Political commentary

Paradise for windbags

Colin Welch

So the Social Democrats' Britain will be both centralised and decentralised. How do they propose to avoid the resultant harsh grinding and clashing of cogs? Their main chosen lubricant is apparently ver- biage, thick, viscous and oleaginous.

The irreconcilable will be reconciled by `major efforts to persuade people' (say, to share jobs for less pay); by 'a more involved democracy' with 'persuasion and consent'; by resolving conflicts by 'publishing the facts' (which are often disputable) and by 'arguing for the priorities (also often disputable) which the facts support'; by 'fostering attitudes' and expounding 'credi- ble formulae', by 'seeking common ground' and 'wide measures of agreement'; by making ceaseless speeches, by appearing ceaselessly on the box and by 'risking rebuffs at mass meetings and delegate con- ferences'; by challenging 'shortsighted at- titudes' in boardrooms and on picket lines'; by offering 'effective political leadership' and 'political skills of a high order'; by in- itiating 'national discussions', by consulting and educating us all, by 'raising the moral sights of the nation' and so on.

By the magic of the word is every lion to be induced to lie down with every lamb. A paradise for windbags swims dimly into view, a sort of Gastopia, no ear unbashed, no matter how humble, deaf or unrecep- tive. There must be much sorely amiss with the 'mix' or 'variety' of policies, as Dr Owen puts it, which needs such choral backing. It won't work.

Well, another familiar lubricant is available to the Social Democrats: money, inflation or, more euphuistically, reflation. Mr Rodgers deplores 'balanced budget economics' as a 'rigid straitjacket'. Dr Owen briskly criticises the Labour govern- ment of 1964-65 for not pursuing 'planned economic growth' by devaluing the pound. He concedes that it had only a small majori- ty; but the same 'excuse' could no,. apply in 1966, when 'deflationary measures were taken even though there was a large parliamentary majority'. (And who was Chancellor then, pray? Has Dr Owen forgotten? Has Mr Jenkins, 1967-70?) Who has not already marked here the eager anticipatory fidgetings and limberings up of inflationary athletes poised, at the crack of the starter's pistol, to make another 'dash for growth'?

Among the Social Democrats' favourite hear-hear words, along with the sacred mantra 'mixed economy', are 'consistency', 'continuity' and 'stability'. So highly do they value these sober qualities that one half-expects them to prefer daft policies consistently applied to that alternation of daft and less daft (the daft predominating) which we have mercifully experienced. Continuity and the rest are awkward to combine with democracy, with changing public sentiment and changing parliaments, with decentralisation and participation, all of which, if genuine, must have powers to discontinue this or that.

Equally inimical to continuity and the rest are 'dashes for growth', beginning as they do with a false sense of hectic well- being and ending invariably in disaster, in massive destabilisation and the brokers in No. 11 — eh, Mr Jenkins? As Mr Rodgers ruefully admits, 'From 1950 to 1974 ... Governments on balance destabilised the economy'. Sure, but why start in 1950 or stop at 1974?

No less hostile to continuity and the rest is state interference with the economy on the massive scale favoured by the Social Democrats. Nightwatchman governments can consistently do little or nothing. Such consistency is denied to governments which meddle everywhere with everything.

The question for Mr Rodgers is not whether the Government should intervene but where, how and to what extent? This bureaucratic bon vivant does not stint himself. Among other things, his Govern- ment will somehow direct pension funds in- to industry; it may introduce 'managed trade' and selective import controls; it must secure better regional, industrial and man- power planning; it must offer 'a balance of economic objectives and . .. rely on a varie- ty of instruments'. It must do more than steer the economy 'by the seat of the pants', must offer more than mere 'ad-hocery' (a new one on me!). It must be like 'a juggler', but giving 'some indication of the pattern in which it plans to toss the balls and how it will cope when it becomes physically im- possible to hold all the catches'. It must guarantee a 'realistic' (i.e., low) exchange rate, supposedly favourable to exporters. It must retrain and bring jobs to people. It must slow the pace of industrial change for social reasons, but not normally halt it.

It must further finance 'bad risks', high technology and private entrepreneurs (but not 'smart operators', ho-ho!). It must sub- sidise research and development in 'selected large firms' (why large?). It must 'pick win- ners' in 'sunrise industries' and back tradi- tional industries which could use new technology. It must improve management in areas which are 'self-selecting' (how so?), and much else besides.

Quite a lot of balls in the air here, we must admiringly concede.

To be fair, Mr Rodgers often kindly draws attention to some of the snags in what he proposes. For instance, 'nothing in [his] ministerial experience' remotely sug" gests 'that civil servants and politicians are better judges of long-term commercial deel: sions than businessmen themselves'. Right,: but who will be doing all the interfering'. Who but civil servants and politicians! They will be picking the winners, selecting the self-selecting areas, finding the best bad risks to back, clapping the brakes on 'for social [i.e., electoral] reasons', juggling With and dropping all the balls. To those they have already made, they are going to add mistakes by the million' some vast. Many will be persisted in, for prestige or social reasons, at the taxpayers expense. Others will have to be hastily eor. rected or written off, at whatever cost to continuity, consistency and stability. Dr Owen's book is called Face the Future, Mr Rodgers's The Politics of Change. Pro" gressive, forward-looking titles. Why then do the contents seem so wearisomely familiar and stale?

I guess it is in part because the authors are not so much interested in change or the future as in the preservation of the recent past, with its attendant attitudes of mind' Loudly they bewail its failures and inade. quacies; yet as a mocking counterpoint can be heard Faust's plea to the fleeting nit? ment, 'Stay awhile: thou art so beautiful Repeatedly, raucously, they call for change. But do we not see that the changes called for are all designed in some waY to preserve, patch and prop up the existing mess by making it more so, by vast exten; sion and reinforcement of all the hallowed remedies which have been tried and failed'

i and which have caused the failures and n'

adequacies now bewailed? The changes are designed or doomed to prevent, delay' distort or dilute all those unforeseeable changes which a benign nature might other' wise have in store for us. What is particiPa" tion, for instance, but one more obstacles on top of so many, to innovation? Social Democrats are still socialists. As such they cannot face the future. Its 1111" predictability offends their passion Or order and security. It presents only dangers to be averted. It is a bull in their china shop' to be sedated, tied down, emasculated' castrated. They are thus conservatives of a peculiarly stifling kind. George Will said of President Reagan that he was not at all a reactionary, but man who viewed the future in an old" fashioned (American) way — that is to saY' with faith in freedom, with hope, wonci,e,r, and respect for the future's unforeseeable claims. Mrs Thatcher is rather like this. Social Democrats are totally the opposite. A mischievous coda. The NHS as seen by Dr Owen: 'It persistently asserts that there are other values than those determined by money, and it helps to foster the spirit of altruism in society'. The NHS as seen by the Daily Telegraph: 'STRIKERS BAR PATIEr"- FROM MENTAL WARDS'.