STALINISM BRITAIN

A TROTSKYIST ANALYSIS Pm High Si. swi price 24s posting, Fill in the form below and send to NATIONAL SECRETARY, SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, LONDON, SW4. Name Address OFFENSIVE' This 'theory' leads to a position which says that since capitalism has a very long future ahead of it, the 'employers' offensive', which he correctly speaks of, is not a part of the death agony of the system, but the growing pains of evolutionary change as capitalism adapts to new conditions.

Cliff does not mention the real reason for the employers' offensive — the crisis of the system. The 'reasons' he puts forward are as follows:

Firstly, 'as individual investments have grown enormously ... the risks involved in the act of investment have also increased because the pace of technological change is greater today than ever before', and 'penalties for investment in the wrong place, or at the wrong time are also much greater.' Secondly, 'the threat of obsolescence (machinery, etc., becoming out of date) has radically increased during the present technological revoluThirdly, 'the pressure of international competition is greater than ever, and has been made sharper still by the systematic lowering of the barriers to international trade since the early 1950s, notably inside the European Common Market and the European Free Trade Association'. could have been years ago.

According to Cliff and the IS these things are not inevitable symptoms of capitalism's final crisis, of its total bankruptcy and decay, but simply a product of changes and uneven development with its structure.

An example of this outlook is found in an article in the IS paper 'Socialist Worker' of January 4, 1969, in which 1968 events were reviewed. According to its author, Richard Kuper:

"The strength of the system is revealed most of all on the national economic level in since capitalism has not exhausted its contribution to the development of mankind's productive forces, it can still provide a high-wage, highefficienty economy that a new stage of 'state capitalism' will emerge which will take the system forward a whole new historical stage.

So here is the fundamental on productivity. Since capitalism is simply passing through a few 'problems' in the transition to this stage, why make productivity a principle?

It just becomes a matter of putting forward a few demands which will 'protect' workers against the worst aspects of

GUEST REVIEW JOHN SPENCER October 7, 1970 THREE