The Health Service; Safeguards Against Infla­tion; The Decadence of Private Enterprise

[p033] ‘THE HEALTH SERVICE; SAFEGUARDS AGAINST INFLATION; THE DECADENCE OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE Mr. Bevan is identified with the National Free Health Service, which was undoubtedly among -the outstanding achievements of the postwar Labour government. His informative chapter on the Health Service-is an able answer -to its critics and detractors; it can be endorsed with both hands. He concludes with a ringing challenge to the ‘Tories. “No Government that attempts to destroy the ‘Health Service can hope ‘to command the support of the 31

[p034] -British people. The great argument about priorities is: joined, and from it a Free Health Service is bound to ‘emerge triumphant.” Every working class family will back his defence of the Health Service against the Tory termites. This alone is. reason enough for them to bring the Conservatives down. While the Tories are nibbling away at the Health Service, they are also’ whittling down living standards through higher prices. Aneurin Bevan presents excellent sugges- tions to protect the real wages of the workers and the incomes of the poor against the worst effects of this capitalist-inspired inflation. He proposes that wages be increased automatically as the cost of living index goes. up. “It should not be beyond our collective good sense to apply the reformed cost of living index to the whole field of wages and salaries.” (p. 112). He urges the extension of this same principle to recipi- ents of social benefits like old-age pensioners, ex-service men, widows and the like, as well as small owners of’ national savings certificates. “There seems no reason why the cost of living index when brought up-to-date, should not be used for the purpose of adjusting the scales of bene- fits, say at six-monthly intervals. I am not here discussing improvements in their standards. What is first required is that the existing standards be defended, and this by a method which would work automatically without neces-. sitating a series of parliamentary crises .. . “If the reply is made that the principle should work both ways, and that the scale of benefits should be adjusted downwards with a fall in prices, there are two answers. There is little or no prospect of a general fall in the prices . of the goods that go to the making of the cost of living index. As far as we can see we are in for a steady upward. trend in prices. We shall be lucky if it is steady. If. however, a fall does take place the increased purchasing. ‘power resulting to the beneficiaries of the social services, . -would be a useful means of defence against deflation and consequent unemployment.” (p. 115). 32

[p035] To get at the wealthy tax evaders and reduce in- equalities in income, Mr. Bevan urges the institution of “a far-reaching capital levy.” (p. 115). © In his chapter on “Modern Man and Modern Society”, Mr. Bevan makes incisive exposures of “the folklore of British capitalism”. He explodes the contentions of those apologists who extol the efficiency, progressiveness, free competition and similar virtues of the profit system. “Jn Britain it was failing before the 1939 war even to mobilise the forces of production efficiently. Instead of material plenty, it was conspiring to create scarcity as the condition for making profits. Today it attempts to enlarge its profits by price associations, cartels, trusts, resale price maintenance, and a score of other expedients, all designed to cheat the God by which it swears in its credo—Competi- tion. In short, it is attempting to enthrone industrial and commercial authoritarianism in place of the arbitrament of the market place. “The economic decadence of pre-war Britain was strik- ingly revealed when we faced the task of post-war recon- struction. Most of the basic industries had been geared to the acceptance of a comparatively low standard of consumption, accompanied by a permanent army of unem- ployed numbering about two million. The coal industry had been rescued from complete collapse by a series of Statutes all designed to eliminate, not increase, competition among the various coal companies, and to enable them to fix the price of coal at a level which would. ensure con- tinued production in high-cost pits. This was also true of steel. In the case of tinplate a rigid cartel served the same purpose. Outworn techniques prevailed in the textile in- dustry, and our electricity supplies, as we soon discovered, were utterly unable to support an all-out production programme.” (p. 45-6). However, the British workers do not need further proofs of the hopeless decadence of capitalism. They see and feel that almost every day in the workshops and in the home. What they need to know most of all is how they can hasten the replacement of this rotting system with their own Socialist way of life. De 33