Britain's Demi-Socialism
ROSE, RICHARD
Britain's Demi-Socialism The Labor Government and British Industry, 1945-51. Reviewed by Richard Rose By A. A. Rogow with Peter Shore. Political writer, Cornell. 188 pp. $3.00. St. Louis...
...In Britain, it is the business society that still makes the climate in which Labor thinks...
...The welfare state in Britain is ameliorative, not revolutionary...
...He produces evidence to show that statutory panels ruled industries so that even the least efficient producer could make a profit, and the efficient ones could do much better...
...From 1945 to 1951, private industry enjoyed a Labor-created welfare sLate, Rogow asserts...
...It fought a strong delaying action against the proposal...
...They wisely refuse to accept management as well as labor responsibilities...
...asked Karl Mannheim...
...Rogow points out...
...Besides conservatism and current history, they have vested personal interests reinforcing their devotion to a settlement of industrial disputes through a trial of force...
...The major omission in the book is that it does not describe the wav in which the Trades Union Congress undercuts the position of the Socialists in the Labor party in their efforts to get tough with capitalism...
...For example...
...The nationalization of the sugar industry has not come to pass...
...Labor had simply forgotten to plan how it would operate the steel industry without leading steel men...
...trade-union, control...
...It is indicative of party sentiment that new policy declarations are saying little about nationalization but advocating that the Government accept stocks in payment of taxes...
...however, tends to leave the administration of nationalized industries to the capitalists by default...
...Louis "Post-Dispatch" The postwar British Labor governments were more like babes in the woods than builders of a new society, concludes A. A. Rogow in this perceptive study of the recent practice of British Socialism...
...Once in effect, it encouraged individuals not to accept posts with the new Government corporation...
...Rogow believes British businessmen can take some credit for the party's failure so far to turn the British economy into a crusader's battleground for the classless society...
...Success in this caused a Labor minister to accuse it of "sabotaging an Act of Parliament...
...Monopolies were not curtailed...
...It is first and foremost the party of Labor, and only secondarily of Socialists...
...Cube," a cartoon symbol of the sugar company...
...R. H. Tawney pointed out in 1945 that the economic system is "primarily a power system...
...The gas-and-water Socialism of the Fabians has been succeeded by the bread-and-butter politics of trade-union leaders and their right-wing cohorts in Parliament...
...Before World War II, Socialists, dwelling upon the defection of J. Ramsay MacDonald, feared the effects of the "aristocratic kiss" upon their leaders...
...Such power in Britain remains basically with the businessmen and trade-union leaders of a capitalist society...
...What the industrialists were doing, in this right-wing form of passive resistance, was entirely legal...
...So long as leading trade unionists do not take a strong stand on behalf of extending nationalization, the Labor party is without the means to counteract the Tory drive against it...
...This working assumption is generally valid now that the sick industries and public utilities have been nationalized...
...Rogow's study indicates that the greater danger now lies in the "businessman's handshake...
...In fighting nationalization, British firms have turned increasin gly to public relations, Rogow finds...
...In 1951 only 16 of 95 members of boards of nationalized industries were trade unionists, he notes...
...Such an attitude...
...and those who can manipulate the more important levers are directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, the real rulers of their fellows...
...Union leaders have also been quick to reject any move to place nationalized industries under worker, i.e...
...In an unexpected context, R. A. Butler's statement was proven: "A good Tory has never been in history afraid of the use of the state.'" In an interesting case study, Rogow illustrates how the Iron and Steel Federation, an organization of steel firms, was able to frustrate Labor's plans to nationalize their industry...
...He declares that, under the Labor governments, business leaders continued to dominate the economy through concerted individual actions, pressure groups and control of Government commissions...
...Who plans the planners...
...L'nion leaders generally do not believe in working for a society in which there would be no division of interest between representatives of capital and of labor...
...It is a hierarchy of authority...
...Rank-and-file sentiment on behalf of greater labor control of industry is similarly lukewarm, Rogow finds...
...The Federation of British Industries flourished because it showed how effectively it could act as a lobby for business interests with the Government...
...While a nation's economy can remain half-state and half-free, the tendency so far has been for the business ethos to rule Britain's life, to the disgust and frustration of Socialist theoreticians...
...Such an attitude, if carried to a refusal to accept wage and profit controls, could be a fatal handicap to any Labor attempt to combat British inflation...
...More significant than this is Rogow's statement that "the Government was silent and powerless in the face of the challenge...
...Such facts only show how aptly named is the progressive party in Britain...
...The same reforms that satisfy popular demands for social security also dull interest in any radical transformation of society...
...The chief value of Rogow's study is that it shows how the Labor governments of 1945-51 failed to grasp the real levers of power...
...Yet one cannot forget that Socialism is also about economics...
...Tate and Lyle gained public sympathy through advertising the activities of "Mr...
...If a favorable image of a firm can be created in the public eye, even a Labor government will not attempt to nationalize it...
...They veto the idea of state restraints upon corporations that would be equally applicable to them...
...Thus capital gains could finance Socialist legislation...
...The new party slogan is "Socialism is about equality...
Vol. 40 • February 1957 • No. 8
