The Price of Capitalist Policies

Wilson has wielded his axe against the poor and the sick. This man who talks of bringing about a technological revolution now postpones the raising of the school—leaving age. This greasy politician who tricd to claim that the social purpose of the incomes policy was to protect the lower paid now imposes a poll-tax on the sick, The abolition of free milk in schools is a nasty piece of meanness which will only have the effect of hitting the poor and large families. This present Government is revolting and sickening: it has now broken every single promise it made when elected and ssems determined to impose policies which will destroy the Labour Party. But no one can believe that this Government, which includes many who only a few years ago led Aldermaston marches, has done all this out of spite or because it is composed of "bad men." No, the explanation lies - 1.+. elsewhere and the lesson of the degeneration of this Government has wide implications, The attack on the poor is the inevitable consequence of capitalist policies. Once having rejected the socialist option, Mr. Wilson and his colleagues had no choice but to tred their present path, In a chronically decaying imperialist country, the scope for traditional social democratic reforms is very small, To affirm this principle is not just a question of *-. 1 being wise after the event: this lesson must be learnt if we are to break the present political impasse, Last week's Tribune programme, which was to have been the alternative to Wilson's cuts, was,in essence, a call for an alternative capitalist economic strategy. Again, many sections of the left have argued that the main thing is to cut defence expenditure, then the way would be open for a more generous domestic policy. In the event, things have turned out differently: we have cuts in defence expenditure and cuts in social services, Many on the left are in utter confusion, for example, those who threatened to resign or vote afainst the Government but who now say that they cannct because the Government has ended the "hast of Suez" policy. The left must elaborate a socialist alternative to Wilson's policies. It must seek to link the issues which are exercising the minds of the workers today with demands which eneroach on ern a power. But such a programme will be entirely abstract unless it is with strupele: struggle against the policies of Mr, Wilson and his Cabinet. The hope for such a struggle and such a programme must pivot on the trade union movement. The struggle coming from militant responses to the latest savage attacks on living standards. The programme can be elaborated at the union conferences «hich will start at Easter and culminate at the TUC in September, a month prior to the Labour Party conference. We should -11 work hard to insert secialist demands into these debates and seek to mobilise the maximum opposition to the latest attacks on the living standards of the people.