British Labor in Retrospect

British Labor in Retrospect

The Labor regime was the first effort to institute socialist policies, on some considerable scale, in a highly industrialized country, and simultaneously, to adopt these policies to a tradition of political democracy.

“Some, indeed, said things were worse; that the morals of the people declined from this very time; that the people, hardened by the danger they had been in, like seamen after a storm is over, were more wicked and more stupid, more bold and hardened in their vices and immoralities than they were before; but I will not carry it so far neither.”

—Daniel Defoe, “Journal of the Year of The Plague”

The third Labor Government of England, which held political power for somewhat more than six years, was the first in which the Labor Party ruled with full authority and responsibility. Two prior coalition governments had ended in disaster. A half century of Labor Party life, celebrated in 1950, found the party at its peak; a short time thereafter it was again plunged into defeat and crisis.

The Labor regime was the first effort to institute socialist policies, on some considerable scale, in a highly industrialized country, and simultaneously, to adopt these policies to a tradition of political democracy. Its brief experience, apart from an obvious intrinsic interest, must command the attention of everyone concerned with the idea of socialism and of everyone who hopes for democratic solutions to the problems of humanity.

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                                    No one contests the fact that British capitalism has experienced a severe decline during the twentieth century; but the idea that it is “doomed” is indignantly rejected by its defenders. They maintain, on the contrary, that Labor having failed to attain its objectives, British capitalism must now undergo a renaissance; is not this the sense of the new “Elizabethan epoch” now being presented to the world? It is freely admitted that at the time Labor took power in 1945, English capitalism had already under gone profound changes in its traditional structure, notably the partial paralysis of the free market economy. The ruling class of Great Britain, having gradually to give way before the rise of Labor, had Iikewise developed new and more sophisticated attitudes toward political life. Most important of all, they accepted the new role assumed by the state: as the center of economic planning and regulation; as the agency responsible for social security and the well-being of the population; as the power that would redistribute wealth and income. The political representatives of the British bourgeoisie, united in the Tory party, claimed paternity of certain planning principles, as well as of specific projects carried out by the Labor government. “During the last four years,” declared Churchill in a speech of July 23, 1949, “they [the Laborites] have carried out projects prepared by the coalition government whose head I was.” The Conservatives felt their

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