auto~atically reduce the do not cause une~ployment, they hasten its value of wage settlements but are seizing growth and help to create the frame of mind the opportunity to wage a battle of ideas which accepts unemployment as being due to to convince the working class that the inefficiency and the growth in wages out growth of unemployment is their fault for stripping the rise in productivity. being too greedy. The obvious development of this argument is that a wage freeze if Increases in productivity have been prob necessary in order to safeguard jobs and ably the highest in Electrcity Generating, a further development at a later stage in Steel making and Chemicals with the result which tne same argu~ent is used for an that the numbers employed in these industr actual reduction in wages. ies has fallen considerably over the past ten years or so. In Steel alone it is The Labour leaders are doing thei r best forecast that there will be 40,000 less to make capital out of the widespread feel~ jobs in 1975 than in 1967. 9,000 have al ing that the Tories are the Party of unemp ready disappeared and 11,000 more are due loyment. If we get taken in by this we to vanish in the next twelve months. will soon find ourselves back on the round Towns like Irlam will be transformed almost about pf 'fighting for the return of a Labour overnight from comparative affluence to Government.• distressed areas, already hard hit areas like Teeside will .be pushed further into The basic fact is that the current devel poverty. oping crisis of world capitalism has very little to do with the level of wage settle A sidelight on the question of unemploy ments or even wage levels. In France, It ment was notable in the radio programme aly ana·even Weit Germany and Sweden the nAny Questions• in which Calla9han, fo~mer sa~e problems are being thrown up and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made the state saMe remedies advoeated. Those of us who -ment that unemployment can be controlled work in industries or firms geared to ex~ by Government action. This view was oppos ports are so often told that the kind of ed· by a Tory member of the team but unfort wage increases that we are demanding will unately no one asked why unemployment was render 'us' unable to compete with foreign allowed to rise to over 500,000 under the I abour Government whir.h was suppQsed to worker) large sums of money they wo~ld get. favour full employment. In these circumstances it i s very '~iffi The fact is, as Marx stated ov~~ a hun cult to get united mass action to ff~ht dred years ago, capitalism needs a reserve redundancy because, apart from the inherent army of unemployed in order that the sys difficulty of fighting on such an issue , tem shall run "efficiently". there is the additional factor that whilst some prefer to take the money in preference The sole argument between Tory and Lab to fighting, others hesitate to fight for our on this question is simply about what fear of losing any redundancy pay to which constitutes full employment. In the years they would be entitled. immediately following the 1939-45 war no politician dared openly question that full Action in individual factories against employment meant exactly what it said. specific cases of redundancy may or may Gradually the terms "over employment" and not be successful , depending on the local "acceptable levels of unemployment" have circumstances but if conducted on a •broad• been. introduced until now the uargumentu is enough scale and accompanied by a Marxist over what constitutes "excess" unemployment . explanation of why capitalism must have an army of unemployed as a condition of sur The Actuaries of the National Insurance vival, then a start will be made on :re Scheme have stated that their calculations ating a public opinion which will challenge for the next three years have been made on the ruling class on this issue. the basis of a Government assessment of 660 ,000 unemployed. After the Bill This clearly shows that the "acceptable" In spite of one of the. biggest str&et or to put it more correctly, the necessary demonstrations in recent years and stti~s level of unemployment is increasing from by over one million engineering workers it year to year. is evident that the Bill is go1ng through without any significant change for the bet The ruling class foresaw this develop ter. ment and introduced the Redundancy Payments Act. This was hailed as a Workers• Charter On the Sunday demonstrati on ,alled b1 the but in practice it proved to be just one T.U.C. and those connected with the one more example of how the British ruling day token strikes, one could hear ~u h re class know how to make concessions in order marks as "after this the Tories will have to divide the opposition. There is no to reconsider their atti tude 11 To que.st doubt that resistance to closures and re ion this was, in the main , regarded as ~r dundancies would have been much greater had etical and defeatist. it not been for the operation of this Act. There have been many cases of workers Basically, this attitude is a refle tion with long years of employment with one of the still strong influence of reform1sm company actually volunteering to be put on ov-er the working class. It is the belief the redundancy list because of the (for a that, in spite of everything, the ruling 2 ··-~ class will bow to mass pressure and re the political understanding of those invol frain from becoming more reactionary. How ved in the struggle, it resorted to "scare" else can one explain the underlying supp tactics to get people to take action. By osition that whatever changes are taking this we mean that C.P. members of our acqu place in the economic and political situa aintance (and we believe this was wide tion of the ruling class, the trade union spread), tried to get workers to move into movement can still continue in much the action on the basis of such slogans as 1The same way (mergers, etc . notwithstanding). Bill will put us back a hundred years•, "Without the trades unions the working class The point is that the deepening crisis is is defenceless", thus giving the impression compelling the ruling class to revise its that the pass1ng of the Bill would be an act attitude towards all the political, econom from which the working class could not re ic and social institutions now in existence. cover or fight against until its repeal by They may still have room for maneouvre so the "democratic process'. that they can make tactical changes when faced with uncomfortably strong opposition, We do not consider this to be accidental; but the main objectives will not and can how better to assist the return of a Labour not be changed. majority to Parliament, along with some Communist M.P .s so that a "Left 1 Labour A fact of life Government can be formed in line with the policy advocated in 'The British Road to This is a fact of life that needs to be Socialism" . understood if there is to be any advance towards building a revolutionary move~ent . The alliance between the C.P . and the Trotskyists is also not accidental or tact The role of the Labour Party, C.P .G. B., ical, it flows from the same basic policy Trotskyists and most trade union leaders has of •pushing the Labour Party to the left been to direct attention away from this and and forming a new left Labour Government".