Its not the job of Marxists to advise the capitalist state, and certainly not to advise a reactionary nationalist government. So, we have no reason to oppose that state, or the Blue Labour Government nationalising “British” Steel, when the immediate issue, also, affects the jobs of 2,700 workers at the plant. We do, however, have a responsibility to explain to the working-class, as a whole, and not just the workers at the plant, what is involved, and why what is being proposed is not for their benefit.
According to reports, the plant is losing £700,000 a day, or around £300 million per year, even before the effect of Trump's tariffs come in. There is no prospect that that loss is going to get reduced, let alone turned into a profit, for all the reasons set out above. Quite the opposite, so it is not just £300 million a year that the state would be pumping into the plant – the majority of which, also, does not, then, go to the workers at Scunthorpe, as wages, but would go to a series of other capitalist companies supplying the plant – but an indefinite commitment to do so. Let us say, not an indefinite number of years, but just ten. That would be £3 billion. But, if the government has £3 billion to spare, which it continually says it doesn't, as Rachel Reeves embarks on another round of austerity, and cuts payments to pensioners, children, the sick and disabled, it would be better to simply hand it over to the 2,700 workers at Scunthorpe, and let them use it as they see best. That would mean you could give each of those workers, more than £1 million. If I was a Scunthorpe steel worker, I know that would be a far better prospect than having to schlep away for years to come, with the future still uncertain.
After all, if Blue Labour really is worried about national security, and the need to have control over strategic supplies of things like steel, coal, coke, and so on, then, the rational solution is not trying to defend the indefensible, and propping up industries, in Britain, that long ago were shown to be too small, too undercapitalised to operate on any kind of efficient basis, as against the large-scale operations made possible by larger single markets such as those of the EU, China, or the US, but is to reverse Brexit, and gain all of the advantages of being, again, within the protective umbrella of the EU, and its huge, single market, the biggest, by value, in the world! But, Blue Labour has rejected that option, and, in the process, is losing £40 billion a year in tax revenues, as the UK sees its GDP shrink, as a result of cutting itself off from the EU.
But, the reality is even worse than that. If Blue Labour nationalises the Scunthorpe steel works, and, then pumps £700,000 a day, £300 million a year, into keeping it afloat, whilst that may be a welcome lifeline for those 2,700 workers at Scunthorpe, it also has a negative affect on all other workers in Britain – let alone the global working-class, as a result of growing protectionism. In order to obtain that £300 million a year, the government has to raise it, ultimately, from taxes. Those taxes, as Marx showed, are all a deduction from surplus value/profit, and so from the ability of capital to accumulate. Put another way, in addition to the huge hit to UK growth from Brexit, it would mean reducing UK economic growth further, as surplus value rather than going to accumulate capital, and employ additional workers, in industries that are profitable, would instead go to keep afloat an industry that is not efficient.
In terms of the grand scheme of things, this £300 million a year reducing overall economic growth is small beer compared to the damage done by Brexit to growth, and the consequent £40 billion a year loss of taxes. But, as set out above, the logic of the Trumpist, economic nationalist agenda, means that it could never simply be a question of just this £300 million a year for Scunthorpe. The logic would be to also nationalise and bail out every other failed, and inefficient, “British” industry out of taxes that are a drain on the profits of those dwindling number of globally competitive and efficient “British” industries and firms. At the very least, it would act to encourage the share owners of those firms to exercise that “control” over the real capital of those firms, discussed at the start, to shut up shop, in Britain, and move those operations to the EU, or elsewhere.
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