The end of 'right' and left'

George Gale

A group of Cambridge economic weather forecasters, led by Wynne Godley, head of rhe university's Department of Applied Edonomics, lately predicted that in 1990 or thereabouts, when the oil was running out, we would have five million unemployed, if present policies are followed. This forecast, made with the usual confident aplomb of the group, is principally of interest because if the nature of the assumptions on which it Is based. The first, involving the running out of North Sea oil, is a matter for geologists, Oil companies, energy ministers and ecenometricians. I very much doubt Whether the oil will have started to run low as early as 1990, but I am in no position to argue with the Cambridge assumption except by way of registering doubt that it is at all soundly based. It is the other principal ssumption, `if present policies are foltewed', which I think is very much worth discussing, not in terms of the unem1310Yment to be expected by 1990, but in its oW n terms and for its own sake. Is it probable in fact, that throughout the dineteen-eighties, present policies will continue to be pursued? It is certainly possible that we will con;Mae with the policies of the 'sixties and .seventies which may be dated from the resignation of Peter Thorneycroft, the Chanlldr of the Exchequer and his junior reasury ministers in 1958, in protest !ga. inst the spendthrift ways desired by the °rime Minister, Harold Macmillan. A case an be made that this period came to an end pvvith James Callaghan's first speech as rime Minister to the Labour Party conierence in 1976, in which he acknowledged that we could no longer spend our way out df recession, and the subsequent terms Posed by the IMF and accepted by Denis Healey in his Letter of Intent as Chancellor. Although a degree of monetarist discipline was certainly applied last year, and is now drking its way out in the form of falling Inflation, the recent Budget, with its massive borrowing requirement, its 'givingaway' of £24 billion, Healey's and Joel Bar1,1-,e.t's, Coy hints of further gifts in store, the s consequent jitters, a falling pound nzi.a rising lending rate, and the Prime inister's embarrassed attempt to repair 1de damage by denying any intention of a '4 Jbudget, certainly look as if the old Pcies are presently being followed and will be indefinitely. ven if some monetarist restraints. conI?riue to be imposed, the overall policies of !t,e Callaghan administration will not have differed much from those of Wilson's team; tr aad these were scarcely distinguishable idni the 19724 policies of Heath. Heath

began as if he intended to bring about, as he claimed he would, a radical change in the way the country was governed, but in no time at all he had Sir William Armstrong (now ennobled) sitting on his left side ensuring that the policies of the Treasury would not be put at risk. The Treasury, and not this or that party or government, has been the creative force in British economic and industrial policy over the last twenty years, and Wynne Godley — himself briefly at the Treasury — and his team assume that the Treasury will continue to dominate and that they will continue with the mixture as before. That mixture is made up of high direct and low indirect taxation, the constant attempt by governments to keep wages down by persuasion and legislation, a very eager readinesss to put government money into areas and industries where private capital is not risked because profits are not likely, a steady increase in state ownership and state intervention, and a steady expansion of public service employees and of their rewards.

Now it is very evident that if the present policies are, as I believe them to be, also substantially the policies of the past twenty years or more, and if we are to continue with those policies for another ten years or more, then the Cambridge weathermen may well be right in forecasting five million unemployed by 1990. Certainly, if we are governed as badly in the next decade as we have been in the past two, we can expect nothing but a further weakening in our competitive position, a further contraction of employment in manufacturing industry, and a further increase in bureaucrats. Bureaucracy and tourism will be our only growth industries, and we will be well on the way to becoming a banana republic without the climate to grow bananas.

Is it, then, reasonable to assume that we will continue with present policies? It is cer tainly possible to argue from past experience that we will. It is, however, possible to envisage a different line of development brought about not by consensus and compromise and the pursuit of bureaucratic policies by the Treasury-dominated centre but by the politics of change, and in particular by the policies of radical reaction against the policies of the present set-up.

Hitherto, the Conservative party has not seen fit to do more than tinker with the inheritances it has ,received from Labour governments, which have successively extended the areas of economic and social life controlled by the state. Despite the very considerable success of Labour governments in shifting the country towards a fully socialist state it shows no desire of wanting, the Labour party itself. — as opposed to Labour governments — has never had as much socialism as it has desired. The trade unions used to hold the socialists back. Now, they are as likely to lead them. The very failures of past governments and policies, and of the present government and those same policies, encourages, among those of a socialist persuasion, the belief that it is more socialism and not less that is wanted.

The Labour party has been moving leftwards — to use the only available jargon, of which more later — at an increasing rate. It is distancing itself from the present Labour government; and if Mr. Callaghan should lose the next election, then I do not see how the centre men in the Labour party will be able to control the extreme men.

And so no one can tell the pace at which a Labour government will be able to move the country further towards socialism; but we may be pretty sure that move the country it will continue to endeavour to do, that from time to time it will manage a further shift, and that at no time will it have moved : and shifted enough to please the Labour party as a whole. Nonetheless, each accretion of state power and public ownership, each new piece of dirigist bureaucracy, each new subvention here and subsidy there, will take us further down the road of our present policies, which is the road to socialism, 'serfdom' and unemployment. Moreover, this road is so familiar that half the time we do not realise we are moving along it; and when we do realise that we are travelling, we mostly think it is in either a sensible or an inevitable direction. Last weekend Mr Benn told the Institute for Workers Control that in the energy industry 'we are developing a relationship between trade unions and the policy-making minister himself] which had never existed before', and this may well be true; but it is part and parcel of a continuing process which present policies express. And when Benn claims that the present government and union leaders are working together in a relationship 'that is totally transformed from that of the 196470 period of government' he is saying only that personal relationships are not as tricky as-they were during the strife of In Place of Strife, and that the power of the trade unions within the Labour party and the acceptability of their ideas to those wanting . more socialism has increased and is increasing. 'If present policies are continued', the country will steadily become more corporate and more collectivised, whischever party is in power. It is worth recalling that a Conservative government nationalised Rolls-Royce, and that a Conservative Industry Bill proved very helpful to Labour's socialising thrust. Mr Heath and his fellow-travellers came very close to making socialism orthodox in this country, and we might as well reconcile ourselves to the fact that the Labour party, even as it presses the country further and further into socialism, looks to be very respectable while

it is about it. It looks safe and sound. It could also very easily look as if it was the true custodian of the nation's interest. It does not seek to destroy the set-up it inherits, but rather to build upon it. Its changes are gradual and piecemeal, and respond as often as not either to local political exigencies of an electoral character or to the highly respectable external promptings of, say, the IMF. In its way, therefore, the moderate element of the Labour party is the most conservative political group we have in the country, even when it is being gradually but inexorably pushed leftwards. Since that is the way the country has been going ever since the war, the left-wing of the Labour party can also be considered as conservative, albeit more eager to get on with the job than the moderates, but at the same time anxious to plead and promote the national interest at home and abroad in a way every Conservative administration since Eden's has feared or neglected to do.

Should Mr Callaghan win the next election, then, it is highly likely that `present policies will be followed'. Should he lose, it is equally likely that the Labour party will shift leftwards with a lurch. The question facing the Labour party is therefore whether it will remain conservative in its socialism, or become militant and patriotic. In either event it will not cease to be authoritarian, collectivist and bureaucratic: and these are essential conservative charactistics.

But what of Mrs Thatcher should she win? Will a Conservative administration led by her continue to follow present policies? It very well might, despite the impression she enjoys creating. It is very hard to be confident how much genuine relish she will have for a fight to change present policies, It has to be said, however, that if the Conservative party under her leadership does not change present policies, but simply administers an inherited set-up, then, given the length we have already been taken down the road to socialism by previous Labour and Conservative governments, it is difficult to see her doing anything but delay, if even that, the present process. She could, for instance, simply set about improving the way the existing set-up was run, shifting taxes, offering incentives, tinkering here and there, maybe having something of a spitting-match with the unions over the closed shop, but generally disturbing nothing much. If this is what she were to do and if such tinkering reforms were actually sensible and worked, what she Viould be doing would be to make Britain that much safer for the socialism that would almost inevitably follow, when North Sea oil does actually run out and we have exhausted our international credits. In such an event, her Conservative party will have been as orthodox and conservative as is Mr Callaghan's Labour party; to all intents and purposes, present (Treasury) policies will have been followed; and we may very well have 5 million unemployed by 1990.

But what if the Conservative party under Mrs Thatcher abandons its practice of administering the inherited set-up and policies, and ceases to be what it has been for almost a generation —which is a socialist Conservative party opposing, as Tweedledum opposes Tweedledee, the conservative Labour party? What if, instead of allowing us to pause for a while, to take off our shoes and rest our weary feet as we trudge along the road to socialism, she and her administration decide to change direction entirely, and indeed make us start to retrace our steps? Such a policy may well be literally described as reactionary, for it would indeed represent reaction against present policies: but it would be a policy of radical change. No simple retracing of steps would be possible; but it is not at all difficult to imagine a bonfire of controls, a selling-off of profitable parts of the public sector, the break-up of the huge state monopolies of coal, steel, railways, gas and electricity into competing regional units, a taxation system designed to reward effort and risk, a welfare system designed to discourage idleness, an educational system designed to raise academic standards and improve technical and vocational training, and a health service and a pension scheme based upon genuine insurance principles. The attempt to control inflation through one or other form of incomes policy would be abandoned. The privileges of trade unions, and particularly their virtual immunity before the law, would be trimmed.

This is a sketch (many such sketches are possible) — or perhaps more accurately, a cartoon — to indicate the kind of 'Conservative' programme which a Thatcher government could pursue, and which would in no way at all be conservative: for it would be a programme of very radical change, involving the virtually complete repudiation of 'present policies'. It would be a programme much more radical, much more root-and-branch, than anything people like Mr Benn and Mr Shore contemplate.

Such a Conservative party would be not at all conservative, but would be radical. It would also be libertarian in the extreme as far as the economy is concerned. It could be as authoritarian as it wished over law and order, provided it did not play into the collectivists' hands by equipping the police with excessive powers, by tampering with the freedom of speech and of the press and by encouraging censorship.

In such a situation a radical Conservative• party would confront a conservative Labour

party, and it is not at all easy to think up appropriate names for such parties and for their positions. Conservative and Labour are not appropriate, for the Conservative party would not be at all conservative. And in what respect would an essentially authoritarian Labour party be held to be left-wing' and a libertarian Conservative party be called 'right-wing'? The terms 'left' and 'right' have already become virtually useless and meaningless, when it is considered that the National Front is con sidered to be extremely right-wing and the Socialist Workers Party, which' it closelY resembles and with which it competes for support, is considered extremely left-wing.

It is easy enough to call the Labour partY the socialist party, for that is what it hes become, and socialism is what it is about. Years ago, it was thought to be both snide and unfair for Beaverbrook's Daily Expres!., continually to describe Labour parV members and supporters as socialists; but tic it might have been somewhat unfair then 0' some of them, it is in no way unfair now. The Labour party has never had a proper name for its supporters and an adjective for its general position: 'socialist' now ace''' rately fulfils both roles, much as the word 'conservative' once did for the Conservative party. But if the Conservative party under Mrs 'Thatcher is to embark upon a great Ms' mantling of the state and thus becomes the party of radical change, by what narne, should it be known when, whatever else tr., may be, it is no longer conservative? AO would such a libertarian party be MO properly called 'left' or 'right'? The obvioiis name for Mrs Thatcher's party, if it repair' ates present policies and the authoritarian, collectivist state, is the Liberal party, and' is a great pity that that name is already use, especially when the party which uses t! is so illiberal as to support a socialist ann socialising government in office. The Conservatives could think of calling themselves Radicals, for radical change would be what they would be about. They might also thini‘ about Whig as a name and an adjective,.fbr whiggery has connotations of libertarianisM in its opposition to authoritarian Toryism., Certainly, I think that 'right' and 'left need to be dispensed with entirely: the test lies between authoritarian and libertarian, but these are long and ugly words. 'Left' at'd 'right' suggest the desirability of a middle!' between and the existence of extremes vin: lently opposed to each other at both ends. I think that 'red' for the socialist-. collectivist-conservatives might suffice and 'blue' for the anti-statist radicals.

1 realise perfectly well that nothing I write will change the names that people give political parties and political positions; h0". have been endeavouring to discuss the P°5, sibility of political change and to show

if such change is brought about, the las:

thing a Conservative party would be is e.011,_ servative; that its policies would repudinw present orthodox ones and would not be °11 any left-right line or axis, but would inste. df be at a tangent to that axis. It is my belt that the extent to which we have alreaui become a socialised society creates elin imperative for radical change which onlY ° misnamed Conservative party could ear.rYb

out. Otherwise we will indeed be stuck wit present policies being followed for the negi

ten years and very likely unemployment °„ five millions, as the Cambridge weatherine" foretell. That will be the consequence of he conservative reds. My hopes, therefore, res on the radical blues.