Sam Aaronovitch: The Road From Thatcherism, Lawrence and Wishart, 1981, £2.95, London CSE Working Group: The Alternative Economic Strategy, CSE Books, 1980, £2.50
These two books have a great merit in common; they start from a premise the whole left supports: that the government should spend more money on investment and welfare, It not only warms the hearts of Labour Party members; it's so orthodox it appears in the Transitional Programme
Aaronovitch's book has a special merit of its own: a well substantiated proof that Britain's particularly dramatic economic decline is a legacy of the end of its empire which has left a society singularly incapable of [illegible] investment. Unfortunately he draws an insupportable conclusion: that we should try and correct this situation by means of import controls and without taking direct control over the investment mechanism
His book shares a third merit with the London CSE book. They both recognise that the employers and bankers no longer [illegible] of government spending. As Tony Benn has put it: 'the post-1945 consensus has broken down' Aaronovitch understands another problem: such a government would arise enormous expectations which cannot all be fulfilled and certainly not all be met with speed... if high expectations combine with difficulties that might come from hostility and [illegible], as well as with other temporary setbacks, there could be a loss of popular support which would be systematically exploited by opponents of popular change'.
These three points lay a basis on which revolutionary socialists can lead a dialogue with supporters of the Alternative Economic Strategy (AES). But there is a problem. There is no such thing as the AES. There is an economic policy package consisting of more public spending and more public ownership, planning agreements, withdrawal from the EEC and import controls, with income policy as an optional extra. Everyone from Jim Callaghan to Geoff Hodgson shelter under this umbrella nursing as many different political strategies as there are left sects.
The most cynical supporters of the AES are the trade union bureaucrats and the Callaghan wing of the Labour Party whose support is really only verbal and who [illegible] the AES as a kit of parts to be selected from according to the job in hand. The Foot current, despite its good intentions, is essentially in the same camp as it accepts Callaghan's basic premise, that faced with an economic crisis, a Labour government's first responsibility is to restore profitability and business confidence
Benn wants to implement the AES regardless of whether the capitalists squeak but holds that it must be done by peaceful and constitutional means. Finally a small left current sees the AES as a kind of 'transitional' programme which will create conditions for the workers to win control of the economy piece by piece as the capitalists expose themselves by their refusal to co-operate in an eminently sensible set of policies,
London CSE seem to be halfway between the third and fourth position. Their book is haunted by an uneasy recognition that perhaps the capitalists might fight back. They are even honest enough to explain why their policies will not work: 'the exercise of direct control by government or the trade unions would simply harden the opposition of capital and would result in [illegible] investment strike'
But this precisely the point at which the divergence between a revolutionary and a reformist strategy becomes most important A revolutionary strategy recognises that the hostility of the capitalists will clash with the expectations of the masses and opts to side with the masses regardless of the 'constitutionality' of what they do It urges them to take over factories the capitalists try to close, to seize control of bank accounts the capitalists are trying to transfer abroad, to disarm the repressive forces like the army and Special Patrol Group who will be used to try and stop these 'illegal' actions, to start running production according to social need rather than profitability, and to replace the present hierarchic and unelected state machine with a democratic popular state which will be loyal to the working class because it is elected by workers and revocable by them, This proposal Aaronovitch rejects as 'relevant only to Russia in 1917'
Aaronovitch and London CSE try to maintain, without much historical justification, that a democratic state can be created gradually, peacefully and constitutionally, It is one thing to believe that this is possible Everyone is entitled to their own utopia, But it is another thing to try and hold back or compromise the legitimate demands of the workers in order to persuade the capitalists to accept a halfway house. This is where the road to Callaghanism starts
Both books are riddled with such compromises, They discuss the possibility of incomes policy under capitalism at great length. Aaronovitch sets the very low target of nationalising only 20 per cent of manufacturing industry. Worse still, they maintain a concept of democratisation which is not at all democratic: the idea of sharing decision-making power with management, shareholders and the state
All these policies will only work if the capitalists agree. But if they don't, there is nothing we can do because both books insist that the workers must follow a 'constitutional road' even though capital itself has no respect for its own constitution. Both Aaronovitch and London CSE demonstrate clearly the quandary of the Labour left by proclaiming vigorously the need for 'compulsory planning agreements' — a contradiction in terms if ever there was one, If it is an agreement, it can not be compulsory. If it is compulsory it will not be enforced by Whitehall so who will enforce it? The only possible answer is the workers themselves by taking on both management and the state: but this solution is ruled out by an insistence on 'constitutionality'.
But all is not gloom. At least the British socialist movement is now shifting the terrain of its debates. We no longer discuss across a great gulf with one side sitting in parliament refusing to mobilise the workers and the other mobilising the workers but refusing to sit in parliament.
If these two books do nothing else, they register the dawn of a new debate — a much more European debate — which is about what combination of both parliamentary and extra parliamentary tactics will secure the workers their just demands,