Nationalization: let's learn the lessons of 1945-51

‘LABOUR NATIONALIZATION: LET’S LEARN THE NATIONALIZATION is an essential first step toward socialism. But to socialists nationalization has never been an end in itself, This elementary axiom is not necessarily accepted by those who have led the Labour Party during the last half-century.

These thoughts are prompted by an article in the Sunday Times recently by economist George Schwartz. He uses a review of ‘Nationalization in Britain’ by R. Kelf-Cohen as a basis for a reactionary attack on the whole idea of nationalization. : :

It is not difficult for any socialist to pull Schwartz's arguments to pieces. For he stands the whole issue on its head. .

Unfortunately, a great deal of what he writes about the Labour leaders is only too apposite. Scorning a theoretical approach to the problems of capitalism and socialism, these ‘practical? men and women thought they only had to reach Cabinet rank and introduce the necessary parliamentary legislation and, hey presto, the deed would be done.

Capitalism would be no more and socialism would reign in its place.

No blue print for Manny Take, for example, this quotation from the autobiography of Emmanuel Shinwell:

‘For the whole of my political life I had listened to the party speakers advocating State ownership and control of the coal-mines, and I had myself spoken of it as:a primary task once the Labour Party was in power. I had believed, as other members had, that in the party archives a blue print was ready.

‘Now, as Minister of Fuel and Power, I found that

nothing practical and. tangible existéd. . There" were ‘some - pamphiets, some memoranda produced fér private circulation and nothing else. I had to start on a clear desk’

Who did Shinwell think had drawn up the blueprint he vainly sought? Was he not one of the leaders of the party, a leader of many years’ standing?

Herbert’s ‘competent’ ‘business people Or listen to Herbert Morrison, steering the Iron and Steel . Bill through Parliament:

‘It really is a preposterous suggestion ‘that before the industry has been socialized, before the Act of Parliament has been brought in, and before any powers have been obtained at all, my Right Honourable friend [Mr Strauss], a politician, should work out in detail the specific technical future of the industry down to considerable detail, embody it in the Bill, and thereby deprive the scheme of all fluidity.

‘Surely the wisc thing, if the industry is to be socialized, is to provide for it to be taken over, to let the shares vest in the Iron and Steel Corporation and then let the Corporation, composed of competent business people, be responsible for the management of the industry, subject to such general directions as the Minister of Supply may give

them.’

Well might George Schwartz ask: ‘Isn’t that a corker? Socialists will echo that, but for entirely different reasons.

‘Finid’ enough for Tories We all know that Morrison achieved the ‘fluidity’ in the iron and steel industry he was seecking—so much so, in fact, that the Torics were able to return it to private ownership without any difficulty. ‘ What Shinwelt should have done when he found no biee print on his Ministerial desk, what Strauss should have done when he was drawing up his Bill fo nationalize steel, was call regional and national conferences of the workers im the industries concerned amd lear from the man at the coal-face and the man in the blast-furnace what was ex‘ected of a socialist industry.

The Iron and Steel Corporation should not have been manned with ‘competent business people’ but with efficient and socialist-minded steelworkers.

That was the road to socialism. Morrison chose the road back to Tory rule and denationalization.

Tt is no accident that of all the nationalization measures introduced by the Labour government only the National Health Service bears some resemblance to a socialist way of running things.

Many years of research The Health Service as originally conceived was the result of many years of research, discussion and planning by doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other health workers, who were also socialists.

They knew what they wanted from a socialist health service and planned accordingly.

The lesson for Labour is not that nationalization has failed but that the existing nationalization schemes were drawn up by people who, because of their scorn for political theory, had not the slightest conception of what socialism really meant. We must not make the same mistake again.