According to Healey and Callaghan there is "no alternative' to their Budget. The working class must tighten its belt in order to help the great god of capitalist profit out of its crisis.
The reality, however, is that capitalism has nothing to offer the working class and is worth no sacrifice whatsoever. Already the present capitalist recession - brought about purely because capitalism produces for profit and not for need - has made 15 million people unemployed in the advanced capitalist countries alone. In Britain industrial production is actually lower than it was six years ago; the living standard of the working class has fallen by 6 per cent in six years; and unemployment is at its highest level since the 1930s.
In previous pages we have looked at the immediate steps that can be taken to protect the working class against the capitalist crisis. These demands, however, also begin to prepare me way to impose workers control over the economy. They are part of a transitional programme The creation of such a state will involve a working class revolûtion, and socialism has never meant merely dreaming about what will exist in the future. However, when capitalism has nothing to offer but a worsening crisis, it is worth looking at even the first steps that could be taken with a planneu cconomy an a workers state. It shows the socialist alternative to the Budget and capitalism's One of the first tasks of planned economy would be to eliminate the inequality and waste in capitalism -the situation whereby, for example, El million can be spent on something like the investiture of the Prince of Wales while in that country nearly a third of the houses are over 80 years old and there are 37,000 houses without even an inside toilet.
In relation to the inequality of income the situation is also absurd. For example, in 1975 the total of and this | all incomes of over £75 a week was £2,400 million a year. This is more than sufficient to double house building, or would allow pensions to be increased by three quarters.
Higher pay is evidently needed for highly trained specialists and for workers such as miners who do dangerous jobs, but even half this would allow £1,200 million to be saved. million was used on land speculation and office building in London alone. In the United States - and Britain is not far behind - it is calculated that 50 percent of the cost of many goods in the shops is accounted for by advertising and packaging. Elimination of this waste would release vast resources.
The Cambridge Political Economy Group has calculated that around 1,300,000 people in Britain are employed in advertising, financial and legal networks, generated by property disputes, property ownership and other "industries purely necessary because of capitalism's profit and private ownership system.
other jobs unnecessary in a workers state - for example, social security investigators, private detectives and the like - a cutting back on jobs in this area of only 50 per cent would generate £2,100 ductive employment. This would, for example, allow the house building programme to be more than doubled.
ANARCHIC provide no problem in a planned economy. Only in the anarchic economic system of capitalism can the scourge of unemployment exist. Even in a bureaucratically planned economy such as the Soviet Union, unemployment simply does not exist. Under capitalism, however, astronomical resources are wasted in this way - even leaving aside the enormous human misery involved.
of houses, schools, hospitals and so on, yet 300,000 workers in the construction industry are unemployed.
of the absurd misuse and non-use of resources by capitalism, then the total savings are immense. The heavily, find the following as the immediate savings.
• Ending upper class consumption • Cutting military expenditure • Eliminating waste and redundant services. • Creating full employment In fact even the sums we have considered in this article are piffling compared to what is possible with a planned economy. Consider even an increase in the annual rate of growth of the British economy to 6 per cent - a very minor figure and exceeded even by capitalist countries such as Japan. If such an economic expansion had been achieved between 1951 and 1973, then the economic production of Britain would be double what it is now.
What could be achieved on an international scale and with a world economy defies description. But if we take 1962 as a base year, then Coupled with the elimination of million for proProviding work for those released less than ten years. from unproductive industries would There is a tremendous shortage If we take just these obvious cases under control. £1,400 million £2,000 million £4,900 million subscriber Print Redundancies, the British and American situa we find that an increase in the growth to this rate of the West European economies from S to 10 per cent would make it possible to surpass the standard of living in the United States within On the basis of modern science and modern means of production what could be achieved is virtually limitless. A United Socialist States of Europe would allow a rapid reduction of the working week, a complete reorganisation of the cities, abolition of the stinking slums of capitalism, and vast economic support for the countries of the "Third Of course the elimination of this crazy system of capitalism will hurt some people. In Britain the top 100 firms account for more than half of industrial production, and a takeover of the top 250 firms would bring virtually all industrial production GHEATER MANCHESIEH ITOODS OUT April, 7.30pm, the Black Lion, Chapel Street STOP THE PRIORY SCHEME and all private practice! Public meeting organised by Wandsworth Campaig gainst Private Practice, Weds 21 April, 7.30pm, at lor, Steve Johnson (NALGO) and Sue Holland (ex chairperson, Wandsworth & E. Merton CHC) MOZAMBIQUE REVOLUTION: Frelimo English la quarterly. Independence issue now available price (inc p&p) 50p; annual sub E2. Also 'People' Power in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau: new bi monthly series of reports. malor speeches and polic statements, news etc. sample copy sup, annual su! tz.bu. boin availabie trom. Mozambique and Guint normanon centre, te Lite newport outel CHIFFQUE CONFERENCE: 30 April/T May, King College, Cambridge. Ine ruture socialist society day- The Transitional State 2000): Central Plan Problem of Prices, G. Smith (4.30). Social in evening THE NEw TECHNOLOGY and the Fignt tor Jobs in the Print, meeting organised by Committee against nurs 22 April, 7.30pm in Free akers on KED BOOKs comprehensive list of titles now avai able-Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Mandel, Lukacs to: Red Banks, 97 Caledonian Road, London . Deutener, ele, send s.d.t. for cop The owners of these firms would undoubtedly suffer and would strike back with every means at their disposal - including their control of the state and armed forces. The struggle for a workers state and planned economy will inevitably cullminate in a violent clash for power between the working class and the capitalist class.
But there is no way of avoiding that violence. The only question is whether the working class will fight or allow itself merely to be attacked by the capitalist class without resistance Healey's Budget will not lead to a rosy capitalist prosperity. On the contrary, it continues to plot a course which is steadily eroding the social, economic and political gains or une working class, Ine resistanc is growing. Our task is to organise that resistance in the direction of the fight for workers control to lay the basis for a planned economy. THE LEFT and the Labour Party'-open forum with (nr Cradlewell pub), Newcastle. Social afterwards REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST Group meetings in Scotland: David Yaffe on 'The Crisis - A Marxist Analysis', Tuesday 20 April, 7.30 pm in Park Place Primary School, Dundee; Wednesday 21 April, in Trade Union Centre, Picardy Place Foster Road, Trumping on, Camberdgookshell, 150 Group, Sussex University Union, Falmer, Brighton NEW PAMPHLET produced by Birmingham IMG The IMG: What We Stand For'. Proseds to Re Weekly Fighting Fund. 1-5 copies, 10p each + 10g BENGALI FRIENDS in Europe and elsewhere, for GLASGOW Socialist Forums-every Thursdav in the
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towards a planned economy and a REVOLUTION
Cambridge Political Economy Group, on whose calculations we have drawn
£3,500 million £11,800 million
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