Green for Envy

Throughout the political battles of half a century, the rallying cry of Britain's Labor Party has been the Marxist ideal of "social ownership of the means of production." Last week in Towards Equality, a slim, 31-page pamphlet prepared under the personal supervision of Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell, Labor sharply and radically changed its tune.

Towards Equality is the culmination of a long-standing and profound philosophic crisis in the Labor Party. For five years the Socialist Union, a group of right-wing Labor intellectuals sometimes jeeringly called "Gaitskell's household troops," have been trying to work out a "modern" interpretation of Socialist dogma to cope with the fact that Socialist theory is out of date and Karl Marx a political handicap. In a recent book called Twentieth Century Socialism, the "household troops" made some startling admissions. Nationalization of industry, the magic tool that was to transform society, had, they conceded, lost its magic: "There is no longer the confidence that a change in ownership is enough to insure that an industry is run on Socialist lines." Workers in nationalized mines find no greater joy or increased incentive in the knowledge that the mines are theoretically "theirs." Even the fundamental doctrine that Socialism is more efficient than capitalism and hence productive of higher living standards was abandoned. "If increased production is to be the criterion," asked Twentieth Century Socialism, "can we really prove that Socialist policies will be more effective than the capitalist policies which set the pace in the U.S. today?" The Gaitskellites were prepared to accept the theory of a mixed economy with public and private ownership.

Down with the Barriers. If Socialism does not mean public ownership of industry and a more efficient economic system, what does it mean? To find the answer Gaitskell & Co. turned not to Karl Marx but to the 19th century British Socialist and aesthete William Morris, whose political beliefs rested on the statement that "Fellowship is life; lack of fellowship is death."

Rising production and material betterment are not the primary goals of Socialism, argue the new theorists. "Socialism," they assert, echoing a saying dear to Hugh Gaitskell, "is about equality" and equality is a state "in which people, no longer divided by barriers of privilege, can be conscious of their common humanity." Apparently content with this vague definition of Socialism's goal, the theorists never bother to define equality at all but concentrate instead on denouncing what they consider the two chief causes of inequality in Britain--unequal educational advantages and unequal distribution of wealth. Towards Equality makes a routine blast at Britain's exclusive public schools (which produced some of Labor's top boys, including Gaitskell of Winchester) for developing "a separate class outlook and behavior." It further complains that there is not even "parity of esteem" between the various kinds of state-supported secondary schools. And in one final outburst of frenetic egalitarianism, it notes unhappily that, even if all British children attended identical schools, "the competitive advantage would be strongly with those whose family background was materially and culturally enriched."

The Stubborn Rich. What Labor proposed to do about unequal cultural enrichment, Towards Equality did not say. It left little doubt, however, about how it proposed to tackle "unjust" inequalities in wealth and income. In loving detail the pamphlet discussed the relative merits of a tax on expenditure rather than on income--Gaitskell has long been distressed by "the refusal of well-to-do taxpayers to react to high taxation [of income] by cutting down their standard of living"--and of collecting inheritance taxes in property rather than in cash, a device which would have the advantage of depriving the heirs of any eventual appreciation in property values.

"Towards Equality" snapped the London Economist last week, "was published under a cover coloured green, some would say, for envy."

Envy can be a powerful political force, but it is a risky one. It can sharpen a sense of personal failure without providing a remedy. Socialist theorists admit that real equality between men is unattainable ; their goal is to end those institutions and circumstances that artificially support inequality. In Britain's rich agglomerate of class barriers (some actual and some psychological), there is a payload to exploit. But the new policy might kick back in Labor's face by alienating middle-class and upper working class votes. where wage differentials are much prized.

The non-Socialist press was in no doubt where it stood in the matter. Said London's Tory Daily Telegraph: "The uncommitted voter will quickly see that what the pamphlet means by equality is a process of leveling down, of keeping everyone as far as possible to the lowest common denominator, in all those things in which people naturally desire to be unequal--housing, education or property."

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