Interview with Tony Benn

6 6 4P 4P Interview with Tony Benn

This interview took place on 26 November 1981, and was conducted for a proposed Labourism working group within the CSE . We publish it here with an introduction by the interviewer, Geoff Foote. The questions asked in this interview are not the usual ones put to Benn . They attempt to confront him from a Marxist tradition which is hostile to the Labour Party . As such, they may seem anachronistic to many who now see the Labour Party as the logical vehicle of working class aspirations, representing as it does the organised trade union movement . However, this has involved the shunting aside of important questions such as the class nature of the state, the best form a revolutionary party needs to take in the present period, and the problems of a workers' dictatorship . Such questions have rarely been discussed in the British workers' movement, and at the moment are none too popular in most sections of the Left . Nevertheless, it is not outside the bounds of reason that the deepening capitalist crisis and the increasingly arbitrary reactions of the state to protest may yet lead the Left, and eventually the workers' movement, to look to a revolutionary alternative . Tony Benn has played a major part in convincing many on the Left that the Labour Party is a suitable vehicle for working class aspirations . He has moved from his days as a Wilson technocrat at 'MinTech' to a more militant position on the Labour Left, taking up the demand for workers' control in industry, radical redistribution of wealth, and nuclear disarmament. As a cabinet minister of eleven years standing, he is able to give the more militant left a national hearing which would have been much more difficult if it had tried it on its own . In this way, despite his own criticisms of Marxism, he has come to represent a movement with a solid social base, much of which calls itself Marxist . That movement may well be quite dependent on 8 C&C 17 - Downloaded

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CAPITAL & CLASS him personally for its present chances of success in the Labour party (though this cannot be said with certainty at the moment) . In his thinking, Benn represents something new in the Labour Party . Ralph Miliband, in his important work, `Parliamentary Socialism', argued that throughout its history the Labour Party has been absolutely dogmatic in its rejection of extra-parliamentary action, even as a supplement to parliamentary activity ; and as a result is hopelessly committed to the present political and economic system . This was a view shared by many on the New Left in the 1960s and 70s . However, it is a theory which has been negated by the present Labour Left . Benn has expressed a belief in extra-parliamentary action as a supplement to the radical reforms needed to create a classless society . Indeed, as his arguments and actions over the UCS work-in in 1971 demonstrated, Benn sees such action as an essential part of the answer to Britain's ills. The corporatist welfare state, brought to fruition by the postwar Labour government has failed to develop the productive forces consistently since the mid-1960s . The resulting economic decline has made it increasingly difficult for union bureaucrats, employers' representatives and governments to work out amicable solutions to class conflict and productivity . Benn's answer to this economic decline is to demand more democracy, along with an expansion of effective demand protected by import controls . The old nationalised industries have failed to meet expectations, and capital has remained too powerful vis-a-vis the trade unions . Therefore, a new constitutional settlement between capital and labour is needed, and this involves new forms of democracy outside the traditional parliamentary forms . Industrial democracy, open government, extraparliamentary agitation : these are the prescriptions Benn offers as a cure for the malaise affecting Britain . In this sense, Benn gives a potent expression to the hopes and ideas of the New Left which has grown up outside the Labour Party since the mid-1950s . This movement, including CND, Vietnam Solidarity, and the Institute for Workers Control, represented a real source of radical sentiment waiting to be tapped by a national party . It was for a long time (with exceptions) dismissive of the Labour Party . Labour seemed to have played out its role as a radical standard bearer, and seemed hopelessly lost under Gaitskell, Wilson and Callaghan as far as any fundamental reorganisation of society was concerned . Tony Benn has played a central role in channeling much of this movement into the tradition of Labour radicalism - which is basically the extension of trade union politics into the parliamentary arena . I would argue that it is the accretion of New Left radicalism on to traditional labourist thought which sets 'Bennism' apart in the Labour Party's history . However, while it represents something new, Benn also represents a major continuity in Labourism . Indeed, a crucial point which emerges from this interview is the continuity with an earlier tradition . Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015

INTERVIEW WITH TONY BENN

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Traditionally the mainstream of Labourist thinking has denied that workers are inherently exploited by capital through the expropriation of their surplus value . The Fabians directed Labour's economic thinking away from Marx towards Jevons and W alras, rejecting confiscation of the capitalists as a class in favour of judging private enterprise purely on the basis of individual firms' efficiency . Benn accepts this as much as he accepts the Keynesian economics which was superimposed upon it . As with the Labour Left who followed Mosley until he became a fascist, policies of protecting capitalist industry are foremost in his economic programme . Marx once argued that many English socialists did not like capitalists very much, but wished to retain capital . He had in mind early Ricardian socialists like Thomas Hodgskin, but it is a characteristic which has emerged as a dominant trend in labourism . Benn is very much part of this trend . The inequalities of wealth and poverty are abstracted from the social relations of capital, so that socialism becomes a question of the amelioration of capital's effects rather than the abolition of the sale and purchase of labour power . Tony Benn does not call for the abolition of capital, but for a new relationship between the classes, in which organised labour will play a much more powerful role than hitherto . Public ownership is restricted to the commanding heights of the economy by Benn - the position put forward by Harold Wilson to paper over the struggles over Clause IV of the party constitution . In this way, industraial democracy becomes a means of controlling capital, preventing capitalists from acting against the workforce but maintaining capital as a means of allocating and exploiting labour . In foreign policy, Benn carries on the tradition of radical dissent to militarism and chauvinism which stretches back to the nonconformist Liberalism of the ILP and the bourgeois radicals of the Union for Democratic Control . This has been demonstrated recently by his reaction to the Argentine crisis (which has brought out the strength of chauvinism in other sections of the party) . In the interview it is brought out most clearly when his views on the Ulster war are questioned . He is one of the few politicians to dissent from the bipartisan support of the British army there, and as such continues the tradition of opposition to atrocities expressed by Liberals and Labourites in the Irish War of Independence . However, his public criticisms are very mild, and his call for a national liberation struggle by the British against the multinationals does not extend to support for the Irish liberation struggle . In the interview, he makes clear his rejection of the violent methods used in this struggle . However, most nationalist movements have had to use violence against their violent oppressors . To this extent the Irish struggle is no different of that of ZANU-ZAPU in Zimbabwe . In some ways, Benn's views are to the right of many of his Labour predecessors . In the 1930s, Stafford Cripps and the Labour Left refused to support the League of Nations, arguing that it was an imperialist body . Benn's views on NATO - the military organisation Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015

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set up to defend capitalism against Russia after the last war - are not as progressive, as he makes clear in the interview . Finally, it can be argued that Benn continues the major tradition in social democracy in refusing to recognise the class nature of institutions in capitalist society . This emerges in a clear and conscious manner in the interview, where on several issues from protectionism to the National Enterprise Board and worker co-ops, Benn stresses the voluntaristic aspect of such institutions . It is not the harsh logic of capital which forces them into a reactionary role, but the lack of will to run them . Such a view stretches back to Kautsky and beyond in the European workers' movement . The Labour Party has always seen institutions like the state as essentially neutral instruments of administration, fought over by the representatives of capital and labour through elections . Lenin's (and more ambiguously, Marx's) view of the state as essentially class instruments of violence to be smashed and replaced with a different class state, is totally alien to Labourist thought . The notion that armed bodies of men (and women) may be used to stop radical change is dismissed by Benn in the interview, where he says that `the ultimate victory of the British Establishment would be to persuade people like you that you couldn't win . . . My own experience is that they (ie the Establishment) are much more like paper tigers than military juntas' . On the other hand, as he admits in an interesting passage in the interview, the British Establishment did manage to keep him in the dark about the war in Ulster when he was in the Cabinet .

GF :

In your latest book, you argue that Britain is a colony, the last colony of the British Empire . Is this really the case, given the level of massive capital exports of Britain to Africa and Latin America, and its imperial role in Malaysia, Aden, etc . since the last war?

Benn :

It was an imperial country . In an economic sense, it still performs an imperial role, but from the point of view of the British people - not the British Establishment, but the British people - we are now governed by a complex range of international powers, the Common Market, the IMF, to some extent the Pentagon, the multinationals, and in a sense also we have some unfinished business from the earlier reforms . I suppose you could argue that the British people had always been a colonised people, but that they had been in the heart of an empire, just as you could say in Ancient Rome that the slaves were slaves even though Rome was the head of a great empire . But the point I was trying to draw attention to, and it was a phrase I deliberately fashioned for the purpose, was that even though those limited powers of self-government which we had struggled very hard to achieve have been gravely eroded, and that there was an element of a national liberation struggle about what we were doing . The fact that so many people have taken up the phrase, and either criticised it from the Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015


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Right as being too extreme, or from the left as being inaccurate, is an indication that the phrase performed its function, which was to make people think about the totality of our subjection to this interlocking group of international forces which operate in Britain . It wasn't a nationalistic point - it certainly wasn't that - but it was trying to get us to put ourselves alongside other peoples in other countries where they have been explicitly colonial like the people of Zimbabwe or the old colonies of the British Empire, and help people to see what it was that connected all those experiences - repression is too strong a word - all those experiences of subjection . GF :

So you're saying that Britain is still economically imperialist, but politically . . .

Benn :

Well, it still has in it, of course, people and companies who have a very big imperial role, but the British people never really benefitted to a full extent even from the flowering of our imperial period, and the capacity of the British people, by the use of the ballot box, to produce effective countervailing power to the power of capital in Britain has been diminished and reduced in a formal and legal sense . That is important, because there are certain things we could do as an elected government in the past which now as an elected government would actually be contrary to the law under which we're governed, notably in respect to the EEC, and in other senses in respect to very powerful external forces like the IMF, which in 1976 cut our expenditure, or the Pentagon, which operates bases here, the control of which is at best unclear and at worst quite outside our control .

GF :

Under this definition, even as you've given it now, Britain was a colony in 1931 when, in what Hugh Dalton called a `bankers' ramp', American bankers just told the Labour government that they had no confidence in that government unless that government carried through certain policies, and the government was forced to resign .

Benn :

That is true . The Labour government in 1931 could have acted differently and tried to mobilise public opinion against the pressure from the American and French bankers, and it's all recorded in the minutes of the 1931 cabinet which have been released from secrecy and which I have published with a foreward . It's true that that option was open, and that was what the TUC suggested - the alternative economic strategy 1931 model - it's also true that in 1976 we could have done it . On the other hand, in respect of some other issues like the bases and the Common Market, I'm not actually sure whether the power to do it is any longer in the hands of the British people through their elected representatives .

GF :

Are Britain's actions in Ireland that of a colonial power?

Benn :

That's a different situation . One is then changing language to use it differently . The Irish problem, or the British problem according to which way you're looking at it from, goes back very deep in our history . Of course, the Partition of 1921 - the Government of Ireland Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015

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CAPITAL & CLASS Act of 1920- was imposed upon Ireland and the British government by the threat of force by Ulster, with some Conservative support of the Carson variety . Our relationship with Ireland has been imperialist in character over a long period . I think the problem now is a problem of finding a way of bringing about reunification and unity, and trying to give the labour movement there a role . I'm not sure that the government of London has the same economic or political interest in the retention of Ulster that it had in its colonies proper . I think it's quite clear that if there was a readiness on the part of the majority of Protestants to accept reunification, then the British government would go along with it - indeed, more than go along with it, it would be absolutely delighted - and to that extent the problem is different in character, and of course difficult, and stems from an imperial relationship in the past .

GF :

You call for an international solution to the war - a UN force . Why can't the Irish people sort out their own problems?

Benn :

The anxiety is that if you really did move towards reunification and independence, then there would be a serious danger of an absolutely major and unbridled civil war breaking out, and then the British government would be under pressure, as an interim measure, to reinforce its troops there, as, indeed, it did in 1969, when the cabinet of which I was a member sent in troops . At that time, the B Specials were engaged in attacking the Catholic community, and when Jim Callaghan as Home Secretary sent troops in they were seen as a way of preventing civil war and were quite welcome in the Catholic areas . A few years later of course the whole thing was entirely different . So, in the event of a breakdown, or during a transitional period, if there is to be a problem of law and order to be faced, I suggested in May, and still think that it's quite sensible, that we should consider the possibility of a UN force, in that British troops are part of the problem and could not be part of the solution .

GF :

A UN force would be likely to harm the Loyalists . Don't you think that Loyalist resistance, together with their very powerful friends in Britain, could actually prevent any such policy being put forward?

Benn :

We have to recognise that the reunification of Ireland requires a degree of good-will . That's different from saying that we accept an Ulster Protestant veto of a kind that has meant in the past that they could always obstruct developments and then when the thing broke down call on British troops to protect their position . I think that phase is over, and even the Labour Party's statement which went through the conference, marks a major break with the old bi-partisan idea . But having said that, if there really was to be a major breakdown of civilised life as a result of fighting developing on a big scale, I think a United Nations peace-keeping force would be a better agency than the reinforcement of British troops .

GF :

You mention in your book several times that decisions on policies like Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015


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defence were made over the heads of the cabinet . Do you have any reason to believe that decisions on Ulster were made in such a way? Benn :

In the case of Northern Ireland, there was a cabinet committee of which I was not a member . The only occasion on which I can remember Northern Ireland being discussed in the whole cabinet when I was there - and I did try to get it discussed at the very end - was during the Ulster Workers strike when it was reported to the cabinet . That was when the power-sharing initiative failed . I suppose you could argue that there is a parallel - that very sensitive matters tend to be hidden away in committees . In the case of defence policy I think probably not even formal committees, but small gatherings of ministers brought together by the Prime Minister . A `Freedom of Information Act' within the cabinet would be a major advance . If everyone in the cabinet knew what was going on it would be an advance, let along a Freedom of Information Act extending to the Parliament or the public . Some of those delicate issues which matter most are least discussed within government .

GF :

What's your personal opinion of the Labour government's handling of the Ulster war in 1974-79? You have some criticisms of their handling of trade unions, what of the Ulster war? The truth is that Ulster has been undiscussed in British politics, which is one reason why the war continued on such a scale . And this assumption was that there was a bi-partisan policy - there would be marginal differences on economic policies, and marginal differences on other matters . But broadly ever since 1948, when Clem Attlee introduced the Government of Ireland Act, which as far as I can remember consolidated the Partition and tidied things up, there has been no real discussion in Parliament or in the House of Commons or in the cabinet about these matters, and that's one reason why the situation has deteriorated so sharply .

Benn :

GF :

Yes, you didn't quite answer the question of what you thought of the government's handling . . .

Benn :

Well, it was handled under those arrangements and therefore to that extent the idea that there might be a major alternative to the policy pursued was not on the agenda ; the day-to-day affairs were handled by a Cabinet committee, as far as I understand it, and the security affairs were presumably handled by the military and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Civil Service establishment, and the Secretary of State of the time .

GF :

What's your attitude to the Prevention of Terrorism Act?

Benn :

The Prevention of Terrorism Act, which was introduced in a great rush after the Birmingham bombings and was rushed through Parliament in a day - like most Bills pushed through Parliament in a day was unsatisfactory and repressive . There was a discussion in the Home Affairs committee of the Parliamentary party this year, following Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015

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revolts of a minor kind by Labour MP's opposed to it, and pressure was brought to bear on the need for a review of it which is now going on . In practice, it hasn't been effective in preventing terrorism, its first objective . It has involved a very considerable erosion of civil liberties . It has in a curious way recognised that Northern Ireland is not a part of the United Kingdom because of the extradition and removal procedures where people can be `rusticated', from one part of the United Kingdom to another . In my opinion it is, like many of these issues a symptom of an unresolved problem rather than the cause in itself . It's the same question arises over the H block and so on . I don't think you can see a solution to the Irish crisis in terms solely and simply of modifying the symptoms that derive from the unresolved political issue . That's the way I've seen it, but I strongly support the majority view of the Home Affairs committee of the parliamentary party that we should be strongly pressing for the repeal of the Act . GF :

Would you agree with Ken Livingstone's view that the IRA can't just be seen as criminals?

Benn :

We have to accept that it is a civil war-and you're not dealing with an outbreak of crime of the ordinary kind . I think that it is already recognised by the government itself in setting up special courts, the Diplock courts . But that is not to say that I favour the use of indiscriminate terrorism, which I do not . I think that is a great mistake - a great error - and I don't think that solves the problem either .

GF :

If you're against Britain being ruled from abroad, and call for a national liberation struggle against the IMF, Brussels, etc ., why don't you call for British troops to be withdrawn immediately on the grounds that they have no right to be there? Because there would be bloodshed on a very big scale . That's why I came up with a United Nations force proposal . Anybody who favours, and is serious about, the reunification of Ireland has got to recognise that if that is done without preparatory work for an alternative structure, in which I think the trade unions in the North and South have a big role to play, they have to answer this question : Ìf you begin with the withdrawal of British troops, what do you do when the civil war flares into an absolutely major confrontation with guerrilla warfare and mass deaths? If you are not prepared to face that problem, then to talk about withdrawal makes you very vulnerable . If you say, `Well, we'd like to see other forces go in to keep the peace', then at least there is a rational element in what you're saying . Otherwise, what would happen is that if you simply withdrew the troops tomorrow the blood would start running in the streets, and then people would see deaths on a very big scale, and they will try to move the troops in again. I don't think that that is a serious solution .

Benn :

GE

Your predecessor as MP for Bristol South-east, Stafford Cripps, said in 1934, when there were similar discussions going on in the Labour Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015


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Party about the transformation of capitalism into socialism, that Labour could expect opposition from Buckingham Palace . Do you see this? Benn :

Well, we've worked in the Labour Party on the assumption that the constitutional monarchy would not intervene . There is, of course, the case of Australia where the Governor-General dismissed Gough Whitlam although he had a parliamentary majority and was not at the end of his term . But the Labour Party is very practical in its approach . As I say, we work on the assumption that the constitution will prevail . If you're talking about something in the nature of a coup, then you're talking in different language, but the Labour Party has always believed, and I think understandably so, that if you do win and hold support, the likelihood of a coup can be much reduced . Therefore, in practice, the legitimacy conferred by a general election victory is a legitimacy widely accepted throughout the community . I'm not saying that among the British Establishment there will be unanimous acceptance . But the British Establishment without the consent of the British people is a fairly narrow group . We haven't been sitting working out how to cope with coups, but I personally think that you have to analyse this much more coolly, and I don't personally believe that this is the greatest threat we have to face .

GF :

I mention that because I noticed that during the Royal Wedding, both the Èconomist' and the `Financial Times' said that the best purpose of a monarchy was to prevent any Prime Minister who disagreed with their view of democracy ever taking office .

Benn :

Well, there's a lot of idle talk and chatter - and there were all the rumours in the papers about Cecil King and Lord Mountbatten and so on . But it's very easy to retreat from the real problem, which is winning public support for what you want to do, into a slightly paranoid laager, to use the South African word, where you're surrounded by your wagons and you're preparing for war rather than for persuasion . I think that's one of the cul-de-sacs up which the left can go, and by doing so it demobilises itself for its real function, which is to win support for change, and when that support is won I believe there is no power then which can stop it from being carried through .

GF :

Surely there was much support for change for President Allende in Chile, and yet the army prevented him . There's a lot of worries on the Left that there could well be a repeat of the Chile situation .

Benn :

That is called the 'Allende question', and I put it to Madame Allende because it's been put to me by people like yourself so often . I said, `Well, will you answer the Allende question?' She said , `Well whatever we'd done in Chile it wouldn't have made any difference because it wasn't really a Marxist state by any means . It had taken control of its own resources and it was strangled by international capitalism, and if we'd armed every worker it wouldn't have solved the problem .' So then I said, `Well, what about us?T 'Well', she replied, `look at Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015

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CAPITAL & CLASS Mitterrand, he'll be strong enough to withstand that, and so will you be .' And I put this to you for your consideration . The ultimate victory of the British Establishment would be to persuade people like you that you couldn't win . The pessimism of the Left is a product of the brainwashing of the Right . When the Right can persuade people like you and others that there's nothing they can do - that Buckingham Palace, the army, the CIA - could undermine any attempt to do anything, then that is the ultimate victory . That's when Fleet Street can really relax and say we've got them into such a state of pessimistic stupor that we'll never have to bother about them again . I prefer the phrase of Mao Tse-Tung when he looked at the massed forces of the American Seventh Fleet in the Straits of Formosa which had a capacity to destroy the whole of China and said that American imperialism is a paper tiger, and so it is . So we have to be careful . You have as a socialist to be a serious analyst about the forces opposed to you but at the same time retain the confidence that the British working people, when they're persuaded, cannot be defeated . As they say about bayonets, you can do everything with them except sit on them and dig coal with them . I think that the alleged strength of the Establishment - of the Right - is overestimated . My own experience is that they are much more like paper tigers than military juntas . That's my opinion .

GF :

I'm not saying that you are a pessimist to estimate the power of the army . But you're asking people to trust the army .

Benn :

No, I'm not asking people to trust the army . I'm saying that from my own experience as a minister of having seen how the army prepares for a national emergency that they're quite incapable of doing anything about it . During the oil tanker drivers dispute three years ago in the winter of discontent, the army was busy preparing for some emergency supplies, and after three weeks of bringing everybody back from Germany and putting 17-year old boys in uniform in charge of heavy lorries, they could meet about 10% of the nation's oil needs, whereas Moss Evans and the Transport and General Workers Union could run the emergency services without any risk of danger much more effectively in 24 hours . So I think we mustn't be mesmerised by this . That's all I'm saying .

GF :

On the question of defence, there's been a lot of discussion in the Labour party, but the majority support seems to be for NATO . I think you support NATO . Can you say why?

Benn :

Conference said we don't regard withdrawing from NATO now rather like withdrawing our troops from Ireland now - as the right solution . I'm an old collective security man because of my age, and I remember the pre-war years, and the idea that if nations are attacked they should defend one another is a sound principle . NATO grew out of a period of great anxiety and tension known as the Cold War . The official Labour Party policy, which I espouse - is that we should wind Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015


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up NATO and the Warsaw Pact and have a European Security system . What we've also said, which I think is right, is that we should go for a non-nuclear policy and secure the removal of the American bases and become like Canada, a country which has neither American nuclear weapons nor any nuclear weapons of its own . I think at this stage in history that that is the right course to pursue . GF :

On the economy, before we can solve the economic crisis we need to understand the cause, or causes, of the present economic crisis .

Benn :

It's the long-term problem that interests me most . Being the oldest industrial country in the world - having operated capitalism longer than anyone else - we are now suffering from a major logjam in that power in Britain derives from three contradictory forces . One is the power of capital released by Adam Smith when he wrote `The Wealth of Nations', and indeed it began in Cromwell's times, that was partly what the Cromwellian revolution was all about . Secondly, the power of organised labour, which at least at its minimum is capable of putting a spanner in the works of the mechanisms of the markets . Thirdly the power of the ballot-box which allows the poor who have no financial resources to buy with their votes the hospitals and schools that pile a burden upon capital . Until there is a new constitutional settlement between capital and labour and the electorate, what will happen is that capital when it's strong will be deadlocked by labour and that the economy will fail ; and then capital, through the media, will persuade the electorate that Labour has caused the weakness of capitalism and therefore will get elected on the monetarist policy we now have ; and then labour in rediscovering its role and its radicalism, will challenge capital and persuade the electorate to put it back in power . Until there is a more favourable balance of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families, you're never going to prevent the strike of capital which we've had for a long time from denying us the re-equipment that we need . In the short term, of course, this developing relative weakness of Britain has been greatly accelerated by the world recession which struck us at a time when we were weaker than many other industrial countries . So we were struck a blow which hit other countries at a time when we were weakest, and the reason that political discussion in Britain now has to go fundamental is that the `welfare capitalist state' opinion, or the `mixed economy option with welfare added', is no longer available to us in the old form . I think that's why the Labour Party has gone back to Clause 4 for some of its inspiration after a long period when really it had abandoned socialism, certainly at the top, and it had abandoned its historic links with the unions . I think of it primarily in those terms .

GF :

In a recent debate you got into trouble for supporting conference policy on renationalising oil without compensation . Why don't you support the nationalisation without compensation of all capitalist firms? Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015

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Benn :

Because that's not been our policy . The Labour Party has never been a party of confiscation . You can't have it both ways - you can't say, as I'm arguing, that conference policy should be put before the House of Commons, and then say that we are a party of confiscation, which we're not, we never have been . I think that in the terms of compensation there's been in the past, we've been very generous . In the case of the railways, which were bankrupt, and in the case of the mines, which were bankrupt, the compensation paid was a burden on the industry . But that has not been our approach to socialism, and to think of using the ballot box to confiscate -without any compensation - whatever assets that have been acquired and developed outside the public sector, as distinct from the attitude towards renationalisation, would not be an acceptable solution .

GF :

In an article you wrote in `Trade and Industry' in April, 1975, you said that the whole point about re-equipping Britain's manufacturing sector is one of `restoring British industry to a competitive position in world and home markets . . . we must inevitably guide our mixed economy to make this possible' . Don't you think that this is a nationalistic solution?

Benn :

Well, it depends . I don't know whether that article was one I wrote and pondered on, or whether that was one that was drafted for me . I would have to look and see because there's some stuff a minister writes which is the latest press release from his department . Still, let's assume for the purpose that I was saying it . I think it is true that whatever attitude you adopt towards the control of a surplus or profit and the use to which it is put, there still has to be in an industrial society, or a firm, or an industry, a capacity to meet a need in such a way as to permit that firm to have a market, and I think it would be naive to argue otherwise . The problem with British capital is that despite its claim to create capital out of savings and to regenerate the economy that way, their function has failed . As for the mixed economy, the Labour Party has never been for 100% nationalisation of every sweetshop . What we have talked about are the `commanding heights', which in terms of numbers of companies represents about 2% and in terms of output represents about 50% . Those commanding heights have to be publicly owned or controlled in order to integrate their planning with the survival, or development of the economy as a whole . My feeling is that the situation next time will be so much worse than in 1974 that the measures that will be required to restore our capacity to earn a living - which is not nationalistic, there's nothing nationalistic about earning a living - that the amount of public investment and ownership required then would be much greater than in 1974 .

GF :

Yes, when I said nationalistic there, it's whether the British working class, or the whole world working class . . . .

Benn :

Just to interrupt you there . We have import controls in this country at Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015


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the moment, very powerful ones, known as unemployment . The unemployed can't actually buy much from abroad . If we can restore our economy much nearer to full employment, then we shall expand the market . We're not in favour of exporting unemployment as a solution to the decline of British capitalism . I must make that reservation . You may come back to it . GF :

Yes, on import controls, it's what I mean by nationalism . It seems to me that the world is sliding into a trade protectionist war . They're trying their best to stop it, but it's happening . I feel that what the Labour Left is doing in calling for import controls is exactly what the Labour Party has often done in its history . As in the First World War, it lines the working class of its own nation behind the bourgeoisie of its own nation against the working class and bourgeoisie of other nations .

Benn :

Well, as with every policy, it depends who uses it and for what purpose . Nationalisation has been used by the Tories to close down what is inefficient and sell off what is efficient . That is nationalisation . If you say, `Well, if we apply that, isn't it the same', it isn't the same, the motivation is different . Import controls as a way of resolving the crisis of capitalism by exporting unemployment and starting a trade war is internationally very dangerous . If, on the other hand, you believe that the free movement of goods worldwide is a socialist principle, then you are handing over the whole socialist rule and socialist analysis to the forces of international capital . What we are saying is very simple - that if we are going to invest money into the expansion of our industry, it would be ludicrous to allow that industry to be destroyed while building it up . If in the process it led to higher unemployment, you would be buying less from abroad and, by a non-planned trade strategy you would be exporting future unemployment to countries that would otherwise be meeting the needs of Britain when Britain is fully employed . I've always regarded that as a highly theoretical argument . You've got to take a practical view about how we can get our resources back into play, and in that process we'll be creating jobs which will increase the demand in Britain for good produced abroad .

GF :

I see both protectionism and free trade as capitalist policies . In your advocacy of a mixed economy, weren't you falling into the fault pointed to by Marx about all English socialists of his time, that they don't like capitalists, but they want to maintain capital .

Benn :

I think it's a question of whether capital controls or capital invests . If you take the Post Office savings bank as the simplest case . If you have money in the Post Office savings bank that is an investment without a controlling feature . Unless one is thinking in terms of a society where there is absolutely no private investment - and that would mean that there was no pension fund available where people could actually have their deferred wages put aside to get an increment when they retired unless you're contemplating that, which I'm not, then you do have to Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015

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create an economic planning structure where the economy works for the community as a whole and for the people who create the wealth and doesn't work for the owners of capital, many of whom are international . I think that this is again a somewhat recondite and erudite way of looking at the real problem, which is that the people who create the wealth don't control the disposition of the wealth . But we've never argued for more in practical terms than the commanding heights of the economy . GF :

Another of the Labour Party's alternative economic policies is an expanded role for the National Enterprise Board, of which you were a champion . Isn't this just another example of corporatism? The NEB seems very similar to me to IRI in Italy . IRI was set up by Mussolini I don't think there's anything particularly fascistic about it, but it was certainly set up as a corporatist policy to make Italy great again . I was just wondering what . . .

Benn :

Well, the railways in Russia are nationalised ; does that mean our nationalised railways are Stalinist? I think you're on an interesting that there are tremendous dangers of corporatism - but point they're not confined solely to those instruments of public ownership . They're available in all sorts of other areas as well . Like many other techniques, corporatism can lend itself on the one hand to Mussolinii's Italy and on the other hand to Stalinist Russia . That's why I've laid so much stress on everything I've said and done on democratic accountability . That is the best insurance against corporatism . Of course, corporatism is a danger - if you have nationalised industries run like private corporations, and the National Enterprise Board looking more like IRI . But it doesn't have to be like that, and it wan't intended to be like that, and it developed in that way because there was no will in the Labour Cabinet at the time to make it different, and it is our determination to make it different . I don't think the parallel with Mussolini's Italty holds water unless you accept that there is an inherent ideological content in all institutions . Now I don't believe that . I think that institutions reflect the values of society insofar as you're able to inject those values into those institutions by political action of one kind or another .

GF :

Just further on this corporatism argument regarding trade unions . Don't you think that the basic role of trade unions in capitalist society is to fight for the best bargain they can for workers' living standards and not to help industry to recover in a capitalist world economy?

Benn :

That's a very narrow, American-type view which I suppose illuminated the early days of trade unionism - the craft workers who came out of the guilds, the general workers unions, and so on - but I think the unique characteristic of the British trade union movement is that at a certain period the idea of a political voice was established . It was about 100 years ago, when Henry Broadhurst, the liberal General Secretary of the TUC fought against Keir Hardie and lost . What we've suffered from in the last thirty years is non-political trade Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015


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unionism . Insofar as trade unionism becomes politicised, then it assumes a role outside wage militancy within the four walls of its factory . Look at the People's March for Jobs, the activities on behalf of the pensioners by the Transport and General Workers Union and others, and the role of the trade union movement in helping to shape the political policy of the Labour party . They take it well beyond that narrow function of helping to make capitalism work, which is the idea inherent in your question . GF :

On the TUC Jobs Express campaign, do you really think that it's going far enough to fight youth unemployment? Do you really think it's making a dent in government policies? Don't you think that the Brixton and Toxteth riots did a lot more?

Benn :

Margaret Simey, the chairman of the Police Committee in Liverpool, had the courage to say that it would be irresponsible not to riot in those circumstances . I thought that was an exceptionally courageous statement to make. Scarman's inquiry whatever its solutions, at least relates the problem to the problems of social and economic conditions . I think the People's March for Jobs was one of the most effective political campaigns there's been this year because it took up the fight of the UCS workers, or the Lee Jeans workers, or the Grunwick workers on to a much wider scale . It rolled like a huge mass meeting or a daily newspaper right through England and Wales, and it put unemployment on the top of the agenda . If you look at the polls - not that I believe them because they're largely manipulative - you'll see now that unemployment is the dominant question . The Labour party is about jobs and always has been, whereas inflation is a right wing issue, so I think there is a very substantial change of opinion taking place . Of course unemployment frightens people, and politically has the effect of driving them to the Right . That's why the SDP has appeared, because it is a hard right wing party-Conservatism with a human face - and it is cashing in on the fear generated by unemployment . So, you have to be realistic in the nature of the struggle at any one period . The Jobs Express is a way of getting through to people, though whether it will be as historic in its impact as the People's March for Jobs I don't know .

GF :

On workers coops, finally, I notice they are being supported by right wing Labourites, many now in the SDP, who've talked about socialism without the state, and even by Tories who see them as excellent examples of popular private enterprise . How do you differ?

Benn :

It is interesting that so many of the points you put about institutions come back to what is the purpose behind them . The purpose I had was to provide life after death for capitalist enterprises that had collapsed . They came along to see me - Jack Spriggs and Dick Jenkinson of KME in Kirby - and they gave a classic presentation of what you would call the corporate relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat . They said, `Will you give money to this firm?' , Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015

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CAPITAL & CLASS and I said, `No, I won't' . `Well, our jobs are at stake', they said, and I said, Ì know they are . I'll give money to you, but I won't give money to the firm' . So the firm collapsed and then the money went in to establish life after death for the people concerned . The Establishment fought like tigers against that . Why? Because the ultimate discipline of an employer is to sack an individual or collectively close a firm . If there is a life after the death sentence of capitalism on workers, then that destroys at a stroke the discipline of capitalism throughout society . I tried to get them established . There were very unfavourable circumstances at Meriden and the Scottish Daily News . They were denied adequate resources, they had all sorts of working difficulties . Even the British Steel Corporation would only do cash trading with KME although it was a nationalised industry, and the Co-operative movement didn't take much of an interest at the time . So that is one way of looking at it . It is common ownership of a non-nationalised kind ; I think that there are a whole range of expressions of socialism the coops at one end, the municipal enterprise, the London Enterprise Board, the National Enterprise Board, nationalisation and so on - a whole range of instruments. Now look at it from a Tory point of view . They were very clever and they began to see that if workers wouldn't accept the control of management in a particular factory, management could be withdrawn from that factory and the workers could be confronted with market forces on their own . Then they would tear up their rulebook, break their links with their national trade unions, and be forced to discipline themselves in order to survive . Capital could thus withdraw from a managing function into a banking function . I think that there is no doubt that a lot of the Right see the workers cooperative as a way of throwing working people into the battleline . If they can cut living standards and throw out their rulebooks to the point where they succeed, they'll be founded . There'll be an undeveloped area - like Taiwan, Singapore or South Africa - where the unions have been destroyed, the wages are low, and they will then be prepared to fund it as long as it's profitable . It just depends on what attitude you're prepared to take towards it . If you're prepared to accept that, which I'm certainly not, then of course you could dismantle piecemeal the trade union movement . If you take the other view, then you're finding a way of replacing a capitalist ethic and a capitalist society on an ad hoc basis through a whole range of enterprises which would be wholly different in their character . Every question you've put, funnily enough, import controls, nationalisation, the NEB, thus, runs into the same problem . They're all just instruments . The question is what are they for, who do they serve? That is the crucial question .

GF :

I think you have a very different view of worker coops than the Tories . What worker coops do is to show that workers can run an industry without the capitalists, but it's not a question of who organises the method of exploitation, but of striking at the harsh logic of Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of Victoria on April 9, 2015


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capitalist production which will prevent them succeeding . Under socialism I am sure there will be worker coops, but we're talking about capitalism . Benn :

Not necessarily . Take a very simple case : suppose there is a need for hearing aids in the health service and these are being imported on a large scale, just for the sake of argument . Why don't you employ unemployed people into empty factories to produce hearing aids just to meet a public need . I mean, these are very simple questions that people understand . If you go to Liverpool, to Clydeside, to the North East, to South Wales, there are needs, there are people, and there are idle productive facilities . Why can't you organise these in such a way as to meet the need? The idea that it has to be within the framework of a capitalist economy with a capitalist ethic and all that goes with it, is to dodge the central question of socialism, which is how you move to production for need away from production solely for profit . After all, in the 1930s we got out of unemployment by massive public spending- it happened to be on weapons . The challenge to us is how to get out of mass unemployment by public expenditure that happens to be an expansion of the social services . But it's still public expenditure, and it's still a state-created market, or a public service created market . Such a market is capable of creating demand for goods that can be produced in the context of a workers cooperative . That's why the Lucas aerospace people came to me - I think I am in a sense the Godfather of their corporate plan - they said, `We think we're all going to lose our jobs . What can we do?' I said, `Well, why don't you go away to create your own corporate plan? You've got your own skilled people,'- I think you're right, people can run their own affairs - `You've got a lot of equipment and there are a lot of needs that aren't being met,' and they went away, put the three together and produced their plan . Now, I don't think it follows that workers cooperatives are bound to fail or bound to be wrong because it's in a society where the forces of the market are still very powerful . Firstly, if you say you can't have any little islands of socialism in a sea of capitalism then you're waiting for the millenium, which will never come ; secondly, because all the great gains made by the labour movement either by industrial struggle or by political representation have been to take growing areas of our national life and insulate them by institutions from the ravages of market forces, creating havens where decent human values can prevail . That is the way I see it . I'm not making too great a claim for it, but I think that some claim can be legitimately be made to call that socialist . CRC 17 - C

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