Elsewhere in this issue one of our authors talks of the capitalist world "being rotten ripe for socialism". This proposition could scarcely have had a clearer confirmation than the recent financial crisis: all over the western world workers' jobs are in danger, cuts in living standards are imminent and all kind of social and economic dangers have come to the fore. Why? The answer is quite simple: modern capitalism is just as archaic and chaotic as it ever was. Despite the use of Keynesian methods, massive arms expenditure and increasing state intervention the essential contradictions of capitalism remain.
The form these contradictions express themselves in may have changed (continuous and unrelenting inflation instead of cyclical downturns of investment) but they are still there. Modern capitalism is, for instance, quite incapable of overcoming the contradictions between the growing productive forces and the restrictive barriers of the economically outmoded national state. The "answer" to this, the Common Market-type of structure, threatens to break down completely once one of the national capitalisms concerned has difficulties.
The difficulties in the sphere of international finance are brought to a head by something which has existed ever since the world capitalist market came into existence: the uneven development of capitalist economies. The strength of the German Mark is not a reflection of the willingness of German workers to toil away whilst their British equivalents engage in unofficial strikes. It is a symptom of a number of conjunctural factors which enabled the German economy to march forward at a much faster rate: the plentiful labour supply from the refugee camps and East Germany, which acted as a complete counter-pressure to full employment; the complete rebuilding of the German industrial machine because of war time destruction, which meant that the very latest techniques could be applied without the problems of old-fashioned plants being a liability; the political factors which meant that the traditional workers organisations in Germany have been able to more readily control the German working class in the interests of capital; and the determination of U.S. imperialism to bolster Germany up as a barrier to the "spread of Communism".
These factors are temporary and it can be confidently predicted that having reached its height of expansion German capitalism will lag behind, say, Japanese or Italian capitalism in the not too distant future. Then the German papers will be full of stories of how much harder the Japanese or Italian workers toil than their lazy German readers.
The reactions of the Labour leaders to this crisis were very sad but very predictable. It just never occurred to them to take measures which would hasten a social transformation of Britain. The reaction of the Labour "lefts" in rallying round the Government in "its hour of need" is even sadder and, one must now say, just as predictable. Real socialists would be glad that capitalism is in difficulties - this makes it that much easier to explain to workers why it is necessary to carry forward anti-capitalist measures.
The British working class have been told more times than one can remember that they had to make sacrifices to get the country on its feet. They have, by and large, responded: they have put up with the wage freeze, the incomes policy and cuts in social spending. The result: British capitalism is still in trouble and they are asked to take more. The latest crisis and the attacks made on living standards must be used to explain to wider and wider sections of workers: Britain, in common with the rest of the capitalist world, is rotten ripe for socialism. The only way these attacks will cease is if you do the job of bringing that social change about.