"The sterting point is our belief thet the community must equip itself to take charge af its owm destiny and no longer be ruled by market forces beyond its control," Thus reed the 196). lebour Party manifesto. Rarely cm those words have seemed so like a rather unpleasant sick joke then during the lest few week. For the confirmation of the extent of the Government's intentions to restrict personal consumption became clear at just the same time thet factory closures revealed to those in doubt the results of 'retionalisation' end regional redeployment in an uncontrolled capitalist economy, It las become increasingly clear that the Government has ebandoned most forms of direct pllenning and is now relying almost entirely on clumsy mm ipukations of personal consumption as their only Earge scale tactic in attempting to bring ebout the economic recovery end rationalisation which is nov the limit of their ambitions. It became clear last weck that the Government appeer to be planning far virtually no rise at all in personal consumption over at least the next two years. The calculations of Peter Jey, Economics “ditor of The Times, led him to the conslusion that, from the way in which Jenkins is talking, consumers' expenditure and private productive investment are left with w xt to nothing extra in 1968 and with perhaps £650m in 1969, This, it seem, is the extent to which they are willing to take control of the economy, Ani it is a weak and clumsy fam of comtrol; however much Wilson tries to pretend that money saved in Government expenditure and taken in texation helps the ba, ance of payments, there are many economists toésy who question the link, given absence of direction elsewhere in the economy, and certainly the connection is a very complex and indirect one, The abdication of all pretence at even the 'socialist planning' (sic) referred to in the 64 manifesto became cuite clear with the news of the factory closures following mergers. Woolwich, Harlow, Syilenham, Coventry and this is only the beginning. G've firms in a competitive market incentives to go to low wage areas such as the north east, ani they wil) go, regardless of the cost to workers in the closed factories, Allow massive mergers to go through, and 'rationalisation' will lead to unemployment. And yet the Government looks on approvingly. Indeed, eccording to The Times of Friday, 16th February, it was Edward Short's threat to AEI that the GPO would be forced to buy their equipment in Sweden that led them to cut, costs and move to the north east. Who's backing Britain now? In a public relations job for Weinstock, Robert Jones of The Times wrote, 'It is no help if such action is presented as a ruthless lack of concern for the workers! and went on to revealingly to say that 'His stand may well make it easier for other industrialists to take unpopular decisions.,' Ani now, Wedgwood Benn warns the Cabinet that many more mass redundancies are in the offing as a result of mergers (Times 17 February) o
These two aspects of economic news reveal the extent to which the Government has abandoned all pretence at allowing society 'to take charge of its own destiny'. All it is left with ~{ consumption to fiddle eround with. And to what end? To promote a big increase in exports, Yet only Germmy of the larger industrial countries exports more of her productions than Britain. And besides, as David Johnson observes (NLR 47), an export led boom is notoriously vulnerable to the fluctuations of world trade,