Finance and Industry
Trade Unions fears about funds
We hear stories from time to time about the huge funds alleged to be held by the trade unions. There are jibes about the millions of pounds held in. capitalist stocks and shares, or reassurances about how nice it is to see workers’ organisations with a stake in the country’s wealth.
In fact, its all a lot of irrelevant bunkum. Take the National Union of Railwaymen as an example.
At their recent annual conference the railwaymen heard some hard words from their auditor. He told them that although their total funds increased by £250,000 to £6½ million, this did not mean a thing. All this money, he said, could be wiped out “literally overnight.” Most of it was locked up in investments anyway and even if these could be realised at their full value, which, of course, would be highly unlikely, it would only be enough to provide each member with less than £10.
Strike pay works out at £1 per day, hardly enough to keep a worker and his family in luxury. Ten days on strike and they would blue the lot. No wonder there were no die-hard resolutions about fighting Beeching to the last penny of N.U.R. funds!
Thus is demolished yet another of the myths about workers’ affluence. Given favourable economic circumstances under capitalism, the trade unions may be able to bargain rather more effectively. But immediately the economic climate changes for the worse, the shakiness of their bargaining position is ruthlessly exposed.
If the N.U.R. do ever decide to make a do-or-die stand against Beeching, they will need to rely upon more than their £6½ million reserves. They will find their “stake in capitalism” small and transient indeed.
Agricultural exodus
In this country agriculture has become so mechanised that now only 5 per cent. of the British population depend on the land for their living. In Germany the proportion is 15 per cent., in France, 25 per cent., and in Italy it is as high as 44 per cent.
Even in Britain agricultural workers continue to drift into the towns. Year by year the number of machines increases at the expense of men, and more and more small farmers are forced off their holdings. But in other countries, the flow is even faster, the State actively encouraging this movement by paying small farmers to leave their land or by paying grants towards the amalgamation of smallholdings into bigger farms. But it is the basic economic forces within capitalism itself, in all countries, that provide the main impetus; the peasants are forced inexorably off the land and into the towns and factories.
France is a perfect example. A few years ago it was calculated that about 100,000 people were destined to leave the land every year. Many observers thought this an exaggeration. But now the recent census has shown that this figure, far from being an exaggeration, was in fact a hopeless understatement- no less than a quarter of a million of the rural population are apparently pouring into the towns every year.
At the same time, French agriculture, like the British, is becoming more and more industrialised. Within a few years the number of tractors in the country will be the highest in the world, after the United States and Russia. Inevitably, output continues to rise, to the point where surpluses have already become a grave problem. Equally inevitably, it seems, the problem will get worse, in spite of all the French government can do to find outlets for the increased output.
There have already been many violent peasant demonstrations; this year, it looks as though there will be even more. In Brittany, there have been protests at the entry of North African potatoes whilst the home farmer has been struggling to dispose of his own production (ironically, the British farmers have been making the same bitter complaints about Breton potatoes undercutting their produce).
In the South of France, there are similar troubles over fruit and tomatoes; the production of peaches, apricots, and tomatoes promises to be higher than ever. At the same time, British farmers are already disquieted about how the French are going to dispose of their forthcoming cereals crop. They feat dumping on a large scale.
All this explains why the French government seem to be taking an easier line over Britain and the Common Market. French agriculture wants freer access to the German market and Germany refuses to budge until France takes an easier line over Britain’s eventual entry into the Common Market.
We are going to hear a lot about agriculture in the months to come.
Taxation without tears
We have often commented in these columns about the folly of making wealth comparisons under present day capitalism, without taking taxation into account. Thus, although one-tenth of the population of the country still owns about nine-tenths of its wealth, the gulf seems not half so glaring if one compares incomes, and even less glaring when one compares incomes after tax.
But what is always forgotten when this argument is used to bolster up the idea of the affluent society, and of how much better off the workers are relatively in comparison with the capitalists, is the way in which our capitalists make use of the tax system to add all sorts of hidden emoluments and “perks” to their incomes. Expense accounts on the firm are only the most publicised means they have of achieving this; there are many others, all quite legal and often more rewarding.
The Sunday Times recently ran an article which showed wonderfully well what scope there is, and all above board, for this type of operation.
At the moment, there is a nice market for selling “executive aircraft” to the bigger firms. One such plane is the Hawker Siddeley H.S.125, selling at £200,000, which is hardly a bagatelle even for our bigger capitalists. But so generous are the Inland Revenue with their allowances that, over five years flying, the firm buying one of these aircraft needs actually to pay out only £35,000 for it.
Ostensibly, of course, these planes are for transporting our businessmen quickly from place to place so that they can transact their big deals and be back at their big desks the next morning. But if they alternate their business trips with the odd flip to Paris or the South of France, in company with their wives, friends, and families, who is to know? Plus the usual hotels, good food, the best wines, and any other expenses on the firm, it all works out very nicely and makes a useful tax-free addition to the annual income.
Its an affluent society alright—for those for whom it has always been affluent, the capitalist class.
S.H.