sevenstars
citizen army
newbie said:
newbie said:
Was Nationalising coal Labour's biggest ever mistake?
- Thread starter comstock
- Start date
sevenstars
citizen army
newbie said:
Well you are agreeing with Tollbar, who I think is suggesting that social democracy couldnt deliver within capitalism by 1979. 'Reformism without reforms' its called.
So in one of the wealthiest countries in the world the elected government couldnt access that wealth to fulfill its democratic mandate of redistributing a little bit, because powerful unelected financial instituions wouldnt let them.
You mean cheap, subsidised, nationalised imports? Thatcher was against subsidies and nationalisation, but had no qualms about importing the resulting cheap coal and condemning foreigners to "awful working conditions, and almost certain excruciating industrial diseases".behemoth said:
editor said:
The accident rate in mining has also soared post-privatisation. Private owners just don't run safe mines, never have done.
Oh, and in 1979, when the Thatcher government decided to close down the pits, Britain made the cheapest coal in the industrialised world by some margin, with minimal subsidies and with the best safety record. Scrapping the industry cost $30bn in terms of redundancies and written off equipment and former coal communities still head the country in all sorts of social deprivation statistics. AND this country now imports a greater proportion of its coal year on year.
Taking apart the coal industry was one of the most counter-productive, vindictive pieces of shit that a British government has ever pulled (certainly in this country), and it had fuck all to do with this country's best interests and everything to do with giving a good battering to working people who stood up for themselves.
And a complete waste of North Sea Oil. 
newbie
undisambiguated
sevenstars said:
That strand- cnetral planning, nationalisation (including lame-ducks), state control, yes. It ran its course and fell to pieces. What started as a bright vision and matured into real benefits aged into a struggle neither side could win. So capital won. It didn't have to, but that's what I reckon happened.
British state industry couldn't withstand the onslaught of the US military-industrial complex, together with Japanese manufacturing technology. 'Buy British' didn't work, the industries collapsed because pretty much everything was available cheaper and better from a non-state source.
In another parallel universe, where Callaghan ignored the IMF and set about redistribution, with or without previously militant unionism being drawn onside, the government would still have to fund, and manage, a huge swathe of British industry seeking to operate within an international capitalist, and industrialising, environment. Sooner or later it would have fallen apart, because it couldn't function any longer for exactly the same reason.
editor
hiraethified
How could post nationalisation accidents "soar" after horrendous disasters like Senghennydd, 1913 (439 killed), Minnie PitStaffordshire, 1918 (155 killed), Gresford 1934 (266 killed), Markham No.1 Derbyshire 1938 (79 killed)?Sorry. said:
What time scale are you referring to? (Clearly the dreadful disasters didn't stop after nationalisation, but I can't see how you could claim they "soared")
Yearly stats here: http://www.pitwork.net/disaster.htm
Dhimmi
Half Man Half HobNob
comstock said:
You're forcing a very narrow political perspective into a narrower gap. The economical benefits of the NCB were huge and resulted in the best coal mining industry in Europe on efficiency, safety and dedication. Alongside those industrial merits, they also created a strength of community within and beyond their labours that modern corporations crave. Total mismanagement of national assests has become so regular and accepted as to generate threads like this.
Dhimmi said:You're forcing a very narrow political perspective into a narrower gap. The economical benefits of the NCB were huge and resulted in the best coal mining industry in Europe on efficiency, safety and dedication. Alongside those industrial merits, they also created a strength of community within and beyond their labours that modern corporations crave. Total mismanagement of national assests has become so regular and accepted as to generate threads like this.
Exactly. Nationalisation of coal is the precise opposite of received knowledge about state industries dominated by militant trade unions - they were safer and more efficient than any equivalent anywhere in the world.
Dhimmi
Half Man Half HobNob
Sorry. said:
I don't think militancy really comes into it, it's working as a team.
The biggest problem with nationalisation was having the government effectively in charge of it. Had they been truely independent public foundations they would have been more effective, and beyond the reach of Thatchers media-frenzy driven distruction, with a wink and a nod to the EC.
tobyjug said:
Now THAT name seems familiar........
The smashing of the coal industry had noting to do with economics but with breaking a strong organised section of the working class.
There were things wrong with the NCB, God yes, but anyone who doubts the benefits of the 1947 nationalisation, I suggest you read "Road to Wigan Pier" by George Orwell to break your romaticism aout the "good old days" - good days for the owners, but poor safety and grinding poverty for the miners and the community.
newbie
undisambiguated
Dhimmi said:
That may be, although attempts to run British Leyland or the shipyards as government owned but autonomous concerns foundered because the funding, and thus the final 'buck stops here' decisionmaking had to come from government.
Allowing such public foundations to get funding from elsewhere is more modern thinking, Thatcher & Blair territory: it needn't necessarily lead to Railtrack or PFI but that's what has happened. Maybe a social democratic model could be constructed where major industry is in public hands and is somehow distanced from both direct government control/interference and from the pressures of competing for and with free market capital: it would be ridiculous to say that's impossible, but it's not been a practical option thus far.
newbie
undisambiguated
Once upon a time the Quill Pen Manufacturing Co. Ltd made quill pens. When someone invented the typewriter they raised money on the stock exchange and went into typewriter manfacturing. A subjugated workforce at home and easy access the Empire markets gave them easy profits, at least until the recession.
Following the national mood, after the war they were nationalised, and moved to a new factory, with attendant housing estate, on a retired aerodrome (on farmland requisitoned pre-war). Throughout the 50s & 60s the government invested in British Quill Pens moving manufacturing from manual to electric machines, which they could still sell across the diminishing Empire and to all the other nationalised industries. Both management and workforce were 'working as a team', to some extent, and there were clear benefits from the arragement.
However as the 70s advanced they had to deal with the spread of competing technologies- photocopiers in one direction, high speed daisywheels and golfballs in another, so their markets started to shrink. Their electric typewriter manfacturing plant was getting old, and there was limited space they could expand into, even if they could raise the capital from government.
By the 80s they were up against computers and dot matrix printers (& filofaxes
). Because the needs of their state owned customers were so varied, and because central planning gave them preferred supplier status (at home and in some parts of the Commonwealth) they had to try to offer a full product range, but by this time they were heavily squeezed for development capital only available from a heavily indebted government. Competing with US and Japanese technologies from dozens of different manufacturers meant they were always playing catch-up on every product and far outpaced on development. However, their management succeeded in keeping compliant a relatively contented workforce where militancy never really gained ground- the fortunes of BQP were not determined by industrial strife.
None the less, when Thatcher/Major eventually got around to privatising them the government had to take virtually nothing for the assets, and in its early days Quill Pens PLC was a basket case- with an outdated product range, plant that made stuff nobody wanted any more, and savvy customers who could buy this product from here, that one from there- whoever offered the best price/performance benefits.
Today the factory has gone, replaced by superstores, the estate is twice the size and predominantly owner-occupier, most of the old products have been turned to landfill but a few are traded in the collectors corner of e-bay. And we all buy printers made in China.
Postwar nationalisation delivered better working practices and 30-odd years of stability and relative contentment )&new homes) to the workforce. Of course it made sense. But it ran its time. Blaming union militancy for that misses the point.
/ ramble
Following the national mood, after the war they were nationalised, and moved to a new factory, with attendant housing estate, on a retired aerodrome (on farmland requisitoned pre-war). Throughout the 50s & 60s the government invested in British Quill Pens moving manufacturing from manual to electric machines, which they could still sell across the diminishing Empire and to all the other nationalised industries. Both management and workforce were 'working as a team', to some extent, and there were clear benefits from the arragement.
However as the 70s advanced they had to deal with the spread of competing technologies- photocopiers in one direction, high speed daisywheels and golfballs in another, so their markets started to shrink. Their electric typewriter manfacturing plant was getting old, and there was limited space they could expand into, even if they could raise the capital from government.
By the 80s they were up against computers and dot matrix printers (& filofaxes
). Because the needs of their state owned customers were so varied, and because central planning gave them preferred supplier status (at home and in some parts of the Commonwealth) they had to try to offer a full product range, but by this time they were heavily squeezed for development capital only available from a heavily indebted government. Competing with US and Japanese technologies from dozens of different manufacturers meant they were always playing catch-up on every product and far outpaced on development. However, their management succeeded in keeping compliant a relatively contented workforce where militancy never really gained ground- the fortunes of BQP were not determined by industrial strife. None the less, when Thatcher/Major eventually got around to privatising them the government had to take virtually nothing for the assets, and in its early days Quill Pens PLC was a basket case- with an outdated product range, plant that made stuff nobody wanted any more, and savvy customers who could buy this product from here, that one from there- whoever offered the best price/performance benefits.
Today the factory has gone, replaced by superstores, the estate is twice the size and predominantly owner-occupier, most of the old products have been turned to landfill but a few are traded in the collectors corner of e-bay. And we all buy printers made in China.
Postwar nationalisation delivered better working practices and 30-odd years of stability and relative contentment )&new homes) to the workforce. Of course it made sense. But it ran its time. Blaming union militancy for that misses the point.
/ ramble
And let's not forget that conditions were SO bad, they had to draft conscripts into the mines in WWII. Bevin Boys - 1 in 10 conscripts were sent down pit. The survival rate was less than in the armed forces.Isambard said:
Many long term injuries have been caused by use of heavy digging machinery required to make coal economic. I'm guessing we won't be going back to hacking coal by hand. And I would be interested to hear of any realistic safety measures that can stop serious respitratory diseases. As for social and economical costs, no government minister offered my employer a subsidy when losses lead to redundancy. With growing concern about global warming we are just waking up to the real costs of coal.editor said:
Where to begin?behemoth said:
"heavy digging machinery"
"serious respitratory diseases." positive ventilation helmets.
"no government minister offered my employer a subsidy when losses lead to redundancy" You mean you didn't get redundancy money? Or is this just supposition?
"real costs of coal" as opposed to the real costs of oil?
As much as I'd want anybody's. Why should it be OK for Poles to work down a mine producing cheap coal for us? Would you like your children to work down the sewers? Are you going to abolish shitting? Perhaps you'd like them to work on (or under) North Sea Oil Rigs? Or perhaps you're more of a hippy than me and live on organically grown grass without oil, coal or metal.behemoth said:
Dhimmi
Half Man Half HobNob
newbie said:
Well the BBC is, or more accurately was, quite a good model for a flat fee nationalised service. Suffers dreadfully from interference though. Such a model is possible, just not very popular.
If we were to see these bright shiny nationalised entities maybe they should have their own house of parliament?
Isambard said:
According to Google it's the very same. Queen Lizzie is the great (x several!) grand-daughter of a miner
I must confess that is the only (major) Orwell book I haven't read.
But anyway I *know* all about the long hours, poor safety and so on. They were a problem in the cotton mills too (and no-one nationalised them!). Of *course* things had to change. But the question I'm asking is 'was there any alternative to nationalisation'
By the 70's the unions weren't campaigning just for safety or shorter working hours, they were holding the Labour government to ransom, and were working in the interests of a small minority and against the common good.
I'd even go so far as to suggest militant trade unions became the enemy of true socialism. And I believe the road to that point all started with coal nationalisation.
I was working underground in the 70s. You're talking crap. Where are you getting it from?comstock said:
(I think Pilchardman asked this pages ago, but never got an answer)
reallyoldhippy said:
As an ex-miner do you not think it would have been better to let the industry go into a gradual decline rather than prop it up and let things come to a head in 84?
(serious question....I freely admit most of the happened while I was at playgroup or primary school)
Seriously? It's a VERY difficult question. Where would the energy have come from? Nuclear? Oil? The former has it's own problems. The latter wasn't on for strategic reasons. The strike of '84 was enabled by the coming on-stream of North Sea Oil. The coal industry WAS run down from nationalisation onwards, but the energy WAS needed.comstock said:
Seriously, if you think the coal industry should have been run down, from where would the energy deficit be made up?
newbie
undisambiguated
Dhimmi said:
The BBC provides information, which is the only commodity that can be distributed yet still retained, and they provide the same amount whether consumed by 100 or 10 million. Flat fee taxation has been and is more appropriate for services (BBC, street sweeping, fire service etc) than for commodity consumption, but even that very basic understanding is being challenged, particularly in the debate about choice in health and education. .
The key thing about the Thatcher/Blair project has been to wrench "choice" (a loaded word) away from the central planners and move it into the hands of individuals. The nationalised model isn't popular because few people want to hand it back. We don't want to have our lives planned remotely by the men in grey suits. Do we?
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