The Radical in 1959

The Futility of the Right

By ROBIN MARRIS

T AM not a romantic radical, I am a serious I radical. When the society in which I live requires transformation, I want to transform it —not 'for my own purposes' (whatever that may mean) but to make it better for the mass of its members. Radicalism to me is a coherent political philosophy, not a cross-party muddle. Of course radicalism is also an attitude of mind, an aspect of personal political psychology. But I argue that anyone who is content to leave the matter at the personal level is playing a game both with himself and with society.

The more effective of Henry Fairlie's heroes, such as Disraeli and Sir Winston Churchill, whatever their greatness in another sense, did little for society in the radical sense. Sir Winston, however much he might have liked to, could not pre ent us from becoming (if we are) 'increasingly conformist; increasingly materialistic; and increasingly violent'.

That is why I believe that the most tragic aspect of the contemporary British political scene is not the inevitable difficulties inside and at the top of the Labour Party, but the increasing number of more or less genuine radicals playing about with other parties, and in particular in, or on the edges of the Con- servative Party. There are two fundamental reasons why radical Tory activities are futile, each arising from interlocking aspects of Conservative politics. The first derives from the 'power' alliance of the party, the second from the ballot box alliance essential for effective parliamentary representation. As we all know, the Conservative Party is basically a party of function without principle. Its function is to govern in the ruling interest of the day, to keep the machine going with the minimum of trouble and fuss. This does not mean, as the unsophisticated sometimes assume, that the interest of the governing class is necessarily dialectically opposed to the interest of the governed: today there is at the material level a significant community of interest between, for instance, managers and managed. Thus to say that the Conservative Party governs in the ruling interest sounds, and is, a tautology: the key to understanding the position lies in the character of the alliances by which government is maintained.

The power or 'lobby' alliance of the party is based on the fact that we live in an economic society of Managerial Capitalism—a society whose economic institutions have developed directly from those of traditional private- property capitalism, but have been modified so that control and leadership are exercised quite disproportionately to ownership. The chairmen and managing directors of the group of large corporations which control over half the nation's industrial capital could be got into a medium-sized lecture theatre, while their aggregate personal wealth represents only a tiny fraction of the assets they manage. The managerial or 'directorial' class is neither wicked nor inefficient. On the contrary it is benevolent, well-meaning and commercially and technically reasonably dynamic. Neverthe- less the manager (shorthand for decision- taking top executive) is today quite disturbing- ly autonomous. He is playing a game in which most of the rules are made by him and other managers. For all that has been said about State encroachment on industrial freedom, society as a whole has now little more influence on corporate function than have even the shareholders. The manager does not ignore the social interest, but he sincerely believes that at least in the economic sphere it is for him to decide where the social interest lies.

Managerial capitalism has useful tendencies and bad ones. It is useful when its 'materialism' makes the poor prosperous, bad when its autonomy dominates rather than serves us. The radical is mainly concerned with the bad tendencies, though if he has any sense he will also want to harness the useful ones: thus, depending on the degree of his radicalism, he may want to modify or may want to transform. My list of bad tendencies contains four specifics: (1) a tendency to create the shallow, conformist society described in the writings

of Riesman, William Whyte and Galbraith— the radical cannot sleep with the organisation woman, let alone work with the organisation man (but he is not interested in solving the problem by restoring to a minority of the population the right to autonomy through inherited wealth; apart from the issue of principle, he knows this suggestion is based on a false sociological diagnosis); (2) a tendency, special to the English variety, to create a new hereditary managerial class, linked with education in the public schools, and itself conformist; (3) a tendency to create a society divided sharply into an immanent lumpen- bourgeoisie on the one hand, and a board room elite on the other; (4) a tendency, so far more noticed in the US than here, finally to elimin- ate principle from politics altogether—to convert politics into little more than adminis- tration. To these I add the radical's inevitable objection to any system which is so generally undemocratic in the loose sense of the word.

The radical cannot but aspire to countervail our corporate big uncles. To do this, he must combine and he must make use of political government. If he refuses because of fear of the State, he is a ninny. Anti-statism, healthy in many circumstances, here becomes escapism and lets in other tyrannies.

Nobody seriously denies that the power alliance of the modern Conservative Party is an alliance with managerial capitalism. This means much more than that directors vote Tory. The terms of the alliance require the party specifically to protect the corporations from the inroads of radicals and others who would countervail: in return corporation power is used in a hundred ways to support the political party. Of course there are considerable traditional-capitalist and even quasi-feudal elements in the party, but they do not count for much on the really critical economic issues. (For instance, 'anti-monopoly' policy in practice hurts mainly small firms combining in price-fixing agreements to cover their in- efficiency, rather than large corporations.) I do not think the Tory radicals believe they can alter this alliance; I think they are simply blind to its implications. Some are innocent about economic power, others shelter behind a competing fear, a particularly contrived bogey, 'the power bf reactionary trade unionism'. I cannot make out whether the latter really believe in their bogey, or whether it is rationalisation of a general distaste for working-class institutions. En tout ear, the effect is to involve them in a power alliance which negates radicalism.

Even if the character of this alliance is denied, or even if it could be changed, there remains the ballot box alliance. The connec- tion between radicalism as a political psycho- logy (hanging, flogging, ethnocentricity and all that) and radicalism as a philosophy is not quite so obvious as is sometimes imagined, but is nevertheless in this case quite fundamen- tal. Other things being equal, the psychological radical, provided he understands what he is doing, supports the radical political philosop and votes accordingly. But he is often dive by economic interest, class loyalty or a co ' peting element in his own psychology, fi' example a weakness for religion. Thus familiar spectacle of the conservative minded British working man voting Labo and thus for that matter the radical Tori Nevertheless, if a political party is to effective, its supporters, and certainly activists, must have a reasonable community psychological outlook. The radically-mind person has a vested interest in radical politi Excluding the nihilists among us it is wrong say we are professional oppositionists. Middl class radicals yearn to play a 'responsible' rt in a society where for a change reforms 0 made before they are too late, before thousands have starved, y hundreds b killed or a have died after drinking frora water cart. We do not enjoy being driven minority positions. We would like, for on to share power with people whose minds w like our own. And, except that they yearn 1 and get more, the converse applies to servatives.

Therefore a great deal of the drive in political party originates in the enjoyment collaboration between people of like paycl tt logy. In the Labour Party the set-up is famili traditionally the party allies members of working classes of varying individual radicali with a minority of the middle classes who fl very radical. But although most of the relialm't middle-class radicals have always been in tun Labour Party, radicalism, at least un.13( recently, has been of less practical importalio, to the Labour Party than conservatism to *0 Conservative Party. The Conservative Pa ( at the ballot box, combines some surprisin divergent interests: it depends electorally obtaining at least thirty per cent, of the vc of the working classes, and, among the mid and upper classes (who give it eighty to nin per cent. of their votes at every election) th are many potential conflicts—commer' versus professional, upper versus mid upper-middle versus lower-middle (Pu versus Grammar), technical versus admi trative, to name only the obvious. Elect unity is maintained by a common small conservatism, which in turn depends on fact that, although psychological conserva is usually negatively correlated with educa and intelligence, in this country for one or another the upper and middle classes 'ed overwhelmingly psychologically conservati he The working-class Tory votes shoulder th shoulder with the squire and the compl'f director because he shares their suspicion (1 change, dislike of ideas, softness for traditi 11' weakness for ethnocentricity and, f pressure, appetite for violence. The Cons tive Party could go on for ever without Bow Group, but without the Conserva " Women, it would quickly disintegrate. lec c t cannot make a conservative party into a ra h party, any more than you can make black wlii et

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• lIf You support the Conservative Party you AuPport the conservative, unimaginative sec- Titian of the population. You may exert some finfluence on minor issues, but at times of ecrisis the Devil will always take control: when 150mething really big happens, small-'c' vconservatism is incapable of rising to the icoecasion: it can never understand great events.

The paradox that the party of good, safe, smooth government has been associated with the most gigantic national disasters is in- evitable: it is a machine which cannot deliver goods, only votes. The radical in the Tory party not only denies his radicalism, but wastes his time. He also wastes his time in the Liberal Party, but that is another chapter.