Where did the Labour Party come from – and where is it
now headed?
The rise of
industrial factory production in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to
the displacement of agricultural workers into industrial labour in the
enlarging towns. There was already a clearly divided society between the
majority of the people – the farm workers, labourers, servants and peripherals
(soldiers, minor traders and so on) – and the gentry (the owners of the land,
property etc) who were an upper ruling class apart and the owners and
instigators of the new industrialisation.
The working
conditions in the factories, mines, mills and the like were dire, long and
harsh, often dangerous. The vote was limited to the gentry and the monarchy
(Magna Carta). Protests by the workers
at the harshness – a form of industrial slavery – were repressed by ‘law and
order’ armed forces.
The accumulation
of money, not just the ownership, soon became a dominant feature of the upper
ruling class – the acquisition of capital was a spur to production with the
growing science and technology creating more productive labour workers.
One machine
could do 700 hours of manual labour – and so the divide between labour and
capital ownership become more evident and eventually led to the development of trade
unionism, aspiring for unity and fairness, and for social reform.
By the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century this was spreading across the industrialised countries
of Europe and the concept of a different society evolved – one of more equality
and common ownership of the means of production. Several elements came together and the term ‘Socialism’
was born. A loose socialist federation of
workers, trade unionists and progressive intellectuals with the same socialist aspiration.
The Labour Party
was born from the trade unions with the support of intellectual activists such
as the Fabian Society, democrats and others to win the united support of the
workers with ‘practical’ reforms as an inevitable steam-roller progress to a
better world. Similar political movements
also arose such as the Communists.
One party
however, was formed in 1904 which stood clearly and solely for the democratic
understanding and support of the majority of the people for the fundamental
change from class ownership to the common ownership and democratic control of
the means of production and distribution – anything less would be a diversion
leading to the continuation of capitalism. That party was the Socialist Party
of Great Britain.
Over the twentieth
century the Labour Party and other reformists thrived, with much popular
support for reforms culminating, perhaps, in the apogee of the sweeping
election victory of 1945 and the rise of the Communists in Russia. It was a
poisoned chalice. Besotted with their triumph, they were consumed with the
power of running a capitalist state. Their last vestiges of socialist aspiration
had died.
We still have
capitalism with all its fearful flaws and inequalities, and socialist society is
still seen as a fanciful irrelevancy.
Now the Labour
Party is entirely consumed and thinks of nothing but the best way to get
elected to run capitalism, just as do the Conservatives, Liberals, UKIP and all
the rest. They are essentially indistinguishable and sterile, looking for
leaders to hopefully sort out our lives for us. They shake their heads at
socialism as unpractical utopianism while they recruit and train ‘heroes’ to
kill other ‘heroes’ in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan to acquire ‘their’
oil etc. They end up with billionaires and food banks. The halcyon days of trade unionism, the
’left’ wing, the formation of the capitalist NHS with the disillusionment of
the early ‘socialists’ such as Aneurin Bevan are now effete. Reduced to the discussion of capitalist power
through the pathetic smog of Cameron v. Miliband
(or whoever takes over from him - can you tell the difference?)
No wonder people
want to escape to triviality - Downton, Emmerdale, etc. But think about it.
Take your life from their hands to the better world of true civilisation of
humanity – before it’s too late!
LES COURTNEY
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