In the aftermath of the July general election, Tunde, a supporter of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – the electoral coalition that the Socialist Party is part of – wrote to us about our programme for nationalisation. They asked:
1. On areas concerning childcare, social and health services, would small private providers be nationalised or only the largest providers?
2. How would compensation on proven need be assessed and would that be monetary-based?
Socialist Party National Committee member Martin Powell-Davies responds.
With society organised as it is, a capitalist system based on competition for profits, the living standards of workers and small traders alike are constantly under attack. Workers’ wages fail to keep up with prices – leaving less in their pockets to spend in local businesses. Instead of taking wealth from the super-rich, pro-capitalist governments increase the tax burden on the rest of us, and banks rake in interest payments from loans and mortgages.
To end this systematic robbery, the Socialist Party says: nationalise the 150 or so major companies and banks that dominate the British economy and run them under working-class control and management, as part of a democratically agreed socialist plan.
With these key drivers of the economy taken into public ownership, a workers’ democracy could then plan not only what needs to be produced, but also the public services that need to be provided. That’s bound to include free, high-quality, childcare, social and health services – areas where urgent action is needed to address the state of complete crisis.
Some of these services still remain in the public sector, run through the NHS or local councils. A socialist government would make sure that the wealth secured through nationalisation of the economy was used to finally reverse decades of damaging cuts and expand these vital services to meet needs, managed under the democratic control of staff, their unions, and service users.
However, thanks to privatisation and ‘competitive tendering’, too many of these services have been privatised, often to sharks relying on low pay and poor employment practices. Other big businesses – not least the pharmaceutical giants – have never been made part of the NHS, as they always should have been. All the major providers in these sectors should be placed under public ownership, putting an end to their profiteering and exploitation of their workforce.
But where does that leave, say, a family-run pharmacy or a self-employed childminder? Socialists have always made clear that small private providers shouldn’t fear that they will be treated as if they were profiteering fat cats. They can play their role in a socialist plan to meet people’s needs, without fear that they are going to be forcibly nationalised. Instead, small providers would benefit from government control of prices and the provision of cheap credit. State subsidies, particularly to make sure that their workers receive trade union rates of pay, decent working conditions and training, could also be provided where genuinely needed. Grants could be paid, for example to improve premises, so they could offer a higher quality of service.
But, in return, small providers must be prepared to ‘open their books’ to local workers’ committees who could then fully discuss with them their financial situation and agree what cheap loan or subsidy might be appropriate – or not, depending on the circumstances.
Some providers may conclude that the best way forward would be to voluntarily transfer their services into the public sector. After all, wouldn’t it make more sense, to continue with these examples, for pharmacists and childcare workers to become state employees, with guaranteed pay and conditions, instead of having the insecurity of running their own small businesses?
That kind of democratic decision-making would also be how questions about compensation would be resolved. When it comes to the fat cats, like the major shareholders of the banks and monopolies, and privatised rail, water and energy firms, the answer would be clear. While workers struggle, the FTSE100 companies are paying out around £80 billion in shareholder dividends every year! These profiteers have already made a killing at our expense, why should we pay them even a penny more when we take their firms into public ownership?!
But what about smaller businesses and shareholders, or workers whose pension contributions might be invested in one of the 150 top firms? The Socialist Party agrees that compensation should be paid – but only where there is a proven need, assessed democratically by workers’ committees with full access to the relevant books and accounts. Any individual who felt they would be in hardship when a firm is nationalised – compulsorily or voluntarily – must also have the right to fully present their case for individual compensation too.
In some cases, compensation based on need might indeed be a monetary sum. Where the concern is about pension funds, then compensation could perhaps be the guarantee of a full state pension – not at the existing poverty levels but enough to enjoy a decent retirement. Where the concern is about the potential loss of a home, there could be a guarantee of a high-quality state-rented home, as part of the wider plan that a socialist government will need to launch to address the housing crisis.
Ultimately, the exact details of what programme a workers’ democracy carries out is determined in the course of struggle and is the product of democratic debate and discussion. To meet the needs of all in society while protecting the environment means developing a socialist planned economy. That can only be achieved by taking the commanding heights of the economy into democratic public ownership.
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