To the Editor of the Dockers Charter
In issue No 6 of the Dockers Charter dated May 1996 you carried the
response of a
number of academics at the University of Liverpool to the openly pro-market
stance
of Professor Patrick Minford and Peter Stoney, entitled 'The Real
Issues
'. The various signatories mostly from the Sociology and Social Work
Departments at
the University, attempted to show that Minford and Stoney did not speak for
the academic
community. Moreover they exposed their claim to so called 'objectivity' by
showing how Stoney was directly in the pay of the MDHC - and Minford was a
'right wing' economist
and supporter of Margaret Thatcher and TINA ['There Is No Alternative'].
Whilst this
is invaluable, the 'Academics against Minford
', as the article was called, cannot be allowed to dictate the terms of our
thinking.
They went on in their article to say that the Dockers dispute raised a
'more fundamental
question' - and that is 'what kind of economy do we want
?'
The question is absolutely the right one to pose but, typical of academics,
they went
on to answer the question FOR US.What is so vitally new about the dockers
dispute
is that for the first time in this country at least, a section of workers
in struggle
has polarised opinion in the world of academia. Whilst I have no wish to
let people
like Minford 'off the [dockers] hook', we must not allow academics, however
well
meaning, to speak for us. Geoff Pilling, who taught me what little I know
about 'economics'
from the workers point of view, made an attempt to restate the real issues
as they
affect us, in an article printed alongside that of the academics. May I be
allowed
through your columns to develop his argument a bit further ?
The key, Geoff said, was to understand the changes brought about in the
economy by
the 'new economics' of John Maynard Keynes, after the Second World War.
Geoff also
said quite correctly, that Keynes believed that slow inflation would be a
better
way of controlling the growth of wages to within what capital could afford,
than the old fashioned
methods of direct wage cuts. Experience of these in the 20s and 30s had
shown that
with the growth of the workers' movement, such wage cutting was dangerous
to 'social stability' and in Italy and Germany had led to the state taking
on a Fascist form
so as to tame the workers' movement. Keynes was determined not to allow a
similar
situation occur in Britain.BUT, and this is crucial, Keynes' solution of
increased
state spending and manipulation of the currency [he made his fortune as a
currency speculator]
in order to maintain 'full employment' also meant in practice a vast and
permanent
increase in state spending [mostly financed through taxation of workers
wages or
borrowing] AND a permanent
increase in the role of the state not just in the economy, but in all
areas of social
life. Thus we had the growth of a welfare system, NHS, education and so on.
In other words the 'free market' was no longer to be relied upon to deliver
'full
employment'. Nor could it, Keynes argued, solve the problem of balancing
'social
supply' and 'social demand' - what economists call 'equilibrium'. That was
the extent
of the 'new economics' which swept over Western Europe. These changes were
accepted by Conservative
and Labour parties, Christian Democrat and Social Democrat all over Europe,
Republican
and Democrat in the USA - to the extent that at this time they became the
new orthodoxy.We can therefore describe this early post war period from the
50s to around
the late middle 70s as the period of the 'planner state'.
However we all know that since that period all this has begun to come
apart. The dockers
themselves have discovered as a result of their visits abroad that since
roughly
1989 there has been a concerted move away from the old corporatist ways of
organising
work. The ending of the National Dock Labour Scheme
in this country - a body inspired by Keynesian principles - has its
parallel all
over the world.
Why is this ? What has caused the 'planner state' to become the 'crisis
state' ?
One of the reasons, we would argue, is because the world itself has
changed. Capitalism
is a dynamic system. As such it cannot be contained within the nation state
straitjacket
that Keynesian economics specified for it. The twin forces of increased
world competition caused in part by technological development, and the
globalisation of capital,
mean that the nation state is no longer able to use the old solutions.
These two
factors are also at the heart of the dockers dispute. An article in the
same issue
of the Dockers Charter
explored what globalisation means for us workers. We need to be able to
explore this
much further to find out all its implications for us.
Coming back to 'Academics against Minford'
, their response to the question they posed - 'what sort of economy do we
want ? was
as follows - we need they said 'an economy based on well regulated, well
paid jobs
which considers the rights of those at work rather than emphasising the
rights of
employers to make excessive profit.'
Never mind how you define 'excessive profits' - ask yourself, who is more
accurately
describing the real world as we experience it and who is harking back to a
past that
is rapidly becoming a distant memory ?
The answer has to be that the real world belongs to Minford and his like.
Now we know
where we are with him and his sort. We confound his 'economics', we won't
allow ourselves
to be dominated by his 'free market'. We can organise ourselves and express
ourselves collectively. He hates working people and the more we stand up
for ourselves,
the more we express ourselves collectively, the more visceral his hatred
becomes.
And that's fine; as Bobby Moreton said - some things are simple and should
be kept
that way.
But what about our friends ? At the end of his article Geoff Pilling
reposed the fundamental
question the academics had asked in CLASS terms, the only way we can look
at it.
Will our friends in the academic world help us with our project. That is,
as Geoff said, how to bring about 'the control of production by the real
wealth creators and
. . . [its] use in the interests of all . . . .'Will the dockers
international campaign
and all the contacts and discussion that it is leading to help us to work
out what the answer to Geoff's question is in practice ?
What new forms of organisation do we need to run an 'economy' based on need
and not
profit ? What will such an economy look like anyway? How will it work ?
Or would the academics prefer to hark back to the cosy world they knew and
are familiar
with ? A world which most of us know is fast disappearing. I note for
instance that
no-one from the Economics department felt able to sign the letter from the
University.
How should we account for this ? Do they all agree with 'Market Mad
Minford' or has
casualisation and the insecurity and fear that it creates reached right
into that
institution as well ?
Minford's and the MDHC is the real world - the one we have to confront.
Dave Graham 28 April 1996
[I have in the past produced a number of commentaries on the Mersey docks
dispute
and I am at present working on the latest - the sixth. Those of you who
wish to obtain
copies or have anything that you want to add criticise or whatever, can
obtain them
from the author by writing as follows:-Dave Graham PO Box 37 Liverpool L36 9FZ].
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