ONE OF the most phrases now being used in debates on the left on economic policy is "the control of capital'. It has been popularised particularly by Livingstone.
The issue, on which the content of the 'control of capital' has been nade completely clear demand for the nationalisation, by government, of the banking and financial system. This is the question Ken Livingstone has particularly tried to popularise.
Other supporters of the policy have COLC Industry/Employment Cmttee in a further. Mike Ward, chair of the reply to Roy Hattersley's economic strategy in the New Statesman, proposed that the full nationalisation of the banking system be accompanied radical measures to take control of relations between Britain and the world measures including exchange controls, state control foreign trade, and taking over of asset abroad.
oil to rebuilding of industry.
The reason the ideas of the control of capital have begun to achieve such popularity is that they are authentically different to either the right wing mass unemployment policies accepted and parsued by Roy Hattersley, anaemic and unworkable 'Alternative Economic Strategy' which used to be advocated by the Communist ad its supporters. Measures such the full nationalisation of the financial system, complete relations with есопоту, ur e indispensible of any economic policy.
But there IS another reason why the phrase 'the control of capital strikes such an echo.
because links with the discussion on the transition socialist economy - the real experience of all countries which have abolished widespread Ken is the immediate complete of for the For the control the absolutely socialist historical classical CLU RECENT YEARS revival of interest on the European left in the subject of workers' control of production. socialism has suffered its identification Stalinism, and the rediscovery of slogans which, another, embody the theme workers' democracy, has served to reassert the connection socialism and the liberation of the working class.
The power is surely one of the greatest impediments to he socialism in the West and it is vitally important that socialists be able demonstrate that power can and does require that the institutions of a both political and industrial, be run by the workers discussion of workers' control of production, is therefore to be welcomed.
In Britain this revival animated to a large extent by the In stitute of Workers Control (IWC). This has made a overcoming the idea, prevalent among most workers today that socialism automatically implies bureaucracy.
On the other hand there are serious political weaknesses in the discussion The literature is doggedly Anglocentric — and workers' control of production, roperly speaking, has hardly ever be t ablishe resolutely avoids discussing the great revolutionary upheavals of the past, in which abundant examples of workers' control can be found In the early days of the Communist International, workers' control was not used as a synonym for workers' self management of industry in a socialist society, as is often done today. On the contrary, a sharp distinction was drawn between workers' workers' control, the latter term being reserved for a particular phase of tran sition from capitalism to During this transitional phase, the proletariat, rather than move directly the management of might simply exercise control over the capitalists.
tinued existence of the capitalists and their administrators for a temporary period.
Some of the confusion which surrounds the subject of workers' control is terminological in origin, Communist tradition workers' management is used to refer to the administration of things (alter the bourgeoisie while control is used to refer to the administration cosic)
English-speaking world by the fact that 'the words 'control' and 'management' are frequently interchangeable in common English usage.
draw a finer distinction between two ideas: contrôle and gestion in French, control and gerencia in Spanish, kontrolia and upravleniye in Russian.
use the term 'control' have seen a For decades grievously with in one way or of between Stalinis: model of state advance proletarian workers' state, themselves. The such slogan, has been modest contribution ferently to unfortunately munist tradition.
tention.
movement but also tunity, workers' property management learn that a planned But Lenin production, This presupposes the conthe distribution under TO f for in the the of the been removed), property, of persons (the bourgcapitalists Confusion is compounded in the porters.' Impending the elimination.
On In engilsn, many peopic Inoccuu.
to refer indifWorkers' control - a question of who r all forms of • workers' sovereignty in industry, thus obscuring the distinctions made in the ComNevertheless, in all countries, the slogan of 'workers' control' has been an object of political conThe reason is that to many people, the idea that the working class should nationalise private property and substitute workeradministrators for the capitalists and bourgeois managers at the first oppor represents unacceptable compromise with capitalism. Anarcho. syndicalist writers, for example, con sciously refuse to employ the term control as anything but a synonym for management of socialised Many may therefore be surprised to by workers' control the Bolsheviks meant something less than the complete socialisation of industry.
who wrote great deal on the subject during the Russian revolution, was quite unam biguous on this In his April Theses, he stated: It is not our immediate task to "introduce" socialism. but only to bring social production and of products at once control of the Soviet of Workers Deputies.
In his pamphiet Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?, written on the eve Revolution, Lenin stated: "The important thing will not be even the confiscation of the capitalists' but country-wide, embracing workers' control over the their possible Another important pamphlet, The Catastrophe and How to Combat It, a comprehensive statement of Bolshevik economic policy published in October 1917, speaks repeatedly of 'control over' and 'supervision of the capitalists and not their immediate coming to power, the Bolsheviks pursued no other policy.