Routledge Revivals: Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production (1975) by (roys Paul Q Hirst Dec'D) & Barry Hindess

Author:(roys Paul Q Hirst Dec'D) & Barry Hindess [(roys Paul Q Hirst Dec'D) & Hindess, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Theory, Economics, Production & Operations Management, Political Ideologies, Economic History, Political Science, Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781351358583
Google: eoRHDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 38505553
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

3 The Labour Party and socialist strategy

The remaining chapters of this book take up the implications of the preceding arguments, concerning political analysis under conditions of parliamentary democracy and the notions of democracy and democratization, for the principal conceptions of socialist politics in Britain today. They are concerned with the forms of non-insurrectionary socialist politics adopted by much of the Labour Party and trades union left and by the Communist Party of Great Britain (hereafter: CPGB). Although these positions differ in the detail of what a left Labour government (hereafter: LLG) would look like and how it might be achieved, they are united in the view that the primary objective of socialist strategic calculation is precisely the achievement of a LLG committed to implementing a series of radical policies, usually including what has become known as the left's Alternative Economic Strategy (hereafter: AES). There are many versions of the AES, ranging from a conventional reflationary package with some combination of import controls and devaluation to cope with its balance of payments consequences to more ambitious proposals to combine such a package with a radical restructuring of the British economy through planning agreements, expansion of the public sector and a major extension of workers' control. It is these more ambitious proposals that are generally presented in the context of a political strategy for socialist reconstruction. The AES is then presented not so much as an end in itself but rather as providing the preconditions for moving on to objectives even further removed from present conditions. It is often argued, for example, that the AES is not itself socialist but that its successful implementation would show that the left is capable of tackling Britain's economic problems, thereby winning 'confidence and support for the longer-term process of social transformation' (Cripps, et al., 1981, p. 132).

Now, there are serious problems with most versions of the AES considered simply as an economic package. However, my concern here is not with that aspect of socialist thinking, important though it is, but rather with the political analyses and conceptions of contemporary British conditions which can represent the achievement of a LLG armed with its AES as a viable objective of socialist strategy. These positions usually involve a number of interconnected themes concerning, inter alia, a history of leadership betrayal in the Labour Party and democratization as a means of combating it, and a belief in the existence of a mass base for socialism in Britain centred on the working class but extending far beyond it. The most influential socialist critiques of these LLG strategies in fact share many of their basic presuppositions, especially that of a mass base for socialism in Britain. Where they differ most strongly is in their assessment of the Labour Party, and parliamentary politics more generally, as a vehicle for socialist politics. One side sees the Labour Party as basically socialist, so that the problems of leadership betrayal can be overcome by introducing a proper structure of accountability within the party. The other

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