this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Post war consensus and the power of workers' unions in Britain during the 1970s? Especially the Winter of Discontent in '78- '79.
The governments of Wilson and Callaghan were still a continuation of the Attlee socialist philosophy which gave public sector unions an immense amount of power in those days.
The general strikes called by the likes of Scarsgill were brutal for the country, I remember, I was there, culminating in pediatric nurses walking off the job and leaving child cancer patients unattended.
The trade unions did have legitimate grievances back then, their pay was paltry, and they hadn't had an inflation adjusted wage increase in like 15 years. I totally support their strikes, but the government's hands were tied, they simply had no money due to a confluence of factors, and eventually the whole country went bankrupt (like Greece) and had to be bailed out by the EU.
While it wasn't pure socialism back then, Britain was still capitalist and deeply classist, it did basically destroy the country to have a lot of the social safety net and public building projects which people like Sanders and Corbyn champion today, along with very powerful unions. I'm a huge proponent of government building houses at a loss in order to give citizens a chance at affordable housing, but doing that for 20 years straight contributed massively to the UK going into financial bankruptcy in the 70s.
Also, giant workers' unions can be a force for unbelievable evil, for example, the police union in the USA.
There were certainly negative outcomes from that, but I'm not sure it led to political instability, and a shift of power toward an under-represented class that represents the vast majority of the economy certainly wasn't a concentration of power.
It was a crazy amount of political instability, a G7 nation went completely bankrupt and defaulted on its national debt, imagine the US doing that. And, the Winter of Discontent led to so much political instability that it completely destroyed an entire political party and ethos - British Attlee-style far left socialism. The Labour party was pretty much annihilated, and wouldn't see power for 20 years, and even then, only because it was completely remade in Thatcher's image as New Labour by Blair. It wouldn't be until Jeremy Corbyn that anyone even remotely tried on those same policies with the electorate again, and he was soundly defeated.
The leftist, socialist style government of Attlee, Wilson, and Callaghan had their hearts in the right place with their policies: government built lots of housing at a huge loss in order to give the masses affordable housing, the government nationalised many industries and utilities (such as 100% ownership of all trains, water, electricity, coal mining, but also auto manufacturing and aerospace), all of these nationalised industries had huge and very powerful trade unions, taxation on the rich was massive (this is why all the famous movie stars and musicians like Mick Jagger famously left the UK and moved to the USA in the 70s. Only Oliver Reed remained). There was even a wealth tax. Government provided healthcare was established by Attlee.
Basically all of the things leftists like Sanders and AOC want today, we had them in 70s Britain, and it did lead to "political instability" because it led to national bankruptcy, and a huge brain drain as millions of young Britons went abroad to find opportunities (many went to Canada and Australia).
The only thing that has survived from those days is national healthcare, but it's an utter catastrophe these days due to the slave labour wages it forces on its workers with no ability to strike (they technically can strike, but it doesn't matter, because the government can force them to accept any new contract regardless, which they did in 2016).
but in the end it was thatcher gutting the system and an unwillingness of the British capitalist to actually be competitive with the rest of the world, take for example the martial fund, most European nations used the money with use stipulation that often included modernization and a repayment plan, Germany for example stall has many programs funded by the marshal fund because it acts as a loan, the UK instead, in all their wisdom just have it to rich people, in the belief that they would have of their own volition invested it.
Guess what didn't happen? The problem with the UK was that capitalists don't care about actually making anything better, they just care that the ratio of stuff they have is greater than the other person.
I'm not sure I understand, British capitalists were the same before, during, and after Thatcher. They weren't allowed to be competitive prior to Thatcher because so many industries were nationalised, for example auto manufacturing and aerospace.
It was Thatcher who divested and deregulated all those industries, removing central government from being involved in any businesses such as trains, home building, aerospace, etc. Rather than be forced into deals with labour unions, British capitalists were now free to deal in the global market, and immediately began closing British factories because they were uncompetitive and the government was no longer forcing them to remain open or paying subsidies.