May Day Manifesto 1968 is an attempt by a group of intellectuals to explain what has gone wrong during Labour's first four years. First produced as the "New Left May Day Manifesto" in 1967, it has been considerably enlarged, especially in those sections on economic analysis and on the present position in the Labour movement.
The authors of the Manifesto largely succeed in their self-appointed task of "making connections" between the symptoms of the present crisis in British capitalism and presenting a comprehensive alternative view of the system. They do this first by examining some of the current realities about poverty and social inequality - compressing the findings of such researchers as Townshend and Abel-Smith into a concise critique of the myths of the "Affluent Society". Other aspects of the conventional wisdom of our society are also examined. For instance, the usual view of the Cold War - of an aggressive Russia with 15-20 million dead after the war threatening to overrun the rest of Europe - is demolished.
BRITAIN'S ECONOMY
It is above all for its economic analysis that the Manifesto is important. Britain's crisis is set in its world-wide context - the rise of U.S. economic hegemony in Europe, the rise of the international company and the new imperialism. The large corporations have been driven, in order to survive, to invest abroad both in their competitors' markets and in sources of raw materials. Thus figures are given for the 50's and 60's showing the enormous outflows of capital invested abroad. The balance of payments surplus on current account has been too small to finance the outflow and government military expenditure overseas, increased reinvestment rather than repatriation of foreign earnings, and the decline of the Sterling Area have further accentuated the problem. The solution adopted - resort to greater and greater short-term borrowing - could only be temporary in nature. Devaluation and the other crises showed that the illusion could be maintained no longer.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The future course then can be fairly easily visualised. There will be increased restrictions on existing institutions of dissent which conflict with the efficient working of the system - the trade unions, the Labour Party and so on. Ultimately also the expropriation of the peoples' political identity. Whether the authoritarianism of the sixties will be as bland as the Manifesto claims remains to be seen. Certainly the recent upsurge of racialism, especially among the working class, is an ugly symptom of what may happen as the present frustrations and set-backs continue.
What, then, is to be done? The ending, as with the 1967 Manifesto, is disappointing - though perhaps understandably so. In the present situation there are no easy and clear cut courses of action and the Manifesto's suggestions are sensible but hardly inspiring. We are given a survey of the existing position of the Labour movement and of its organisations. The only way to defend these organisations and to move forward is to make new and more flexible demands attacking the new capitalism on the basis of human priorities. At the same time the different struggles must be linked - they cannot succeed in isolation and in any case they all stem from the same source. The purpose of the Manifesto is seen as an educator - a useful, if limited, role.