This generalised crisis of confidence is reflected nowhere more strongly than in British ruling class circles. The press accurately reflect the pessimistic forecasts circulating among the ruling class at present as it debates the 'impasse of the economy' or, more generally, the 'profound crisis in which Europe is at present aimlessly drifting'.
Such pessimism is no mere psychological quirk. It stems from the impact of this growing inter-imperialist rivalry - heralded in 1971 by the US government's decision to hoist up oil prices and devalue the dollar - on a system already deep in the throes of Imperialist decline.
The general slowdown in growth, precipitating ever - fiercer international competition, not only aggravates the problems of the British economy manifest, over a decade ago, in low rates of growth La rising balance of payments! deficit and escalating inflation. More important still, it helps undermine the potential of the ruling class to resolve these problems by deepening • the strains and tensions of all established social relations through which the ruling class traditionally maintains its hegemony.
In many ways, the stability of the United Kingdom - its parliamentary system and traditions of compromise - was dependent upon the economic prosperity created by its role as a major Imperialist power. The erosion of this prosperity in the post war years - and the attempts by the ruling class to 'resolvel it partly by entry into the EEC - have created deep fissures in the social fabric and SOCIALIST ACTION
sparked off a crisis in all social relations.
Such a crisis has manifested itself in all areas of life as, under the strain of Britain's long-term different strata of the population been increasingly drawn into challenging the oppmossation. All the Problems created in acrise t ression directed against Britain as a major colonial power come forward, in an uneven way, and seek 'resolution! through oi the class struggle. Two main forms stand out:
Troops arrest Civil Rights! Leader resurgence or nationalist feeling in the 'United Kingdom' which found its first - and most explosive - expression in the mass Civil Rights growth of nationalist currents in Scotland and Wales, pose a direct threat to the unity of the bourgeois state and - particularly in the case of Northern Ireland - 'parliamentary democracy'.
2) the growth and combattivity of the labour movement which, having suffered no major defeat since the last war, has repulsed all attempts by the ruling class to solve the problems oi the economy at the expense of its living Standards and democratic rights. This was revealed most dramatically in the 'trial of strength' provoked by the Tory government in 1974 with the miners which led to its removal from office and which plunged it into an internal crisis from which it has not, as yet, fully recovered.
It has been the inter-action of these two factors primarily which, undermining key institutions of class rule, has prevented the ruling class from imposing its 'solution' on the crisis and which makes capitalist Britain a particularly 'vulnerablel victim of the trade war opening up.
is firmly rooted in the long-term decline of Britain as an Imperialist power which reached a climax in the early sixties when decisive sectors of the ruling class decided to abandon the Isiren! of Empire and turn toward the protected markets of the EEC.
This decision, historically changing the course of British capitalism, was by no means a voluntary one. It was forced on the ruling class by the new world situation emerging in the post-war period in which its colonial master; - a Mas: See: : :the wane -was virtually whitilec ara: =: : = -=.
global weight of US Imperialism. & re= of colonial struggles for national libera: =The loss of Britain's colonial master: reaching implications. It was upon the lan::= extracted from the Empire - through the expon: :: capital, monopoly trading relations and access :: raw materials at minimal cost - that had siosc Britain's economic strength and political stap:. :: for over half a century.
The dismantling of the Empire in the decaces following the war meant its abrupt fall irom a maior world power into a 'third-ratel one forced io collaborate - and compete - more as an equal vit.other capitalist powers. This erosion of British 'insularity', registered in its growing identific -ation with US foreign policy and integration into NATO, reached a major new stage in the decisior.
Entry into the EEC meant that the ruling class were prepared to sacrifice the last vestiges of Empire for a bigger 'home market' protected by tariff walls and the possibility for the inter-penetration of capital creating truly European firms capable of competing with their international rivals in the USA or Japan.
In its attempts to compete as an equal with rival capitalist powers however - particularly in the light of entry into the EEC-Britain suffered from certain inherent weaknesses which had accumulated during its period of colonial sway. Continued reliance upon the Empire as a source oi super -profits had, primarily, resulted in a steady erosion of British industry's competitive power as its productivity level, compared with that of its main international rivals, had sharply declined.
More precisely, the long-term drain of capital overseas had saddled British industry with obsolete and outmoded techniques which had resulted in a growing productivity gap opening up between it and other capitalist powers that made its situation on the world market ever more untenable.
This trend, though long-term, was dramatically accelerated in the post-war years when countries such as Japan or West Germany; profiting from the reconstruction of their Iwar-torn' economies were able to employ the most efficient forms of production and technology. It can clearly in investment patterns which are a primary source of labour productivity. Between 190C and 1972, for example, whereas Britain's share of the GNP invested in manufacturing averaged a mere 16-18%o, that of West Germany averaged 23-27% and that of Japan 30-35%.
Such a disparity meant that, increasingly unable to compete with its technologically advanced rivduring its former colonial sway, of the 'reserves! accumulated of the worldmarket was eroded at an ever-faster pace. In terms of manufacturing goods - an area in which Britain once held world hegemony - its share of the world market plummeted, 1950 and 1965, from 35 % to a mere 10%. A major pre-requisite for benefitting from entry in this sense, the ability of the ruling class to effect a major rationalisation of British industry (suffering from the debauchery of an Imperialist past)at a particulariy rapid tempo. Such a rationalisation was seen as vital not only in allowing industry to take advantage of the extended market of the EEÇ - over 300 million strong - but in 'facing up' to increased competition from European firms after entry.
balance of class forces necessary to gain accep-
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Movement in Northern Ireland in the late sixties. Such feeling, inter-relating with and feeding the
A) Historic Decline Such vulnerability! is not, of course, new. It