Sparked off a ride-ranging ebate. with the voters the likes of is no longer concerned with old fashioned class war slogans, but individualistic goals like owning their own homes, and higher incomes.
Such people are not interested in old dogmas like nationalisation and socialism and will never vote for a party hidebound by the myths of yesteryear.
In essence, these are the arguments put forward by Guardian commentator Peter Jenkins, a well known Jenkins points to the low proportion of trade unionists who voted for the Labour Party. because the was becoming more state intervention was abolishing capitalist crises Hugh arguments.
Tory leader Cabitals! Doolll. disguised the MIOC DrOSUCIOUS rising living standards.
millan's appeal and election decisively. social ownership were becoming irrelevant to the affluent society, as everyone equal. Further, the through Keynesian planning techniques Gaitskell, who became Labour leader in 1955, embraced these thing, The 1959 election was fought by Harold Macmillan under the slogan 'Peace and Prosperity'. Ine late '50s were the height of the post war which for while economic decline of Te prosperdus Bder was tories seemed to be true. Most working class people were indeed becoming used to more social welfare Gaitskell drew the conclusion that Labour had lost working class votes to the Tories because of its old-fashioned socialist dogmas.
tion POLARIS PROTEST Ship is not 100 per cent state ownerClause Four of the Labour Party constitution, which calls for a socialised economy, he said 'lays us open to continual misrepresentation plies that we wish to nationalise everbut we? Everything? whole of light industry, the whole of agriculture, all the shops — every little pub and garage. Of course not. have long ago come to accept the mixed Conolly.
Gaitskell's way of posing the question was a deliberate fraud. What was. and is, at issue in the nationalisation WaN whether should be nationalised, but whether the commanding heights of the economy, with the banks and finance houses should be nationalised. In other words, should there be some private enterprise within the framework of a socialist economy, or some nationalisaframework COT capitalist economy?
The formation Democratic Party can be traced directly participants in Labour's future after 1959 It im- Labour and the The working class THE DEBATE over Labour Party can win as a class-based questions — the structure of the working class and its consciousness. Is it true that the manual working class is declining? And is it true that workers are losing their traditional sciousness?
In order to see the development of the British class structure it is worth oking at the accompanying tabl able 1 shows that the proportion the adult population engaged in paid and 1970. The figures would have to be unemployment, but the basic point reMoans wud their labour in order to earn a living. The majority of people who aren't working for someone else are either retrea or acpendent on someone else s come state benefit. The most definitely not disappeared.
Table 2 shows the shitt from private employment to public employment. we sowever. shows mne mos dramatic shift and one which has continued apace - a big shift away from manual to non-manual jobs.
What conclusions Michael from this? Without doubt the structure of the working class to is changing, traditional Aneurin dustries.
In that sense there is a 'new' work. ing class, one more likely to be working in tor. But the shift in employment patSterns has not reduced the size of the working class. Nor can any automatic conclusions be drawn about the con. sciousness of the working class from this new employment pattern. In the 1983 general election the workers who voted most heavily for But Labour were public sector workers (46 the per cent). So it is just not true that a party based on the working class will be appealing to a 'minority'.
LOS Peter Jenkins Kinnock has an evangelist's fervour and a great deal of charm but he l need ever.
bit of it and more if he is to go out and win socialists of the Social But something the disputes over working the 1930s, working whether the revolves essentially around two whom thorpe, John hardly changed between i961 take of nal of • most people have to sell Just at Vauxhall, in nowadays, receiving the work cassa people attitudes Increase can we draw a shadow of a UNIORISTE reflecting the decline of the especially British manufacturing indamental sciousness disappeared.
section of even if that is true, , hasn't happened to traditional • Consciousness. the habits of class solidarity rather than in. dividual greed? Isn't today's worker a very different person to the workers o much more concerned with individualistic goals, with 'getting on'?
This idea about the development of class consciousness was put forward in the 1960s by a number of sociologists, the most prominent were Lockwood Goldwho published a series ine alliuent worker.' Their basic thesis was that of the 'em bourgeoisment' of the working class. If workers got together in a union it was only because of 'instrumental collec tivism' — not class solidarity, but just a way lo get more money.
The fate of these theories was vividly demonstrated by the celebrated study Goldthorpe of Vauxhall assembly workers in Luton. In 1966 his report on Vauxhall in the British JourSociology, indicated a fundamentally co-operative and non-class conscious attitude to management.
two months after was published an open revolt broke out which two thousand workers stormed the main offices, sang Red Flag and shouted 'string him up' whenever the name of the manager was mentioned. The fact that working want higher living standards does not make them 'bourgeois' in their Right up until the mid-70s trade was increasing rapidly, among white collar •puone sector workers. Unly lne rise ol unemployment has pushed the number The tun reflexes of con. solidarity have not But what is unfortunately true is that the rise of trade unionism and of industrial militancy in the 1970s has not Labour Partynas sosed to the Ste automatic support and the Tories — in the election only 39 Decide unions voted lo The reason for this is nothing to dr with Labour being too 'left wing', or too fixated on the working class.
----- pull-quotes -----
AFTERMATH of election defeat unce the 1930s has of necessity
I the movement aim that Labour was out of touch
because its policies were too left wing.
¡Hattersley and The 'new' working class
radical policies like the SDP. argument, fundamental one. The pundits are arguing that Labour is bound wing policies
traditional working elass, especially the manual working class, is getting smaller.
and become more Behind this however, is a more to lose if it has left