once again the bankruptey of the Labour left. through Michael Foot or Jack Jones think again.
Wilson's plan for nationalisation would affect only sectors of the economy that are bankrupt, inefficient, or the scene of the worst and least important forms of capital profiteering.
The real centres of capitalist power and wealth the great industrial and financial conerns are to be left almost untouched.
But even Labour's proposals will have an impact working class movement far beyond anything that their authors intended. They will raise the Over 4.000 London bullding workers It should come as a surprise to no one that the Party leadership is totally unprepared to commit itself to any course which goes against the interests of big industrial capital. But the capitulation of almost every single leader of the Labour left to Wilson's rejection of the proposal to nationalise 25 leading companies should make anyone who believes that the way forward lies issue of nationalisation as a solution to the crisis of capitalism in mind of every trade union militant in the country.
Trade unionists who have been fighting tooth-and-nail against speed up, redundancies, and low wages, will start to think in terms of ending the control of the bosses over their lives once and for all.
A programme of anti-capitalist nationalisations can only be carried out effectively by the working class and its organisations. Who can better break the capitalist stranglehold over business information - the details of how an industry is runthan the workers in that industry who already have much of the information if they simply put their heads together? Who is in a better position to watch every move of the management and prevent them sabotaging production than workers who know every trick of the bosses from years of struggle?
class response must be pushed forward. Struggles must be launched against capitalist domination of industry and finance, going beyond the programme and policies of the Labour Party.
Nationalisations in the interests of the working class cannot be carried through simply by Government decree or by turning to the forces of the capitalist state: the civil service, the police. The ruling class will do everything in its power to sabotage att empts to take over its property, as it did in Britain when Labour tried to nationalise the steel industry after the Second World War.
Wedgewood Benn has proposed that shop stewards' combine committees in firms designated by Labour for nationalisation should draw up the plans for take-over. Certainly but why should workers wait on the nod from Wilson & Co?
In every major capitalist con cern in this country, a combine-wide committee of shop floor representatives should be set up now to work out plans for nationalisation of the firm and the implementation of a real system of workers control. Workers, organised through such committees, would know how to deal with Chrysler's high-handed threat to close down they would take over the plant and declare management redundant.
But the working class cannot afford to sit back and wait for the next election before acting Every day that the Tories remain in power is one more day that the working class has to bear the burden of Tory policies, one more day that Government can, use to try and split, demoralise and weaken the working class. Big confrontations are coming in the months ahead between the Tories and powerful sections of the working class. These will be an opportunity to dev elop those types of organisation which could carry through a programme of nationalisation in the interests of the working class — to coordinate the stru agles of separate groups of workers, organise practical solidarity, and prepare a general strike to bring the Tory Government down.
A key task of Labour Party militants in the months ahead will be to fight to ensure that Party resources are placed at the disposal of ell those engaged in struggle against the Tory