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From International Socialism (1st series), No.29, Summer 1967, p.36.
Thanks to Ted Crawford & the late Will Fancy.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Nationalisation in British Industry
Leonard Tivey
Cape, 30s
The author of this short and simple book is a lecturer in Public Administration and his main concern is inevitably with this field. He deals in nine pages with the history of socialist demands for nationalisation and does appreciate that these were for something rather different from the present public corporation bravely facing ‘the challenging task of combining public responsibility with business-style management.’ Ideas of workers’ ‘participation’ have declined, we are told, because of the growing belief in the need for a centrally planned economy. One isn’t sure whether it was Tivey or the workers who discovered the incompatibility of these two demands. The policy of recruiting the members of the boards of public corporations from private industry – many of them retaining directorships in the private sector – is discussed, as is the problem of attracting really public-spirited men when some receive as little as £7,000 a year. Tivey sees three possible ways for the nationalised industries to be run in future. They could be simply commercial enterprises attempting to maximise profits in the short term. Applying the new methods of cost-benefit analysis a criterion could be evolved which takes into account social costs, perhaps to the detriment of maximum profit-making by the particular industry. Or, without regard to their own profits, the nationalised basic industries could adopt plans which will best serve the long-term needs of the national economy. These are all ways, more or less enlightened, in which the nationalised industries can serve the interests of British capitalism.
There is a general tendency in the book to consider how a nationalised industry might have special responsibilities towards ‘the consumer,’ ‘public,’ or ‘the nation,’ but it is easily accepted that nationalisation brought little change into the lives (or the pockets) of the workers ‘who remained employees with no direct voice in the control of their enterprises.’ We are neither surprised nor dismayed to read that ‘the record of nationalised industries has not been so strike free as to demonstrate any obvious superiority of public enterprise in this respect.’
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Last updated on 6 May 2010