Steel workers marching for their industry, Cheltenham, January 2024. Photo Workers.
A snapshot of the condition of our country shows the scale of the problem facing us and also suggests a path to return Britain to progress…
Britain has seen decades of economic stagnation and decline. Investment in production, the basis for true wealth creation, has dwindled. The country’s starved infrastructure is in a terrible state. There is neither a strategy nor a fiscal plan to correct the neglect.
Successive governments have failed to address the problems. Nothing changes with the election of a new government.
The deindustrialisation of Britain continues, along with fostering the economic impoverishment of working people. Mass immigration, sucking in cheap labour, expands dramatically, ignoring widespread disquiet. Yet alongside that is an obstinate refusal to upskill and invest in the workers of Britain instead.
The problem is that power over our society is in the hands of finance capital and the corporate monopolies. They aren’t interested in satisfying the needs of the working class, the great majority of citizens, because they have only a self-interested desire to keep coining grand profits for themselves.
In the service of the ruling class are the government and parliament. These are supine to the ruling oligarchies and do not govern in the interests of the working class. Effective democracy for workers does not exist within the system.
No choice
There is little difference between the mainstream political parties on questions of the economy. All prop up capitalism, so there is no choice for progress within the flawed electoral process and Westminster parliamentary set-up.
‘Nothing changes with the election of a new government…’
There was little enthusiasm for the conventional parties in the election. There is no confidence that the established politicians or parties will tackle the problems and transform the country.
The result was due to the unpopularity of the Conservative government rather than a popular surge of hope for the capacity of Labour.
Our class never gets any closer towards exercising power over events or resolving fundamental problems. The systemic tendency towards absolute decline and the inadequacies of the prevailing political structures hem everyone in.
Where will change come from if not from the existing system and the political parties in Westminster?
The working class is the only agent for change, the only force with the potential strength capable of overturning the ruinous stranglehold of monopoly finance capital over our society.
A working class creates power when it comes together and acts collectively, which is why we say: “Prepare for struggle!”
Things have become bad not only because the ruling class holds sway but also because there has been insufficient working class struggle.
Yet workers cannot afford to believe and act as if they are powerless when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. The working class must move beyond cynicism and have confidence in itself.
The recent resurgence in working class struggle is welcome. Yet past upturns in working class activity have dissipated, allowing the rule of capital to re-assert itself.
To avoid repeating that cycle, working class initiative must be maintained and extended. That means staying in charge of matters in workplaces and sectors, not letting our guard drop – and above all not allowing active involvement to lapse when disputes reach temporary settlements.
Instead, struggle must spread further, into more spheres and other sectors of society. Workers strengthen their influence when they govern events and issues by action. That’s the way to increase working class power, that’s the way to rebuild the labour movement, that’s the way to fashion a powerful network based on a reinvigorated class consciousness.
Most of these recent pay struggles have been well conducted, and many have been successful. Many workers have been involved, avoiding unfeasible all-out strikes and instead adopting a more guerrilla approach: ever wanting to avoid setback, ever eager to strengthen their influence, ever keen to control events.
Once a trade union culture is reborn, then spin-offs flow – not least in the form of willingness to be involved in future struggle. And that can have wider influence.
Workplace trade union organisation has responded to the need for struggle over pay. But once settlements are reached, that organisation can’t be left to die back. Momentum gained on pay can translate into ongoing, permanent pressure on the whole range of issues that bother workers, beyond pay: conditions of work, health and safety, pensions, training a younger skilled force, the quality of work, and so on.
Our party has promoted the idea of “taking control”. The first crucial element is to assert a collective response to the problems that workers face. That then needs to evolve into an incipient amalgam of political power, operating persistently and independently of the system.
Conscious
But “taking control” isn’t a mechanistic formula, workers becoming a new managerial power. Rather it means workers acting collectively and consciously to force the employer or government into accepting specific demands that are vital to our way of life.
“Taking control” means building working class networks and advancing our independent thinking so that a working class becomes increasingly separated from the capitalist order, acting as a new type of thinking, class conscious movement.
‘All the struggles and battles ahead will provide the conditions needed to change the outlook of our class…’
As these “taking control” attitudes grow and spread, workers will develop and hold on to power over decisions. Eventually, the class will have to debate over whether there is any option other than seeking total power for the great majority. Revolution!
By that stage workers will have the experience to decide whether parliamentary systems with universal suffrage do what working people need – and if the answer is negative, to invent new ways and structures of governance.
“Taking control” is a protracted strategy – to shift the balance of power between the working class and the ruling class in workers’ favour. This won’t happen overnight: but as the working class becomes more and more independent, in thought and action, it will develop a confident mindset, operating in political terrain that suits it best.
All the struggles and battles ahead will provide the conditions needed to change the outlook of our class. As it grows in political stature it will constitute itself as the nation in a practical sense. A nation to be successful has to have an impelling force. As Marx and Engels set out in the opening chapter of The Communist Manifesto, that will either refashion society in a revolutionary way, or the contending classes may ruin each other.
We need a manifesto for workers, not just for elections, not as promises to be reneged on, but a declaration of intent containing objectives for us to achieve and impose in the future.
A contest is underway for the heart of Britain! A contest between two opposing forces. A ruling class overseeing stagnation and decline. And a working class, challenging, ready to take responsibility for our country and seeking to mould a society which actively meets our needs.
There is a long way to go, but the contest has begun.