Yes More Yes

Scan page 4

The worsening plight of British capitalism on the world market was reflected recently by the conference decision of the Confederation of British Industry to call on the Tory government to impose selective controls on imports into Britain.:

This bid to protect British employers against foreign competition of course flies in the face of Thatcher's stern '"monetarist" policy.

This consists in exposing British capitalism to the full, icy, blast of international competition, in order to weed out the weakest and least profitable sectors and press the strongest into a renewed drive for speedup and rationalisation.

The policy. has been implemented through driving up the value of the pound through high interest rates-thus increasing the relative price of British goods on the world market and lowering the price of imported goods sold in Britain.

It is a policy rather similar to the old Spartan custom of leaving new-born infants on the roof of their houses overnight so that the weaklings perished and only the strong attained adulthood.# Deficit The difference is that in many cases it is the oldest and most traditional British industries that are suffering the most from Thatcher's enforced process of natural selection (which has succeeded so far in driving the British balance of payments deficit to a massive £2.5 billion;

and which is leading rapidly to the dismantling of British Leyland, the only substantial British-owned car manufacturer). In particular the CBI conference echoed with the plaintive moans of employers in the textile industry—who point angrily to the increasing tide of low-priced imports from a wide range of countries.

The British textile industry pays some of the lowest wages available; but over the years employers have used the horrific exploitation of the workforce cimnlv as a source of huge suitory profits, while investment in new behind that technology of rivals in other has lagged way countries.

The outcome is that British textile, products are now outpriced and outpaced by their rivals.

But while the employers moan about this situation and plead for speciai protection, they find strong supporters among the trade union bureaucracy. One of the latest is Jim Farrington, 'left' talking secretary of the Northern Textile and Allied Workers Union: • In his half yearly report week he declared that:

"The situation is grim and unless the government acts quickly to stem the inflow of textiles into the United Kingdom, further closures are inevitable and many more thousands of workers will be forced to join the ranks of the unemployed." Farrington thus offers his members and other textile workers not the prospect of a fight against the British employers who are depriving them of their right to work, but of an alliance with these employers, against a supposed "foreign" enemy!

"It is essential in the interests of the nation that the jobs of textile workers and the jobs of workers in other manufacturing industries are safe.

marred to maintain a viable industrial base."

This - same logic leads to unquestioning acceptance by union leaders like Farrington of speed-up on the shop-floor, of permanently low wages and of the right of employers to close "surplus" factories in order to make themselves "viable" at the expense of the workforce.

Nationalist

But he is not alone. In the footwear industry, steel, the car industry (above all British Leyland), and other manufacturing "sectors union leaders, along with Tribune MPs have fallen over themselves in their eagerness to protect "British"

employers against invading "'foreign" competitors.

The irony is that such thi en th th J0 at hi STARE nationalist class collaboration by union leaders is far from simply a British phenomenon. In the United States, in particular, trade union bureaucrats have been at the head of a vigorous protectionist lobby by employers urging Carter to impose controls' on almost identical imported goods-textiles, steel, shoes, etc. . In other words the intensification of the capitalist crisis brings to the forefront the nationalist divisions in the ranks of the reformist labour bureaucracy that poses as the leadership of the working class.

Propertyless

As a propertyless class, possessing in every capitalist ONE substantial benefit to e workers' movement that has verged from the midst of the Fourth Man" affair has been e ignominious Tory retreat on e reactionary Protection of formation Bill.

The new Bill, designed to gag urnalists and muzzle those ghting to expose the reaction.

y moves of the capitalist state already received TWO radings in the House of Lords, nd, amid a clamour of oppos 'ion, was entering its commitee stage prior to submission to he Commons. It was thus being introduced hrough the "back door" , and ntroduced a wide new range of estrictions on reporting and nvestigating matters of 118 workers demand import controls country only its ability to work... the working class has no "national interest" , no common cause with the capitalists whowhether "foreign" or notderive their profits from the exploitation of workers.

Only a revolutionary, internationalist leadership; fighting closures and speed-up through strikes, occupations, nationalisation, and the struggle for a planned socialist economy, can defend the interests of. the working class, and combat the reactionary, nationalist diversion of import controls peddled by . employers .. and bureaucrats alike.

"security", "defence" and every aspect of the workings of the state. The Bill provided for the word of a single government Minister to be sufficient to brand a piece of informațion as classified.

Select clique

But the expose of the state within a state" operating in the Blunt cover-up, and the obvious fact that the whole affair would have remained in the hands of a select clique of military intelligence chiefs if the Tory Bill was already law, • has made it politically impossible to preceed with the new legislation.

----- pull-quotes -----

un çaç