1945 A Different “Age of Austerity” – a different path taken
In his “keynote speech” on Saturday, Ed Miliband attempted to make links between the ‘Labour Government’ of 2015 and the Attlee Government of 1945. John Penney, from Crewe Left Unity, was not impressed.
I had the misfortune today, since I couldn’t attend the Peoples Assembly event in London, to listen on the TV to Ed Miliband’s dreadful, much trailed “keynote speech” on Labour’s plans for its hoped for 2015 accession to governmental office ! It was of course the usual stuff – promising to reverse not a single Tory/Lib Dem cut. Miliband made it quite clear that anyone foolish enough to hope for even an “Austerity Lite” approach from Labour as an alternative to grinding the faces of the poor – In favour of a continued redirection of income and wealth to the superrich – had a big disappointment ahead!
Then , completely in contradiction to this “its Austerity for evermore folks” key inspirational (NOT) theme, Miliband made some (undoubtedly not to be fulfilled) rhetorical flourishes about “taxing banker bonuses” and “austerity not ruling out achieving big things”. As to what Labour’s “big plans and target achievements” might be – beyond increasing the profitability of big business and continuing to shred the Welfare State – there wasn’t any detail. What Miliband cheekily did do though was to cynically misrepresent the experience of the 1945 Attlee Government – “another Labour Government in an era of Austerity”, and suggest that the plans of the current New Labourites bore any relationship to what the 1945 Attlee Government achieved in terms of mass betterment of life for millions – all in a situation of economic near bankruptcy and infrastructural near ruin, after years of war.
Now I have no illusions that the 1945 Attlee government was any sort of radical socialist regime. This government broke all too many strikes, carried on Britain’s colonial policies across the world where popular resistance allowed, set in train the British atomic bomb programme with a secret Cabinet committee decision, unknown to the full Cabinet, or Parliament. Even the nationalisations it carried out were deliberately structured with no element of popular democratic influence – and the motivation was to save British capitalism, not to overthrow it. Nevertheless, under the immense pressure of mass popular expectations for a better life by the general public, and the implicit threat of the existence of millions of demobbed servicemen in the background if these expectations were thwarted post 1918-style, the Attlee Government, in the midst of incredible economic difficulty, with general rationing actually INCREASED in the immediate postwar period, responded to the popular will and electoral mandate with an astonishing array of transformational changes. Of Course Ken Loach’s excellent “Spirit of 45” covers this ground in some detail – but for brevity let’s just recap the key achievements , from the Wikipedia entry:
“It was an “age of austerity,” as wartime rationing was continued and even expanded to cover bread. Living conditions were poor, instead of expansion it was a matter of replacing the national wealth destroyed or used up during the war. The Great Depression did not return, and full employment was the norm. Returning veterans were successfully reabsorbed into the economy and society.[1] The Attlee government nationalized about 20% of the economy, including coal, railroads, road transport, the Bank of England, civil aviation, cable and wireless, electricity and gas, and steel. However there was no money for investment to modernize these industries, and there was no effort made to turn control over to union members. The Attlee government greatly expanded the welfare state, with the Family Allowances Act (1945) and especially the National Health Service Act of 1946, which nationalized the hospitals and provided for free universal medical care. The National Insurance Act of 1946 provided sickness and unemployment benefits for adults, plus retirement pensions. The National Assistance Act of 1948 provided a safety net or anyone not otherwise covered. The Education Act of 1944 was expanded, more council housing was built, and plans were made through the New Towns Act of 1946 for the growth of suburbs. Since there was little money for detailed planning, the government adopted Keynesianism, which allowed for planning in the sense of overall control of the national deficit and surplus.[2][3]”
Not bad for an undeniably root and branch reformist government! And remember that the higher level taxation rates and Death Duty taxes imposed on the superrich in this era were truly prohibitive – supertax rates of 90% for instance, and the controls over capital flows and business activity was still more like that of a Command Economy, than the unregulated free for all in place today.
That Miliband and his neoliberalist cronies have the sheer brass neck to suggest ANY connectivity between the entirely superrich pleasing policies New Labour have every intention of continuing should they return to office in 2015, and the extraordinarily wide ranging socially transformative range of reforms and restructuring made under the Attlee Government, simply shows their contempt for the electorate – and their confidence that their nonsensical bogus historical claims will never be challenged by a mass media totally critically supine as long as Labour spouts the agreed “Austerity” line.
Wikipedia entry is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attlee_ministry
8 comments
8 responses to “1945 A Different “Age of Austerity” – a different path taken”
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Really well said… you put your time to very good use!
I have always believed in the need for a left wing democratic socialist party and finally got round to watching The Spirit of 45 on Film Four last night and shed buckets of tears as expected, but it was more politically brilliant than i had expected! It showed the inefficiency of the private sector i.e. re the railways. It showed that some form of central planning ie re energy could have benefits plus how with nationalisation the same bosses were left in control and there was no worker involvement and community say. There
were many benefits re good quality housing with gardens and Nye Bevan was an idealist & nothing wrong with that – he wanted the best for working class people as I do – I may be a dreamer but I want all human beings to work 20 hours with decent pay, I want to free human beings from intolerable working conditions, have decent pay, earlier retirement, have decent homes and detached homes! There were also the wonderful benefits from the free NHS (I wonder why we still allow greedy NHS doctors to moonlight in the private sector?) and there was better pay in general and better health & safety plus regular work for dockers. We have much to learn from the mistakes i.e. re democratic public ownership – we need staff to elect boards and communities to have a say – we need to tap the ideas of working people which is why grassroots, bottom up is so important. People are sick of top down and paternalism. Plus on the rise of neo-libalism what came over was its ONE POLICY OF CHEAP LABOUR – so you see politics IS REALLY SIMPLE. Overall Ifelt inspired – we have the ideas, creativity and imagination. What also came over is how political people and politicians were then and today they are all so LIGHTWEIGHT – so it is LIGHTWEIGHT LABOUR,TORY,LIB DEM, UKIP v HEAYWEIGHT LU.
I agree with Bazza’s comments about staff electing boards and communities having a say and bottom up is so important…..but go further and argue communities must take control….that is where power must lie. Right then….so now its up to the left to set out a vision for such a society, set out a description of what its institutions will be , its political constitution and the means by which we get from here at Point A to there at Point B. Is Left Unity doing that?…. no it effing well isn’t…it is a bun fight between a variety of sectarian organisations scrapping over the meaning of the old socialist testament. Time for some new thinking folks, ditch the old dogmas and take on board some new ideas. Scotlands Jimmy Reud Foundation has got more new ideas on one page than all the screeds of stuff that has appeared on the Left Unity website so far. Come on…go and spend some time exploring some different ways of looking at the world and stop wasting time fighting over outdated dogmas….it is so unproductive and uninspiring.
Well said Jim,
I have to admit, I’m getting quite frustrated with Left Unity. I think it is a fantastic idea and I really want to see it succeed. But what on earth is going on?
The article above is nice (well written, and at least has a couple of references)… but as with almost all the articles in the last few months, there is nothing new. it is simply the author’s opinion that the system is bad. As most of us know this already (or we wouldn’t be visiting this site), it would be perhaps more helpful to have more detailed discussions about how we would change this system.
ps.. How do I get to write an article?
email content@leftunity.org Patrick
To put more flesh on pubic ownership we could ask working people and could have different models as long as they are all run democratically on cooperative lines. For example staff and the community could elect the regional boards for a publicly owned railway which should break even. The publicly owned utilities could be run similarly but a dividend could be paid to the community/community members like the old Coop Divi. The NHS could be run democratically but the private sector kicked out and all tax relief on private health abolished. All schools could be made DEMOCRATIC SCHOOLS with the whole community in the catchment area electing the school governors who would run the schools (and not just a vote of parents who usually only have a temporary interest while their children are there but all taxpayers fund schools).. Ballots for publicly owned industries and schools etc could take place at the same time as local elections. People need to feel these publicly owned industries are theirs and need to love them like they generally do the NHS and they need to be nailed down to protect them from right wing carpet baggers and neo-liberal asset strippers. I have also argued for free public transport run by local authorities which would help he transport poor, the environment, attract people out of cars, mean quieter and safer roads, hopefully less accidents, fresher air, encourage more cyclists, mean less stress on bus drivers – we could even have couriers on board to help passengers.
Also need to look at economic power and take some banks into public ownership. The capitalists legally steal the surplus labour of the working billions so as well as A Land and a Wealth Tax we could take some of this back via a Real Financial Transaction Tax instead of the piddling 0.1% which even was dropped 1% would bring in £35b in Europe and 5% £1.75tr. We also need to close tax loopholes, offshore banking and look at finance capital. Did like Richard Duncan’s suggestion of A Global Minimum Wage to which we could add Global Earler Retirement, A Global Shorter Working Week, Bette Global Health & Safety all of which would help labour at home and internationally. Need fresh ideas which we can put to working people as a draft for them to add to and to adapt or change from below. Just looked on the Jimmy Read website and someone made the good point that you tend to get more successful policy when we use our collective intelligence.
Yours in solidarity!
Good stuff Bazza…..these are the kind of ideas LU needs to be working on. The Jimmy Reid Foundation’s “Common Weal Project” looks like a good model for working up ideas collectively through various collaborations….LU’s “policy commissions” seem to offer a similar type of approach….instead of trying to reinvent the wheel is there scope for LU and the JRF to co-operate? I can see possibilities there as long as LU isnt taken over by the dogmatic lefties who are dominating the LU airways with their rantings at the present time……time for some alternative voices to be heard above all the noise.
BROKEN BRITISH POLITICS – UK RUN ON THE LINES OF A MUSHROOM FARM
For a healthy yield of Mushrooms they are fed BS and kept in the Dark.The Media states this morning 85% of Britons are against the increase in MP’s salary .Everyone I ‘ve spoken to were not asked so was the sample count taken from a village meaning 85 people out of 100 voiced their opinion .This saga similar to the ‘Horsemeat scandal’ seems to be dragging on so what is actually going on behind the scenes .Labour have put 14 Constituencies under Special Measures ‘ meaning the central office are in control this is because Unite, Britain’s most powerful union, has exerted influence in Ilford North by offering to cover the cost of local Labour party membership for the first year for union members.
Are the Police not accountable, MPs accuse the Serious Organised Crime Agency of failing to act concerning more Hacking .Do we need 650 Leeches when the EU is charge through Maastricht Treaty . http://brokenbritian.simoplesite.com