My Dad used to be a bearded Socialist Worker, a jazz-playing
psychotherapist and part of the cooperative and commune movement. When I go to
see him I usually peruse his books (this is partly how I got into Wilhelm
Reich). I found Paul Foot’s book on the history of the Working Class struggle
for the vote since the 1700s and its subsequent undermining. ‘The Vote’ is
brilliant and very readable but thought it might be handy to offer a synopsis
here…
The Chartists in the 1700s tried to instigate a much fairer
and democratic society but were fought back militarily and ultimately betrayed
by Cromwell, who was an ultimate ‘insider’ or ‘double agent’ judging by his
actions. Parliament was originally a talking shop of the rich but then
gradually over the 1800s massive eruptions of public protest forced the ruling
aristocracy to gradually cede the franchise to limited portions of wealthy
people. To vote you had to have money. Disraeli, who was to become a Tory prime
minister said this in 1867, ‘We do not live – and I trust it will never be the
fate of this country to live under a democracy.’ The rich thought that if the
workers gained a vote they would use it to take away their properties and
privileges. So the vote was only given to selectively less rich men when it
appeared that there might be a revolution in England (it has been pretty close
a number of times). The vote was gradually and grudgingly given as a way of
diffusing massive public hostility at inequity.
Basically in a nutshell our parliament has always been a
charade and the Labour party, when it tried to actually make society fairer
through the parliamentary process was undone by the banks and speculators who
collapsed the value of sterling whenever the economic system was threatened.
The socialists tried to make a fairer society but did not understand finance,
or that the banks ultimately controlled everything industrial. If they do not
like the way a government is doing things they either bully the leaders
directly, like they did to Callaghan or withdraw credit and crash the economy. Crashes
are good for banks because they can then buy up real equity cheap. Even Paul Foot
did not appear to understand the role of the banks in creating the depression
of the 1930s. At the same time, key union leaders such as Jimmy Thomas either
betrayed the union movement ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’ or sold
out entirely.
So what did I learn from Paul Foots amazing history? That
England is not a moderate country just a very efficiently suppressed one, that
no significant reforms on voting came from parliament, they all came from a
fear of the mass action being undertaken outside parliament. Any movement that
has genuinely tried to free the people has had its leaders subverted, or
perhaps were always crooked. The union leaders, who were actually organised
more democratically than parliament at one time and who could have easily
toppled the established order were too frightened to carry through the wishes
of those who trusted them. When Labour did try to reform society through
parliament after WW2 they did not understand the banking system and so were
easily subverted when the banks crashed the economy by selling out sterling.
I have also learnt
that massive changes in society only seem to have ever come about through mass
action – civil disobedience, general strikes and so on. Those in power have
long understood that parliamentary democracy can happily coexist with economic
oligarchy – as long as the banks control the economy and the leaders of any
unions or social movements can be bullied, co-opted or bought out. We now have
a self-confessed one party state –tory labour or labour torys, a neutered union
system and an essentially fascist alliance developing between big business and
government. The EU itself is not harmless either. Most people do not realise
that MEPs have no power whatsoever. The non-elected Commission is in charge of
the EU and the parliament is a debating shop entirely subservient to it. Our
other international organisations such as the WTO and the IMF are about as
democratic as the Vatican. The Labour party attempted to introduce economic
democracy, in tandem with the unions after WW2 but did not understand banking
and so were easily co-opted by things they could not control (financial
crashes).
The Magna Carta was created in reaction to mass protests
against war (the withholding of tax by the people who were sick of the king’s
wars and wanted a fairer society). Every extension of the franchise came from
mass demonstration, or the fear of it - our parliament has always been the veil
of the rich (despite noble attempts otherwise), the only difference today is
parliament’s true function is much better veiled. I am not arguing against
parliament – I just want to see real democracy in society, industry and our
governing institutions in a way in which the people have true control over
their lives and can quickly affect how our institutions behave. And an end to
secret governance by vested interests.
As I think Reich said, ‘Civilisation? It ain’t been yet’.
The nut in a nutshell –
1700’s Britain is a diabolically unfair place – Cromwell is
an insider/double agent/total git who sells out the gains of the civil war to
the rich.
1800’s Though Britain has a Parliament it is a Parliament
for the rich, only the super-wealthy can vote for their stooges.
1800-1900 Revolution is narrowly avoided a number of times
by grudgingly granting the vote to successively less rich sections of male
society.
1900-WW2 convinced that giving people the vote does not
threaten the economic oligarchy more people are gradually given the vote – but
only when threatened by mass agitation. Women supporting the war effort also
convinced parliament that giving them the vote would not change the status quo.
WW2-1970 Labour party and unions attempt to make society a
fairer, democratic place for the workers. Few concessions are won through
parliament – mass agitation wins workers more rights through strikes but the
leaders back down from near certain victory afraid of the resulting
responsibility - or for other reasons.
1970 – Democratic and militant unions sell out through
misinformed or crooked leaders. Labour sells out because it does not understand
that the banks control the economy – and hence their governmental attempt at
socialism.
Present – We have a one party pre-Fascist state with the banks
in charge of all political leaders and a communist style ‘Kommittee’
controlling the EU parliamentary talking shop – a shop that has no real powers.
