GREAT BRITAIN: Down Goes Nationalization

“A boss is a boss, no matter whether he gets the job from the state or private owners. Sometimes the bosses of private industry are more reasonable to deal with.”

—A British coal miner.

“It’s no use thinking everything in the garden is perfect once the state takes over. That just isn’t so.”

—A British postal clerk.

Five years ago, Britain’s Labor Party would have howled down such statements with shouts of “Reaction!”, “Treason to the Cause!” Last week, when they heard them, 3,000 Labor Party delegates applauded vigorously. By overwhelming majorities the party’s 52nd Annual Conference, meeting in Margate, chucked out a string of leftist proposals to nationalize: 1) the land, 2) the aircraft industry, 3) machine tools, 4) arms plants. In so doing, it confirmed what was fast becoming apparent: that “nationalization,” the great solve-all of the doctrinaires, has worn out its welcome in Britain.

With five years of public ownership behind them, Britain’s 5,000,000 trade unionists are openly skeptical of Whitehall’s ability to dig more coal, grow more food, build more houses than private business can. “It’s perfectly easy to draw up lists of industries to be nationalized,” said wealthy George Strauss, who, as Attlee’s Minister of Supply, nationalized British Steel. “But that’s not the Socialist approach—it’s the escapist approach.”

Only the noisy Bevanites, few of whom work with their hands, still clung to the Marxist dogma that the state alone must own “the means of production.” They were steamrollered at Margate by the trade-union mass that is the heart (and the bankroll) of British Socialism.

The conference wound up with a speech from Clement Attlee. He appealed for “unity of aim and actien,” predicted a general election “in a very short time.” This time, said Attlee, Labor will win.