The Labour Government's recently announced plan for the reorganisation of the airframe section of the aircraft cap hey foe simply re-affirms Labour's belief in corporate ee ceun neentiaiere to capitalist problems. Mulley is simply acting on the ar eather Plowden Report which o»posed the outright pg mg ge eins airframes or aero-engiies. since then Rolls aoyee has ta agree Sail the entire engines sid2 of the industry, but the sake cing: <5 be intervened in this section of the industry at all - ome an, t the \ Committee recommended that it didn't. Plowden suggested aie ciel Government should onl;- take up some shares in the two es nea : firms - Hawker-Siddeley and B.i.c. As a result of such ac ge,
¥ ingle merged firm with Government the Plowden Report said that a sing nia: eal ae goer Pg Mig and private shareholders - "would have in the success of the industry and this should enable the arrangement to work «fficiently". (my emphasis).
lieves this. . It looks as though the Labour Government actually beli : : we need only rae to the ‘Insiders' article of the University & Left Review (Winter 1958 issue) to find the vital socialist arguments against this:- "kK as a large shareholder" (and the Government will have an niece eienw ice of the shares in the merged airframes firm) "the state co not itself propose dividend limitation, since to do this would in fact be to decrease the rewards which it is so anxious to share. The State could not object to a high level of retained profits, because in that way the concealed property of the State would naturally appreciate. As an investor, the state would share with other groups an interest in the profitable pricing of goods... The State would become - as private industry is, to some extent today - the servants of those financial institutions (banks and private trusts and investment companies) which provide the institutional capital necessary for expansion. "In Sum, as a private shareholder, the State would legitimise the most anti-social behaviour of the modern oligopolies. It would help to maximise the wealth of the private shareholder. It would underwrite the present hierarchical structure of British society - it would swell the power and increase the status of the propertied rich. It would have, by default, a vested interest in $ maintaining the disproportionate distribution of wealth and power Ps which, even at present, makes Britain one of the most class-bound and stratified of modern states." Fortunately, the national combine of Bristol-Siddeley Engines shop stewards has set up a study-group to produce an aircraft workers' plan for the industry. It is a plan for nationalisation and workers' control. Editorial note: We still hive copies of a back issue of The Week which contains a longer article by Alan Rooney on the question of workers' control in the aircraft industry. Copies can be obtained for 9d post paid from 8, Roland Gardens, London S.W. or bulk copies (over 6) 6d post free.