Blaming the People
POLITICAL COMMENTARY
By ALAN WATKINS
the sonz goes, third—or is it thehe rfeo uwret h e sat egraliinng act h crisis s is ;since October 1964. In his Thoughts on the Present Discontents Burke wrote of 'this short, but discouraging proposition, "That we have a very good Ministry, but that we are a very bad people"; that we set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us; that with a malignant insanity we oppose the measures, and ungratefully vilify the persons, of those whose sole object is our own peace and prosperity.' To be fair, as I always try to be, to the present Government, it has not been nearly so severe in its attacks on the charac- ter of the British people as have many economic commentators and newspapers, particularly -per- haps The Times- Nevertheless there persists a tendency—Mr Harold Wilson, Mr George Brown and Mr James Callaghan have all at various times exhibited it—to put our troubles in the language of personal morality rather than of technical economics. I believe that if this moralis- ing continues, its effects could well be worse, in terms of a sapping of national self-confidence, than the supposed evil it was meant to correct.
-It was in 1963 that the 'Condition of England' question was last talked and written about at length. This year has seen something of a revival. It has sometimes seemed that the revival was staged by, and performed for the benefit of, visiting American journalists. Whether the con- dition of ,England was satisfactory or not depended upon the writer's attitude to 'the swing lag city' (surely the greatest journalistic inven- tion since Hugh Gaitskell's Hampstead Set was first uncovered nine years ago). The fate Of a nation was made to hinge on the height of a hemline. Sturdy citizens who had never seen the inside of a discotheque in their lives were told either that they- should be proud of swinging or that they should be ashamed of it; whether, the one or the other depended upon the predilec- tions of the writer. It was, to say the least, rather confusing for everyone.
All this would be just another piece of harm- less magazine nonsense, comparable to the U and non-U controversy of the 'fifties, if there were not a danger of its being taken seriously by people who ought to know better. 'Is the country really on the road to ruin—not just financial ruin, but moral and social ruin as well?' So asks the Conservative Political Centre's monthly report for July. And it goes on : `Behind the lamentable productivity statistics there appears to lie a lack of will to deal with the prob- lem.' Only this week k minister told me that he was beginning to believe in the theory of national decadence. Admittedly he had just seen England slay Uruguay in the World Cup. Still, there are ontough individuals in positions of influence who believe that something has gone seriously wrong viith the British character. It is a worrying situation. For if people are told often enough Butt they are morally decadent they may start to believe it and to behave as if they were.
The conventional ministerial way of expressing *is immorality in the British people is to say that we are 'living beyond our means,' on bor- rowed money. 'Old so-and-so,' said a minister,
referring to one of his more eloquent colleagues in the Cabinet, 'is very useful to us. He may not know much about economics, but he can cer- tainly put the fear of God into people.' Yet it is very doubtful whether this is the most effective approach. Certainly, it. has been tried often enough, with no very spectacular results. The reason is surely clear. It is that most people are as well off as they have ever been.
If this were all, it would be possible to dismiss the reaction as one of blinkered selfishness, cor- rectable by a series of suitably severe speeches. But, of course, it is not all. People (I am speaking from desultory observation) look around them and see considerable real wealth in the form of goods and machinery. These goods and machin- ery are clearly not on loan from the foreign bankers or the International Monetary Fund: they form part of the wealth of the country. People are therefore puzzled and slightly dis- believing when told that Britain is 'bankrupt' and that they are somehow, responsible. And, in a very important sense, these people are right, and the sermonisers of The Times and the Govern- ment are wrong. By any reasonable standard, Britain remains an exceptionally wealthy coun- try. To put our economic, troubles in crude moralistic terms, in terms of a housewife living beyond her means, when the analogy of a banker would be more appropriate, is simply to do violence to the intelligence of ordinary citizens.
What I am suggesting, in fact, is that one reason why successive Governments (for this Government is no exception) have failed to com- municate with the people of this country is that they have put our economic difficulties in exces- sively simple and pious terms. Though people may be vague about, even unaware of, the real problems of sterling and the balance of pay- ments, they have seen through this deception. Both sterling and the balance of payments are,
to be sure, difficult subjects to explain. Still, Mr Callaghan might make the attempt. The prospects of an explanation' on the balance of payments are probably better than the prospects of an ex- planation on sterling. Indeed, it is possible, as Mr Fred Hirsch suggested in a recent book, that if the true cost of maintaining sterling as a re- serve currency were made clear to the country, the country would not put up with the situation a moment longer.
This is not to say that our economic crises kre merely a matter of financial juggling and book- keeping entries. There exists a real problem of production and particularly of exports. And here we come to the central question which has worried the economic ministers increasingly since 1964: why is it that production has steadfastly refused to go up? Ministers . seem genuinely baffled; they have, -they insist, done their best; and they are reduced to concluding that economic growth is a wonderful and mysterious thing whose operation we do not yet fully under- stand, rather like sex. At the same time they are relieved that Mr Edward Heath and his friends have not made more of the economy's failure to grow. Why, if Mr Wilson were in Mr Heath's place on the Opposition front bench he would be hammering away, week after week.... Neverthe- less, Mr Heath's hesitation is perhaps understand- able. If he were to keep criticising the country's growth record under Labour, Mr Wilson or Mr Callaghan would soon produce the standard question retained . for occasions of this kind : well, what would you do? And Mr Heath might find it difficult to produce an altogether convinc- ing reply.
Nor sould Mr Heath be blamed for this. No doubt . economic growth really is a mysterious business. Yet ministers and others, though pri- vately, they admit that they. do not fully under- stand growth, persist in talking publicly as if the failure to grow were a consequence of some innate viciousness, in the British character. Talk a this -kind imports terms of personal morality, of praise and blame, into an essentially, non-per- sonal situation. If one asks the question, What precisely could I do, here and now, to secure greater economic growth? the answer, most likely, is Don't know. And this is a perfectly fair and reasonable answer to make. To suppose that it is otherwise is to see our economic problems in those personal terms which carry the protestant ethic to its uttermost limit of absurdity.
This article is informed by the general convic- tion that the character of the British people has not greatly changed, either for better or for worse, in the past decade. However, even if there had been a change, and a change for the worse, it is arguable that this would have been irrelevant to the origin or the solution of our economic prob- lems. These problems are caused, first, by various long-standing external obligations and liabilities; secondly, by internal patterns of industrial organi- sation. There is nothing providentally ordained about these obligations and liabilities and pat- terns. They can be changed by conscious human action. This, however, is quite different from say- ing that, because these changes have not yet been satisfactorily made, the people of Britain, or even successive Governments of Britain, must therefore be blamed (though there is certainly more reason to blame Government than to blame the people). To point an accusing finger is an easy and no doubt a satisfying gesture; even easier, and even more satisfying, for someone from outside this country. I end, as I began, with Burke. 'I do not know the method,' he said, `of drawing up an in- dictment against an whole people.' He was talk- ing. as it happened, of the Americans.
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