'Britons fear race violence': draw your own conclusions - 7 comments

It's hard to know quite what to draw from this BBC/Mori poll. For one thing, I can't find any detailed breakdown of the statistics. Perhaps they aren't broken down at all, which would be a tremendous weakness.

The most obvious flaw is the conflation of race, nationality, and immigration. A backlash against immigrants presumably involves opposing nationalities, though it need not - generational and cultural factors also play a part, not to mention economic differentials. Racial differences might play a part too, but a lot of water has flown under the bridge since the assumption held that racist violence was the preserve of predominantly white working-class communities against immigrants from the Caribbean or Indian subcontinent. Such racism still exists, but hardly has anything to do with current patterns of immigration.

Another problem is the assumption, presumably stemming from an odd faith in Enoch Powell's ability to foretell the future, of a contrast between the 'shaky peace' of today, and some kind of future bloodbath. Yet violence between gangs that define themselves on racial, ethnic, or nationalist grounds is hardly unknown, even if it's usually restricted to already violent areas. The absence of the large-scale riots of years past is hardly proof that tension and hostility has been reduced, just perhaps of social atomisation - the groups themselves are smaller.

Racism, nationalism, and hostility to outsiders, are common to all human societies, and the greatest limitation on the development and progress of humanity, but I doubt there's been any serious diminution of these impulses in centuries, with the exception of some large cosmopolitan cities (researchers in this field who are professional enough not to write pieces off the tops of their heads are welcome to comment on this point). Disappointingly, internationalism is a truly tiny movement in the world, and I suspect that socialism in practice has had a thoroughly negative effect, certainly when compared with free markets.

It's nearly two years since I posted this, but the section I quoted from bowblog still sounds to me like the best strategy for maintaining social harmony without surrendering to bigots (my emphasis):

Our effort, in the wealthy world, (where, let's face it, immigrants are going to continue to arrive in large numbers if we're to remain wealthy) must go into improving the capacity of our reception communities [...], boosting the resilience of the bottom social tier, taking working class grievances seriously and easing the pressures produced by ineluctable change. The goal must be to build social solidarity, to neutralise the embitterment and disconnection that feeds the fascists.

Trade unions: a way forward - 6 comments

Here's something I wrote 2 or 3 days ago but haven't been able to publish until now. I notice that Stumbling and Mumbling now has a post on the ability of trade unions to influence wage equality, together with some statistics and some interesting comments. Anyway, here's my post.

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Following on from Will Hutton's weekend article on UK trade union militancy, Skipper argues that unionism is in crisis:

It really needs a major figure to emerge to offer genuine leadership towards a new constructive role in our society. The alternative would appear to be further decline and retreat from relevance. Scargill believed he was such a figure- he put up a fight but was wrong. Is Bob Crow a more likely candidate? I really don't think so.

I'd agree: there doesn't seem to be any correlation between 'moderacy' and 'vision' among union leaders, no substantial difference in statist economic outlook, or in the degree to which the 'fat cat' argument can be used to justify any other unrelated policy, only a difference in the degree to which each is prepared to play ball with the Government (and play games with the general public).

This dependence upon Government - especially Labour governments, intermittent as they have been in the past - can hardly be a strategy to ensure the long-term survival of the trade union movement, weak as it is among the labour force, and all the more so in the private sector. Despite the prevalence of the argument, the capacity of trade unions to bring about a nation-wide redistribution of income is minute, still less in favour of the poorest, who are rarely union members; and the 'mixed economy' - with a balance of private and public sector enterprises - is no more, and is not going to return. The economic and political failures of the State, when acting alone, are so evident that supporters of an enlarged public sector must explain how the general public can be protected from labour organisations - shielded from competition - abusing their position, just as one scrutinises companies with great market power abusing their positions.

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While the most likely post-capitalist 'system' is one of liberal, or free-market, mutualism, this form of 'social-ism' is as far removed from the ideal of statist unionists and Labour supporters, as is the current form of free-ish market capitalism we have now. I'm sure this argument has been used before, but the statist tendency that Labour nurtured from the 1940s to the 1970s, and which continues to dominate the Labour left, has been disastrous for the quality, but especially the breadth, of left-wing debate in the UK.

For all the weakness of the left in the USA, the level of free-market, anti-capitalist debate seems much richer there, and change more plausible. Sadly, the most likely consequence of Crow-style militancy is a weakened Labour government, and - before too long - a Conservative government committed to wiping out any remaining safe-havens for trade unions within the public sector, and to allowing the general public to use legal action to eliminate the strike weapon once and for all. The extent to which trade union powers could yet be curtailed by a radical government ought to be of great concern.

This is not an excuse for Labour to make promises to the unions that it has no intention of keeping, nor an argument for impotence, just an argument for the trade union movement to shift strategy from entrenching power within the public sector, and raising their demands to the limits of political sale-ability, to re-committing to mutualism, offering a message of liberty - not higher wages, necessarily, nor even the sham job-security that cannot exist in a free economy - to workers of all 'classes', whether in the public or the private sector. Liberty that comes from providing workers with the skills they need to form voluntarily organisations ('companies', rather) on the basis of individual skills and talents, the desire to provide a good or a service to the consumer or other companies, and to do so in an economically efficient manner, without the need for social or external management hierarchies.

Unions could devote their organisational skills and considerable weight to kick-starting the mutualist sector, in new, or small, existing, firms. Existing employers can be shown the benefit of managing small, flat-structured companies, where the skilled and the empowered can use their skills for maximum efficiency. I can't think of any better strategy for increasing worker control within the private sector. Perhaps I'm making a mistake, though - see Paulie's comment at the Stumbling and Mumbling post. If the trade union movement is in fact a rival mutualist structure - an alternative to workers' control of their own company - then perhaps (a) unions are more likely to try to draw people within the union than help them organise and share power within their own company, and (b) those workers who are able to mutually run their company would not be in the defensive position - of having to protect pay and conditions - that pushes one to join a union.

So, if trade unions gain from state/capitalist exploitation, while rivalling mutualism, these are these two more reasons to support Chris' argument that 'In this sense, unions help underpin capitalism.' Would we mourn the passing of either?

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My fear is that too many with power in the trade union movement can only look back to the imagined Golden Age of the 1960s and 1970s, to the power their forefathers were once able to wield. Sooner or later, British Trade Unionism will have to stop complaining about its own irrelevance, throw off the remaining 'class-war' baggage, and find itself a role that allows 20 million or so potential recruits to take it seriously - or it will have to pick itself off the ground after another wave of privatisation. Perhaps only then can socialism be liberated from statism.

More on bonuses - 5 comments

I had planned to comment on Peter Hain's plea (actually, it was a veiled demand) a fortnight ago that City firms donate "two-thirds of their bonus pots to charity rather than giving employees six-figure bonuses", but I didn't take it seriously. However, city bonuses seem to have become a cause célèbre for politicians who seem to have lost the will to talk about genuinely egalitarian politics.

Chris Dillow cites Ian Gibson MP's recent comments [via]:

I don't think people should have bonuses at all. They are unacceptable. I think it’s got worse. If the Labour Party recognised this problem then they would have more support today.

Well, why might bonuses be offered? Sure, there are fiddles, but the most plausible reason is to make it worth workers while to work harder (without compulsion), to improve the running of their organisation, take responsibility for its success, and to come up with ideas for making it more efficient. Without making it too obvious which one is which, I will have worked in:

1. An organisation so large that my personal contribution couldn't possibly affect my bonus.
2. A tiny organisation, unable to offer any incentive at all for a greater contribution.
3. A small organisation that was able to offer large bonuses in successful years.

Clearly the incentives are non-existent in (1) and (2), but where they do apply - in (3) - do they promote greed? Well, not necessarily. I don't see why any of the above would not apply just as strongly in a future socialist economy/society, characterised by cooperatives, a one-off equalisation of wealth, and controls on inheritance. People need reasons to do anything, and to make it impossible for them to benefit from their actions is a nail in the coffin of the legitimate economy, whatever economic system is in place. In the case of City bonuses, The Treasury/charities might be lucky enough to earn a windfall in Year 1, but the fund will swiftly dry up, reappearing elsewhere in a different form.

The real danger comes about when these "bonuses" are entrenched, allowing the recipient to gain economic or political power in this generation, or giving their offspring an undeserved head-start in the next - but these abuses can be tackled in other ways (inheritance tax, for one), as they very well should be.

Tom S lists a number of practical objections to bonuses in a comment left at Chris' blog above, and to deal with one of those here: of course we hope that human beings would work hard and innovate for the sheer love of the State it - their colleagues, their profession, the public they serve, their community, and so on. Perhaps this is an impulse it's harder to imagine existing if you believe that work is "alienating" (in the Marxist sense). Surely, though, our society should benefit as a result of human benevolence, rather than being dependent upon it.

So the challenge as I see it is to find some way of encouraging (or perhaps, rediscovering) benevolent and charitable behaviour - a feeling in people that they ought to contribute to society because it makes for a more contended place for all, rather than leaving this decision entirely to governments, and concealing your wealth whenever you have enough of it. I don't accept this is just a "City" problem: the lack of benevolent behaviour ("greed", if you like) is not the preserve of the super-rich - it increases with income, from a low base, and particularly affects the non-religious - even though the sums involved here are huge. Moreover, for too many on our side, "the City" is a place of fear, mystery, and conspiracy, and it's too tempting to single it out rather than tackle a society-wide problem.