Time to review TUC's policies!

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LAST week the TUC's Economic Review 1983 was or simply foul up capitalist world trade even more balance with consumption, for the growth of capipublished. It has well-presented facts and figures while misdirecting the labour movement towards tal to choke itself off through a falling rate of on the devastation suffered by the British working trying to export unemployment, rather than fight profit, and for national rivalries to dislocate the class since May 1979. It clearly and concisely de. it? The TUC is "disturbed" at the "the growing world economy? That the rise of monetarism is an molishes the myth that unemployment is due to clamour for negative protectionism in the major effect of the slump (and then a secondary factor in immigration or to new technology. It explains the industrialised economies , and condemns 'those case for women's equal right to a job, and shows who are content to divide up the misery to their To identify the inherent contradictions of capihow women have suffered doubly in the slump. These policies will, the TUC argues, over five best advantage through beggar my neighbour talism as the prime cause of the devastation is to Some 3.9 million people are now unemployed years reduce unemployment to one million. policies" : But the difference between such "nega- point to socialist policies as the answer - and to 1600,000 of them not showing up in the govern- The aim proposed is minimal enough: ten years tive restrictions" and the TUC's "managed trade" ment figures), and another are on government ago a million unemployed would have been con- amounts only to good intentions: the TUC "wishes Common ownership of the major industries and schemes rather than proper jobs. The number un- sidered shocking. But will the policies even banks, as the foundation for worker-controlled employed for more than a year trebled between To believe in the TUC's answer we have to be- economic planning which could ensure decent jobs October 1980 and October 1982, to 1.2 million. lieve in a very superficial account of the causes of for all, is a professed aim of many unions. But the Since 1979, the number below the poverty line the slump. 'The main cause of the world reces- Econcmic Review has not a word about it. has increased by 1.5 million. Families on half aver- Increased state spending can sometimes pull a sion. is the restrictive policies pursued by the It does not even propose such measures to age earnings have seen their real take-home capitalist economy out of a slump, at least for a major economies, and pursued most vigorously by defend living standards and jobs as automatic income go down 3.2%. while families on five times time. But with profit rates low, chronic overpro- the UK" • So all that's needed is a return to the inflation-protection for wages (with a workers' average earnings are Ix% better off in real income duction in basic industries, and the world financial expansionary public-spending policies of the '50s price index) and work-sharing under workers' (figures for married couples with two children). system in a delicate statt, it is more likeiy to pro- and '60s, and we'll all be better off, from the And last year the top 25% of chief executives got duce inflation, balance of payments crises, and desperate claimants who will get jobs to the mil- Inadequate though the TUC's proposals on a lionaires who will see business and profits boom! shorter work week and more public spending are The TUC also recalls the facts about inequality Such, anyway, was the experience of these 're- as an answer to the crisis, they are certainly worthof wealth: the top 1 per cent owned 23% of all flationary' policies in the 1970s, and such has been while as far as they go. But there is no proposal for marketable wealth and about 80% of all privately the experience of the Mitterrand government in the TUC to campaign, agitate, or take action to held shares. And 100 companies account for 40% In other words, the slump is caused by nothing impose them if the government rejects its advice.

The Mitterrand government has also resorted to deeper than political stupidity by Thatcher and In short, all the proposals are just advice to the But what's the answer? The main job of the TUC wage controls. Some Labour politicians supposed- government - and evidently tailored to the limits is atter all not to collect figures but to organise ly on the Left - like Michael Meacher - have said But then why did the 1969-71 recession happen? of what seems 'reasonable' as advice to a capitalist workers to defend their interests. And in that re- plainly that they consider incomes policy an essen- What was the cause of the 1974-5 slump? Is it all spect the Economic Review has little to offer. It': sa tial part of 'reflation'. . And the TUC? It refers coyly As the crisis gets worse, those limits get narrowbit more than Labour front-bencher Peter Shore and as briefly as possible to a 'National Economic Or isn't it more likely that behind these crises er; the TUC's words of advice emptier; and the offered in a recent TV interview with Brian Wald- Issessment' - on all evidence, just a new name is a developing decay of the world capitalist sys- need for the labour movement to change course toen — a choice between devaluation and monetar- tem, with its chrunic tendencies for production to wards policies for mobilisation and for a workers' Will exchange controls and import controls help, outstrip demand, for investment to develop out of pay rises of 18%-plus.

ot industrial output and trade. ism - but not much. France.

Its main proposals are:

• Increased public spending vestment Board;

• Exchange controls; import controls;

• Gradual reduction hours over five years.

achieve that?

The Mitterrand experience runs on the currency. for TUC-policed wage controls. devaluation, and selective of the work week to 35 Reagan.

just a chain of accidents? to see an expansion of world trade"

The cause of the slump deepening it), rather than its cause?

why the TUC is so sup n its analysis. control with no loss of pay. government.

government, more urgent.

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By Harry Sloan