Letters

Whose control?

Tricia Harris (Letters, January 19) states that the purpose of nationalisation is to “provide services for the good of society rather than the profits of a few”.

Actually, the principle of nationalisation is to bring order and efficiency into a chaotic or loss making industry, which is more or less essential to the smooth running of society, but is still subject to the dictates of the capitalist market and the drive for profit.

Public ownership is not to be confused with real workers’ control. The latter is the only way to provide services for the good of society rather than the profits of a few.

It is no doubt true that a privatised rail system will result in cuts to services and more inconvenience to passengers. It is equally true that the rail system as it exists as a nationalised industry leaves much to be desired, as any regular travelling member of the public will tell you.

Under capitalism a nationalised service does not automatically mean a more democratically run service, either for the public or workers therein. Any government, either Labour or Tory, when faced with the task of balancing the books, will be prepared to starve any nationalised industry of funds and amenities. Look at the NHS, for example.

Although public ownership has a more democratically sounding logic, it is still owned and run by, and in the interests of, the capitalist state. The Communist Party supports progressive and democratic movements in the way that society regulates itself, but is the champion above all of workers’ control of all industries - the only real way to ensure that services are provided for the good of society.

Steve Waite
West London

State capitalism?

I have to disagree fundamentally with Tricia Harris’ views on nationalisation and ‘public ownership’.

Crudely put, capitalist nationalisation is one means by which the capitalist class as a whole counteracts the tendency of the rate of profit to fall; in other words, they are precisely protecting “the profits of a few”, albeit in a more ‘long term’, statist fashion.

To demand that the Labour Party, or the Communist Party for that matter, implement nationalisation is to call for state capitalism, which is exactly what the SWP is doing with its ‘Defend Clause Four’ campaign (paradoxically, given that its raison d’etre is to oppose ‘state capitalism’ in all its supposed manifestations).

Therefore, Harris is misguided to propose that “the Communist Party should become the champion of the nationalised railways even if the Labour Party cannot”. In reality, this is to advocate that the Communist Party becomes a sort of ‘surrogate’ Labour Party, or acts as the ‘left conscience’ of the Labour Party. This is the path to ideological liquidationism.

Communists want to bring the whole of society under workers’ control - as part of its revolutionary dictatorship - not just the ‘utilities’, which in turn is ‘subservient’ to the international balance of class forces. I would argue that there is an absolutist qualitative difference between the ‘national’ socialism of the radical ‘hard left’ Labourites (ie, reactionary utopianism) and the international socialism of Marxism-Leninism (ie, what humanity requires).

Bennism, Scargillism, Skinnerism (‘clausefourism’ of all hues) represent a cul-de-sac for the working class.

Martin Penrose
South Devon

Stock phrases

John Dart says, “To imply that socialism has ‘nothing to do’ with nationalisation is something else altogether and is the slippery slope to utter reformism” (Letters, January 19).

This is clearly a sloppy, if not incorrect, formulation. Socialism, as understood by orthodox Marxists (ie, the first, or lower, stage of communism), does indeed have “nothing to do” with nationalisation when push comes to shove, particularly in this epoch of mega-transnationals and touch-of-the-keyboard global capitalism. The transnational genie cannot be put back in the national bottle.

However I agree for somebody like Tony Benn, who cannot envisage life outside the Labourite parliamentary universe, to argue that clause four has “nothing to do” with nationalisation is truly remarkable.

If clause four is not about nationalisation, then what is it about? It must surely amount to nothing, zilch, bugger-all.

Phrases like ‘common ownership’ or ‘public ownership’ (yuk!) are meaningless, liberalistic cant, and clearly refer to capitalist ownership - just as ‘public opinion’ means bourgeois opinion.

Communists should never miss an opportunity to ridicule these miserable Labourite reformist stock phrases and put forward communist ‘jargon’ as an alternative.

Peter Walsh
Bristol