On the day the Tories gave a glimpse of their class war attack on the working class – though only telling us 10% of the truth according to calculations done about how much these “savings” amount to – the Daily Mirror got this picture of David Cameron breaking his own advice rules by being seen drinking champagne. All in this together? Not bloody likely.
The Tories say that its necessary to extend the retirement age to 66, because workers are living longer. As I’ve said before this is tosh, because workers today are seven times more productive than when the retirement age was set at 65. They can then fund seven times longer in retirement, and no one is suggesting that workers’ are living so long as to have seven times longer in retirement than they did back then! But, its tosh for another reason. Yes, on average people are living longer, but averages can hide a multitude of sins. The fact, is that because Britain is a more unequal society today than it was 100 years ago, there is a vast disparity in the ages people live to in leafy suburbs like Esher, and those they live to in deprived areas of the Gorbals! In fact, in many deprived areas a large number of workers are lucky even today to live until the existing retirement age.
But, even that doesn’t tell the whole truth either. Even in more affluent areas there is a huge difference between going into work in a nice office environment, and spending 8 or more hours a day, in some heavy manual employment, often in less than satisfactory environments. Bruce Forsyth might still, at his age, be able to do the soft shoe shuffle, but how would he like to spend 8 hours a day, five days a week, wielding a shovel to dig out heavy clay in the pouring rain like, say, a Telecoms Engineer, or a Gas Engineer? Or, how would he like to strain his back, like a Nurse or Care Home worker, trying to lift patients in difficult conditions. What’s more, how would he like to do that for an annual wage that’s probably less than he gets for a couple of days doing what he so obviously enjoys doing anyway?
That’s why the Tories statements, that they are trying to protect the poorest, is complete tosh. The extension of the age of retirement directly affects the poorest, because it is the poorest in society who live in these deprived areas, and who do these low paid, back-breaking jobs, and who, consequently, have least, if any, time to enjoy, even their existing, years of retirement! Worse than that. The average Public Sector pension is between £3,000 and £4,000 a year. That is because many of those that get them are very low paid, and, as the pension is based on these low earnings, so the pension is small too – despite what papers like the Daily Mail and Express would have everyone believe. Many other low paid workers have even worse pensions to look forward to. That is why many find themselves having to take on other jobs to make up their income. But, if you have been lucky enough to have decent employment, and a decent pension scheme, then you are protected, to some extent, from the effect of the increase in the Pension Age, because you can rely on that other more generous Pension. In fact, as Robert Chote, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, pointed out, the Tories calculations, of how much they would save, from this move, is exaggerated, because the majority of men no longer are working until 65 anyway. Many have by that time already started to take their Company or Personal Pension. It is the poor, again, that suffer from the Tories policies.
The Tories could have shown some concern for the poor. They could have announced that their tax giveaway, to the richest 3,000 families, in the form of their changes to Inheritance Tax, was to be withdrawn. They didn’t. They claim, that taxing foreign billionaires, living in Britain, funds this tax giveaway to the rich. Tosh. For one thing, they admit they don’t know how much money such a tax would bring in, because they don’t know how many of these billionaires there are. For another, big deal, billionaires, living in Britain, are to be asked to pay some tax!!!! Why does that justify giving that money away to another group of rich people? In fact, as I said yesterday, they added to their tax giveaway, to the rich, by saying they will also excuse their rich business friends from paying some National Insurance contributions for two years!
In addition to that, Osborne announced another tax giveaway for the rich. One of the things Gordon Brown did, as Chancellor, was to scrap a tax loophole, in relation to Dividend Tax Credit. He’s been heavily criticised for it, because the change was said to have wiped about £5 billion off the value of Pension Funds. But, the main reason for the change was that the tax loophole actually benefited the very rich whose main income comes not from working for a living, but from the dividends they earn from their huge share holdings. Now, the Tories propose, once again, to look after their very rich friends, who make a fortune from unearned income, by restoring to them what the abolition of the Dividend Tax Credit took away.
Okay, Osbourne also announced that they would not abolish the 50p rate of tax, and he also spoke about introducing Means Testing of Child Benefit and so on. But, this does not amount to an attack on the rich, or even approaching evenhandedness. For one thing, the people who are really rich, as opposed to being simply better paid workers or middle class, make most of their money not from employment, but from ownership of Capital! They have Accountants and Tax Consultants to help them avoid paying much of the tax, they have offshore Bank accounts into which they have money paid, and so on. That is why each year around £200 billion is lost to the Treasury in taxation unpaid by the rich and big companies! Despite that, and despite all the broo ha ha over Tax Havens, in fact, little is done to get this tax back. Certainly, very little in proportion to the huge amounts spent in surveillance and other measures to try to recoup miniscule amounts, in proportion, wrongly claimed in benefits by a few poor people.
And the main effect, of introducing Means Testing of Child Benefits, will be to affect, not those on high earnings, for whom the Benefit amounts to only a small proportion of their total income, but will be all of those poor people who then fail to claim. That has been the consequence of every introduction of Means testing. The better off, the better educated, make sure they claim what they are entitled to, the poor, the less well educated, get put off. That has been the experience with Pension Credit, for example, where billions goes unclaimed.
There is also another important point here, which reflects on the weakness of the Left’s strategy. For more than a hundred years the Labour Movement has been infected with Statism and its twins, Lasalleanism and Fabianism. Having effectively given up on the idea of the working class relying on its own independent actions – other than in the very limited sphere of Trade Union struggle – the Left has looked to the Capitalist State for solutions whether it be in calls for Nationalisation, or else in Welfarism. In consequence it has then be forced to come up with answers that remain within the system to the question of how this intervention by the Capitalist State is to be financed. It found those answers ready made in the form of Fabian redistributive socialism. But, within the confines of Capitalism such redistributive socialism cannot possibly find the resources needed to fund the vast programmes of the Capitalist State, simply by taxing the Capitalist Class. It is forced increasingly to look to tax the Middle Class, and even the Working Class. A further consequence is that the focus of socialist strategy moves from what Marxists have always said it has to be – transferring ownership of the Means of production into the hands of workers – and simply on to the question of equality and fairness. A Fool’s Errand in itself under Capitalism!
When the Tories agree to retain the 50p tax rate on those earning over £100,000 a year, or propose introducing Means testing of Benefits for those earning more than £50,000 a year they are not attacking the interests of the Class they represent, any more than in abstaining from including Public Service workers who earn less than £18,000 a year, from their Pay Freeze, are they protecting the interests of low paid workers. The Capitalist Class, whose interests the Tories represent, measure their wealth in tens and hundreds of millions, and in billions. They measure their income from the ownership of this Capital, not in the measly tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands that well-paid workers and the middle class measure their income in, but in the millions and tens of millions per year.
Yet, because the Left, including the so called Revolutionary left, have adopted these Fabian notions of redistributive socialism they end up taking their eye off the real enemy – the Capitalist Class – and instead focus their fire on the more visible target of the middle class, and even affluent workers! After all, train drivers earn around £40,000 a year, and I don’t know any serious socialist who would claim that a train driver is some kind of exploiting Capitalist! It wasn’t like that in the past. The “Marxists” of the German SPD, made a point of trying to win the support of the petit-bourgeois, the middle classes, and the shopkeepers and small business owners. Lenin argued the need to retain at least the neutrality of the Russian Middle Peasants, who occupy a similar social strata to those today in Britain earning £100,000 a year or so. Such people, within the ranks of the petit-bourgeoisie are the natural allies of the working class against the bourgeoisie, but the politics of the Left continually pushes them into the hands of the Tories at best, and those even more Right-Wing at worst.
New Labour was not wrong in trying to reach out to such layers, any more than was the German SPD or Lenin, it was wrong to do so whilst failing to properly advance the interests of workers! It was wrong to do so, whilst not at the same time mobilising that huge social bloc as a force to challenge the power of Capital! But, then the Left itself fails to do that too.
According to the Daily Mirror, the Tories were told before the Conference not to be seen drinking Champagne or other similar activities, because of the image it presented. But, however, the Tories try to present a more human image the fact of who they are, what they are, and the class interests they represent remains the same. They are not seriously going to be attacking the power and privileges of the Capitalist Class, because that would mean attacking themselves, it would mean attacking their cohort of Champagne swilling toffs, who share the same privileged backgrounds of the top Public Shools like Eton. Almost without exception the current Tory MP’s went to Public School.
No we certainly are not all in this together.
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