Proposer: Gwyddion Williams
Resolution on the Mixed Economy
Our proposals for reforming the British economy should be based on the following understanding of recent history:
- It was a mix of capitalism and pre-capitalist social values till the 1930s. It then became a Mixed Economy – capitalism combined with a large role for the state and for trade unions.
- Thatcherism removed the trade union element, which damaged the interests of 90% of the population. The role of the state has not been reduced, though it is now filtered through profit-making bodies that produce no benefit. It remains a Mixed Economy, but with the state element seen as a vice that is somehow unavoidable.
- The success of Thatcherism happened because most socialists mistakenly rejected serious moves towards Workers Control and Incomes Policy in the 1970s. The more militant of them unwisely believed that a short cut to a more comprehensive socialism was the likely alternative.
Restoring trade union power and restoring acceptance of the virtues of a Mixed Economy should be our economic aims for the foreseeable future. This must include nationalisation and restoring democratic control of public services that the state still pays for: notably rail, water, and the damagingly privatised parts of the National Health Service.
Amendment
Mover: Gwyddion Williams
Add the following:
“We should distinguish ourselves from other anti-capitalists by insisting that actual capitalism has not existed since 1930s – and even then it was never what the New Right claim. The current problem is that belief in an idealised version of capitalism is being used to twist the existing Mixed Economy system in favour of a multi-millionaire class.
“We could also use the US phrase about ‘socialism for corporation’ – though as socialists, we should accept that subsidies are in some cases useful.
“We can also call it Feed the Rich. And should say that it is a class of some 20 million multi-millionaires, with another 200 million gaining from them and hoping to join them. That it is not just millionaires – the top layer of this class, but less than one sixth of the total capital and having many different opinions on maters not obviously serving their class.”
OK.1 to 3 is an history lesson.
The last sent cuts to the chase.
Well argued as a viable position for the next five years (which the Congress is intended to guide and is ‘the foreseeable future’) but perhaps on the understanding that this ‘mixed economy’ (effectively a return to a better managed social democracy in the interests of the working class) is to be seen as an eventual way station to socialism as most of us understand it and that the intervening time is dedicated to major administrative and institutional (and technological adoption) that would permit social democracy to be a transition to socialism rather than an end point. This is not to say that there will not always be space for entrepeneurial market-driven initiatives within the framework of community oversight in order to achieve outcomes in the interests of the population at large but most importantly working households and micro-businesses of working class origin.
Our party is a socialist party that strives to transform Britain’s economy towards a socialist mode of production. Lauded examples of the ‘mixed economy’ are examples of capitalism typically under the leadership of social democratic parties. I believe upholding the ‘mixed economy’ as party policy will confuse people about the orientation of our party which is – true to our founding and the spirit in which motion four of this congress has been proposed – socialist.
A socialist party that fails to recognise two positive aspects of the market and one decisive reality about late liberal capitalism is ultimately doomed to failure because (quite simply) not enough people will vote for it and, if it gained power on terms close to the current Starmer Government (a minority of the population but a majority of the Commons), it would be outplayed rapidly by the forces of ‘reaction’. It was not particularly difficult for the Right to destroy Corbyn and part of the ease came from the Corbyn leadership’s naivete about what they were facing. They were romantic utopians. Similarly Liz Truss’ fate demonstrated that radical ideas from the Right could be destroyed with equal ease by effective market action.
First, the market innovates and it will take time to re-orientate technological innovation from a market model to a socialist one. The next major leap in productivity and wealth creation will be technological centred on transformations like artificial intelligence. The UK is already possibly the third leader in this field after the US and China and probably holds a similar position in many other key technologies. A WPB ‘Government’ has to have a strategy for working with innovators in order to create its own innovation strategy. The British administrative state is currently not competent to do this.
Second, social changes over the last seventy years have created a substantial ‘free’ market-orientated class of micro- and small businesses that are, to all intents and purposes, part of the working class and their sheer number means they are a vote we need as a Party. The public sector working class will take time to transfer from the Labour Party and the white collar private sector working class embedded in corporations is suspicious of the language of socialism. Accommodating all three communities through a strong and effective State is the long game but the traditional language of state socialism is not persuasive unless positioned as a profound correction of the market leading to socialism.
The decisive reality is that the UK is fully embedded in the global market economy at multiple levels with assets already ‘owned’ globally, pension funds embedded in the global economy, a strong global services economy, excessive debt obligations, a weak and inept State and a system where our welfare expenditures would collapse if the City of London collapsed. We want to change all this but it cannot be done over night without massive disruption in which the working class itself would be first to suffer. The process of transition has to be effective and, though as fast as possible, it would require the transition to be based on a mixed economy while the State was built up to have the capacity to manage a socialist economy and the economy could be redirected into more sustainable forms.
None of this is incompatible with being a socialist party. On the contrary, it recognises that a socialist Britain is only possible if the realities of the situation are recognised and action taken to get from our current position to the position that we want to be in. In other words, the trajectory would be the exact opposite of the Labour Party – not from socialism to bourgeois liberalism but from bourgeois liberalism to socialism with the willing consent of the people.