Different Industrial Groups for the UK

Looking back at the industrial history of the UK is rather depressing so I've been mulling over some possibilities where things go if not perfectly, considering the factors they had to face that would probably require the intervention of Alien Space Bats, then at least slightly better. Two of the main problems seem to be that there were simply way too many companies so that they didn't have the size or resources to compete with large foreign competitors, this led to hasty mergers and also shotgun marriages under government pressure that were badly aligned, and created large 'national' companies that the government kept feeling compelled to support. This is especially true in the defence field where earlier on it was Vickers in the inter-war period or more recently BAE, aka. Big And Expensive, and Westland Helicopters, aka. Wastelands, effectively became the only game in town for aircraft/ground vehicles or helicopters respectively and the government has to keep going back to them under threat of losing X thousands of highly skilled Y jobs in the Z region.

The general idea is via a mix of on their own volition and some gentle government persuasion/bribery that various companies come together into industrial groups earlier than in our timeline and that it mostly shakes out into two main groups in the aerospace industry, the automobile industry, and the shipbuilding industry with a few smaller independents so that people aren't stuck with only the one manufacturer. This is what I'm generally referring to as my Twins strategy. Of course eventually they'll have to merge or join with foreign companies in multinational joint ventures or formal alliances but that's for later.

For the automobile industry I figured I'd keep things as simple as possible and just chart a different course for a British Leyland and British Motor Corporation/British Motor Holdings that don't merge and have slightly different makeups. With some more resources to spend on key things and some judicious restructuring they should be salvageable, although BMC/BMH is still going to have a rough time of it. Each group has one company that sells to a specific market like economy cars, another the mid-sized, another high-end/luxury types, one for sports cars, a section for industrial interests etc. Think the Volkswagen Group. For Aerospace in the process of divvying up the various companies into two groups a la Hawker Siddeley Aviation and British Aircraft Corporation so that both groups get a company each that can handle fighters, one for bombers, another for helicopters etc. This way no matter what kind of Operational Requirement the Air Ministry/Ministry of Defence puts out they can usually rely on getting at least two domestic proposals.

This brings it to the third main area that I wanted to look at but know practically nothing about, the shipbuilding industry. Can anyone point me to some decent online resources or books that cover the general industry after the war, and any that might cover the process of them being nationalised with the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 and their later privatisation via the British Shipbuilders Act 1983? Thanks.
 
I'd just like to point out that Governments don't support national defence companies because of the jobs they create, but rather for the freedom of action that derives from having control of your military supplies. How many times have countries been left in the lurch by suppliers of military hardware who disagree with this or that war/dispute/action? Wars have been shaped by this fact.
 
Three words:

Ministry. of. Supply.

Have someone smack Attlee around until he drops it and plums for rationalization. Also find a way to force the air industry to 'grab the nettle' and use every single bit of research that can be garnered from captured German files, have the M.52 fly as scheduled, maybe even be the first to pass mach 1.

Can't say much on shipbuilding, beyond pointing to Sweden and Norway and saying 'see?! See what those guys are doing?! DO THAT!'

Railways (cracks knuckles) No 'Executive British Railway' - straight to BR board. Don't fiddle with the modernization program, let the prototypes be properly tested so we don't end up with dozens of WGerman knockoffs that explode on contact with the track. Have BR work with the european companies to keep a hold in the Export markets and so that BR doesn't end up obligated to keep a hold of dead-in-the-water BREL. Earlier development of HSR as a joint British-French-WG effort, I'm talking TGV on steroids, ICE on crack, APT on meth.

That what I got.
 
Have someone smack Attlee around until he drops it and plums for rationalization. Also find a way to force the air industry to 'grab the nettle' and use every single bit of research that can be garnered from captured German files, have the M.52 fly as scheduled, maybe even be the first to pass mach 1.
No point doing that if the there is no-one to pay for it. If the Air Ministry had put up the cash then I'm sure they would have done it, but in the absence of any customers they are not going to do such research for free.

Keeping at least a couple of suppliers was certainly Air Ministry policy almost from the moment it existed, presumably it was the same post-war. Either way Britain didn't buy enough planes and didn't export enough to justify that many companies. You need a larger RAF that is buying more planes, more regularly and/or more exports, neither of which looks that easy to sort.

Can't say much on shipbuilding, beyond pointing to Sweden and Norway and saying 'see?! See what those guys are doing?! DO THAT!'
Getting the response 'Yes, but the Swedish and Norwegian shipbuilding unions aren't engaged in a contest to see who can go on strike the most. Our are.' You can argue over who's fault the terrible industrial relations were, but they were a major factor.

It wasn't inept management that kept Britain producing riveted ships into the 1960s (though that didn't help) it was implacable union opposition. I can't even see earlier nationalisation helping, the problem wasn't money but the riveters unions (correctly) thinking welding meant the end of their effective control of the yards; riveters needed years of training and experience, welders don't. You need to convince them that having a stake in a successful yard is better than total control of a basket case. Good luck with that.

Railways (cracks knuckles) No 'Executive British Railway' - straight to BR board. Don't fiddle with the modernization program, let the prototypes be properly tested so we don't end up with dozens of WGerman knockoffs that explode on contact with the track. Have BR work with the european companies to keep a hold in the Export markets and so that BR doesn't end up obligated to keep a hold of dead-in-the-water BREL. Earlier development of HSR as a joint British-French-WG effort, I'm talking TGV on steroids, ICE on crack, APT on meth.
Going straight to the BR board means abandoning any big dreams of a super integrated national transport policy and also means admitting that there are limits to how much you can centralise, can't see post-war Labour going for that, though it would help a great deal.

The other option is going full blown on the centralisation thing and actually making the BR regions co-operate instead of fight amongst themselves. Rotating all the management round might help there, I think it took two decades before Western Region had a manager who wasn't a GWR old boy. Shift them all to Scotland and vice-versa, even if it doesn't help stop the infighting it can't make things any worse.

HSR I'm not sure on, the population density in Britain really is all wrong. The major cities are too close together (you want 150km between stations minimum for HSR) and threading the tracks is a nightmare, one which only gets harder the faster the trains go. A much better option would be electrification and modern signalling, maybe spend the Modernisation Plan money on that instead of freight depots that will never be used?
 
Also find a way to force the air industry to 'grab the nettle' and use every single bit of research that can be garnered from captured German files, have the M.52 fly as scheduled, maybe even be the first to pass mach 1.
The M.52 didn't fly because the government/air ministry had been looking at the German files and thought that you needed swept wings to go through the sound barrier. Miles didn't think so - and they were right. In this particular case, if they hadn't looked at the German research they might well have been first through the sound barrier.

Rather a lot of German aerospace technology (jet engines is another example) is only useful to the British as an example of "don't ever try this, if you do we'll arrange for you to spend the rest of your career doing research on the Aerodynamics of Penguins on South Georgia. In tropical kit."
 
No point doing that if the there is no-one to pay for it. If the Air Ministry had put up the cash then I'm sure they would have done it, but in the absence of any customers they are not going to do such research for free.

Keeping at least a couple of suppliers was certainly Air Ministry policy almost from the moment it existed, presumably it was the same post-war. Either way Britain didn't buy enough planes and didn't export enough to justify that many companies. You need a larger RAF that is buying more planes, more regularly and/or more exports, neither of which looks that easy to sort.

Perhaps a successful Suez? Or what about a stake in South America
Getting the response 'Yes, but the Swedish and Norwegian shipbuilding unions aren't engaged in a contest to see who can go on strike the most. Our are.' You can argue over who's fault the terrible industrial relations were, but they were a major factor.

It wasn't inept management that kept Britain producing riveted ships into the 1960s (though that didn't help) it was implacable union opposition. I can't even see earlier nationalisation helping, the problem wasn't money but the riveters unions (correctly) thinking welding meant the end of their effective control of the yards; riveters needed years of training and experience, welders don't. You need to convince them that having a stake in a successful yard is better than total control of a basket case. Good luck with that.

I was going on what I could remember from high School, the Unions are a whole barrel of Nasty, maybe (just spitballin) if Churchill lost the conservative lead in '50 you might get a more internal PM.

Going straight to the BR board means abandoning any big dreams of a super integrated national transport policy and also means admitting that there are limits to how much you can centralise, can't see post-war Labour going for that, though it would help a great deal.

The other option is going full blown on the centralisation thing and actually making the BR regions co-operate instead of fight amongst themselves. Rotating all the management round might help there, I think it took two decades before Western Region had a manager who wasn't a GWR old boy. Shift them all to Scotland and vice-versa, even if it doesn't help stop the infighting it can't make things any worse.

HSR I'm not sure on, the population density in Britain really is all wrong. The major cities are too close together (you want 150km between stations minimum for HSR) and threading the tracks is a nightmare, one which only gets harder the faster the trains go. A much better option would be electrification and modern signalling, maybe spend the Modernisation Plan money on that instead of freight depots that will never be used?

Hmm Perhaps the modernisation plan could push east coast electrification as well as west. What should have been done with regards to freight (I believe) is the earlier development of container transport and road-rail services, merry-go-round and block freight. I'm not so sure about the Western region, it was very much the bastion of conservatism in railway terms and the Scottish was the worst performing of the regions. You could can Swindon earlier but that means butterflying the Hydraulics altogether. I'm not entirely sure what the Beeching report should look like either, but the loss of the Great Central Main Line and the Waverley Route was a mistake
 
Perhaps a successful Suez? Or what about a stake in South America
A successful Suez would help, assuming it doesn't lead to Britain ending up in bloody Algeria/Vietnam style wars by refusing to accept de-colonisation.

But assuming it just leads to a desire to be more independent from the US, higher defence spending and an eye on keeping a role in world affairs it could work out. More co-operation with France would also be good, spreading the cost of development across two armed forces and combining sales would really help things out. Plus of course if Suez ends in success that would also help the old arms sales.

Hmm Perhaps the modernisation plan could push east coast electrification as well as west. What should have been done with regards to freight (I believe) is the earlier development of container transport and road-rail services, merry-go-round and block freight. I'm not so sure about the Western region, it was very much the bastion of conservatism in railway terms and the Scottish was the worst performing of the regions. You could can Swindon earlier but that means butterflying the Hydraulics altogether. I'm not entirely sure what the Beeching report should look like either, but the loss of the Great Central Main Line and the Waverley Route was a mistake
Being heretical the best way to spend the Modernisation Plan money wasn't on the railways but on a proper motorway network. There might even be the money to actually finish the A1(M) and connect up Tyneside to the rest of the country.

However if it has to be spent on the railways I think electrification would have been the best way to spend it. You could sell it as a more 'secure' alternative to diesel (UK coal fire power stations over imported oil) and assuming anything like the pre-war 'Sparks effect' the Southern Railway got it may be enough to stave off the worst of the Beeching cuts. In fact I'd go so far as spending nothing on freight until I was sure I could get at least all the main lines electrified.

I'd agree swapping Scotland and Western may not be the best option, but it has to be something radical. Some form of forced management rotation? You can only become head of a region after serving a minimum number of years in a senior role in another region (and perhaps a few years in a technical department?). The police use a similar system for Chief Constables so it's not unknown, might help shake things up and actually get the regions working as one rather than fighting.
 
Hmm Perhaps the modernisation plan could push east coast electrification as well as west. What should have been done with regards to freight (I believe) is the earlier development of container transport and road-rail services, merry-go-round and block freight. I'm not so sure about the Western region, it was very much the bastion of conservatism in railway terms and the Scottish was the worst performing of the regions. You could can Swindon earlier but that means butterflying the Hydraulics altogether. I'm not entirely sure what the Beeching report should look like either, but the loss of the Great Central Main Line and the Waverley Route was a mistake
I'm a bit leery of doing too much with the railways since anything major would involved the government spending extra money, unlike with reforming the aircraft industry where they already spend massive amounts but did it incredibly wastefully so it's more about spending what they already did in our timeline but more efficiently for a hopefully better outcome.

As far as I'm aware containerisation didn't really start taking off until the late-50s/into the 60s so it's probably a bit much to try and concentrate on that at this point, however later on certainly. I seem to remember from Devvy's old The 12.08 Service To... thread that British Railways wanted to spend large amounts of money on building and renovating large freigh and marshalling yards. Considering that freight useage had apparently been dropping, if the government could force them to cede the widespread freight business to the road hauliers and instead concentrate on moving freight from regional centre to regional centre with it then travelling onwards locally via lorry you could roll over any savings/money not spent on on modernising parts of the network. Will consider the suggestions others have posted.
 
I can't even see earlier nationalisation helping, the problem wasn't money but the riveters unions (correctly) thinking welding meant the end of their effective control of the yards; riveters needed years of training and experience, welders don't. You need to convince them that having a stake in a successful yard is better than total control of a basket case. Good luck with that.

It is more than that. As you observe riveters were using the technical composition of production, the technical relations, to control the social relations of production. It isn't just "stake versus total control" it is, significantly, that they had taken effective control of production out of the hands of management. Welding would dispossess them. I don't know how you feel about having property seized from under you, but I feel poorly about it (and obviously the shipbuilding capitalists felt poorly about riveters having used their industrial power to the fullest). "Influence" on someone else's property is nothing like control of your own. This is as true for "socialist" property under control of a union work culture as it is of "capitalist" property under (effective) control through share and management. The reason why the riveters wouldn't bargain is because they would lose their all in the deal.

See Braverman for more details, Braverman comes at this through a "deskilling" thesis, but it is more obvious to treat the workers' recomposition of the technical relations as a form of power in social relations as being decomposed or recomposed through attempts at change in technical relations of production. As post-Braverman labour process studies have shown: technical composition change throws up new "skill" sets; but, I'd argue with a difficulty in bringing the prior form of unionisation into line with the new form.

Nationalisation under union control might get you out of this place, but there's a social and political cost to this. Labour certainly didn't like this route in Britain, and Political Labor in Australia didn't either after 1949. Fear of unions conditioned labour parties as much as it did anti-Labour parties. Getting a labour party not scared to death of actual union activity is pretty hard: political labour gets conditioned by the failure of general strikes, or the success of mass repressions. What industrial labour says at its most militant to political labour sounds to political labour like a good plan to get us all shot.

yours,
Sam R.
 
It is more than that. As you observe riveters were using the technical composition of production, the technical relations, to control the social relations of production. It isn't just "stake versus total control" it is, significantly, that they had taken effective control of production out of the hands of management. Welding would dispossess them. I don't know how you feel about having property seized from under you, but I feel poorly about it (and obviously the shipbuilding capitalists felt poorly about riveters having used their industrial power to the fullest).
Hmmm. I agree that the unions had seized control but that's about as far as I'd go. Certainly I'd feel poorly about having property seized from me, but not if I'd stolen said property in the first place. Just because they'd used their industrial power to extort control doesn't mean it was in any way rightfully theirs.

The reason why the riveters wouldn't bargain is because they would lose their all in the deal.
No this evidently is not true. Certainly by bargaining they would have lost control of the yards, but the industry would have survived and they would have kept their jobs It was by their refusal to bargain that they lost everything, destroying the bulk of British ship building taking with it the heart of countless communities across the country.

Nationalisation under union control might get you out of this place
I'd be amazed if it did. The problem was the unions put their own power structures ahead of actually keeping the industry alive. It's no good having power over a closed yard, but at no point did they show any hint of understanding this point.

Nationalisation under union control would probably result in riveting never actually ever being replaced, because I can see any motivation for the change. No matter how carefully managed the switch will result in a change to the power structure, welding does not inspire the same deference to your elders that riveting does thus making the senior union leaders vulnerable to replacement. As they would be the ones running the industry under your scenario I can't see why they'd change. And as they controlled recruitment, promotion and firing they'd make damn sure no-one who though differently was in a position to challenge them.

Of course it might be the financial collapse of the industry would prompt them to change. But as they never cared about the yards losing money before nationalisation why would they start caring now? Being government owned they can just run at an every growing loss and demand bailouts from the government due to 'xyz' reason of the week. It's what the rest of the British nationalised industries did, I see no reason a union run industry would behave differently.

All this will mean orders falling even more rapidly as the market for riveted ships disappears and probably the industry dying slightly ahead of OTL when the government of the day runs out of money and/or patience to keep propping it up.

, but there's a social and political cost to this. Labour certainly didn't like this route in Britain, and Political Labor in Australia didn't either after 1949. Fear of unions conditioned labour parties as much as it did anti-Labour parties. Getting a labour party not scared to death of actual union activity is pretty hard: political labour gets conditioned by the failure of general strikes, or the success of mass repressions. What industrial labour says at its most militant to political labour sounds to political labour like a good plan to get us all shot.
I think you are missing the point you also need Political Labour to get elected, and promising to spend everyone else's money in order to hand complete control of key industries over to a select few in the union movement (because that was the reality of UK trade unions, certainly in ship building) does not sound like a vote winner. Unless of course the policy is just to steal it direct from the owners and hand it over to the unions, which I suspect may actually be even less popular with the electorate.

So political labour doesn't like actual union activity because the electorate don't like it either. Being associated with strikes, disruption and such like does not make for electoral success.
 
Hmmm. I agree that the unions had seized control but that's about as far as I'd go. Certainly I'd feel poorly about having property seized from me, but not if I'd stolen said property in the first place. Just because they'd used their industrial power to extort control doesn't mean it was in any way rightfully theirs.

Need I remind you of the basis of right in present British law, and of the theory of right in politics in general? On of the key features of the 20th century, industrially, was the dispute over who may say with security in their power, "I own this," as a Norman prince once did. The concentration of acceptance or rejection of the present order of ownership, both conceptually and in practice, varied industry by industry. I will, however, readily concede a point you make later in relation to this.

No this evidently is not true. Certainly by bargaining they would have lost control of the yards, but the industry would have survived and they would have kept their jobs It was by their refusal to bargain that they lost everything, destroying the bulk of British ship building taking with it the heart of countless communities across the country.

Only if their aim was to work for a boss. These are the lines of division within the labour movement over 1926 or the winter of discontent.

I'd be amazed if it did. The problem was the unions put their own power structures ahead of actually keeping the industry alive.

...

No matter how carefully managed the switch will result in a change to the power structure, welding does not inspire the same deference to your elders that riveting does thus making the senior union leaders vulnerable to replacement.

This is the point I concede and am willing to do so in full, the discongruity between a workplace practice and the greatest beneficiaries thereof. If it is in Political Labour's interest to have labour in general disorganised, then it is in Union Leadership's interest to have specific workplaces underorganised.

But as they never cared about the yards losing money before nationalisation why would they start caring now? Being government owned they can just run at an every growing loss and demand bailouts from the government due to 'xyz' reason of the week. It's what the rest of the British nationalised industries did, I see no reason a union run industry would behave differently.

The rest of British national industry was nationalised, more or less, under state control. There's no "mondragon" style incentive for union leaderships to increase either profitability or gross volume output while reducing required inputs (two different economisations for two different economic perspectives). This is why I was suggesting that nationalisation under union control may, may, provide an out. It resolves the so called "Yugoslav" problem, which I've never observed outside of a boardroom's own pay negotiation with itself.

I think you are missing the point you also need Political Labour to get elected, and promising to spend everyone else's money in order to hand complete control of key industries over to a select few in the union movement (because that was the reality of UK trade unions, certainly in ship building) does not sound like a vote winner. Unless of course the policy is just to steal it direct from the owners and hand it over to the unions, which I suspect may actually be even less popular with the electorate.

This assumes that the point of the labour movement is to get Political Labour elected. Such a point has been argued and contested. I am happy to accept your depiction of the actual argument in favour of Political Labour as correct (which it is), if you are happy to observe the following argument is a correct depiction of the argument in the actual labour movement against political labour: the purpose of the labour movement is the formation of an industrial commonwealth or, at least, the guarantee of conditions of life by the action of labour itself. Political Labour is at best a tactic useful for the fulfillment of elements of this demand, or their preconditions, but is not actually the force which fulfills the demand for an industrial commonwealth or a decent life. It is "by our hand alone," that we make our own power, or social decency; and that the purpose of Political Labour is "By reason if we may," but that this does not exhaust the strategies or tactics of labour.

I'm not saying your argument is incorrect, or correct. I'm saying your argument existed as one of the arguments of the labour movement, but did not exhaust the labour movement's views.

So political labour doesn't like actual union activity because the electorate don't like it either. Being associated with strikes, disruption and such like does not make for electoral success.

Ah, "Come gather all kind friends of mine, I've got a bonzer notion, to make an eldorado here, I'm going to move a motion: bump me into parliament."

Apart from the Winter of Discontent, the failure to modernise demonstrates the limits of the state taking control of the market directly. It represents not the workers, but the electorate. It remains a boss, but a boss susceptible to a broader series of demands than an LLC.

(Correspondingly, however, the unions taking control of production doesn't mean the workers do either. But I've seen far more "shop floor revolts" that have seized back a union, than I have "rank-and-file branch revolts" that have seized back a party.)

yours,
Sam R.
 
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Only if their aim was to work for a boss. These are the lines of division within the labour movement over 1926 or the winter of discontent.
No, that's a complete red herring on this issue. If their aim was to work at all in ship building, whether for themselves, the state or a boss they had to change, which meant bargaining. A ship yard making riveted ships was going to go bankrupt, even if they had used their 'full labour power' (i.e. blackmail and extortion) to force every British shipping firm to buy riveted ships it doesn't help. No foreign firm would buy from them, killing the export market, and eventually the British firms would go bankrupt due to being forced to use ancient and expensive vessels.

This is the point I concede and am willing to do so in full, the discongruity between a workplace practice and the greatest beneficiaries thereof. If it is in Political Labour's interest to have labour in general disorganised, then it is in Union Leadership's interest to have specific workplaces underorganised.
No under-organisation was never the problem. The Union Leaderships generally insisted on over-organising the yards, generally with multiple over lapping unions, making them incredibly resistant to change. Which was of course was killed the yards.

The rest of British national industry was nationalised, more or less, under state control. There's no "mondragon" style incentive for union leaderships to increase either profitability or gross volume output while reducing required inputs (two different economisations for two different economic perspectives). This is why I was suggesting that nationalisation under union control may, may, provide an out.
I can't see it myself. British trade unions prided themselves on their complete ignorance of economic imperative and contempt for anything so base as their industry making a profit. If we were talking about German unions then I might agree, but then if we were talking about German unions it wouldn't be necessary to nationalise the industry under union control in order for them to embrace vital change.

For all that I am very interested how you think this situation works when the work in the yards changes. For instance assuming a post war nationalisation you would be looking at the riveters and the boilermakers unions playing a vital part in the 'union control' of the industry. If the yards are to survive then in a few years time, and the fewer the better, you need to have the welders union and the marine diesel engine union involved. How does this change occur? Who decides that the new union gets elevated? Do the old unions get kicked out when their involvement drops?

Of course if there was a switch from craft to industry unions then this would be less of an issue. Or rather it would be an internal union politics issue not a management of the yards issue. However I would argue that if the unions switched to an industry model rather than craft it pretty much removes the need to nationalise the industry under union control, such a union would actually have an interest in keeping the industry going rather than killing it on the altar of political obsession.

This assumes that the point of the labour movement is to get Political Labour elected. Such a point has been argued and contested. I am happy to accept your depiction of the actual argument in favour of Political Labour as correct (which it is), if you are happy to observe the following argument is a correct depiction of the argument in the actual labour movement against political labour: the purpose of the labour movement is the formation of an industrial commonwealth or, at least, the guarantee of conditions of life by the action of labour itself. Political Labour is at best a tactic useful for the fulfillment of elements of this demand, or their preconditions, but is not actually the force which fulfills the demand for an industrial commonwealth or a decent life. It is "by our hand alone," that we make our own power, or social decency; and that the purpose of Political Labour is "By reason if we may," but that this does not exhaust the strategies or tactics of labour.
I will certainly accept that. But it does just highlight the somewhat blinkered, I'm tempted to say hypocritical, attitude of the labour movement; the view that the rest of society has to just accept them doing whatever they want, regardless of the law or the impact it has on others, because they believe their cause is right and that the law, and indeed everyone who disagrees, is therefore 'wrong'. It's an unpleasant attitude, if only because of the problems it would cause if the rest of society adopted it.

Apart from the Winter of Discontent, the failure to modernise demonstrates the limits of the state taking control of the market directly. It represents not the workers, but the electorate. It remains a boss, but a boss susceptible to a broader series of demands than an LLC.
I would point out that the workers are also part of the electorate, and thus the state does represent them when running a nationalised industry, just not exclusively them. Given that many of those industries were effective or actual monopolies the state had to represent the entire electorate, if they didn't who would actually stop the industries gouging the customers?

Of course for those where there were competitors the state could have acted purely in the workers interests. However I suspect that just leads to them dying even faster as the competition kills them off.

I would also suggest that the failure to modernise should also be laid at the door of the labour movement. Certainly the state could not compel them to change, but had they chosen to do so it would have happened.
 
It's an unpleasant attitude, if only because of the problems it would cause if the rest of society adopted it.

So is Master & Servant. Pretending that society isn't organised as a form of class repression, and then jumping on the labour movement for bringing class into it is more than a little silly.

I would also suggest that the failure to modernise should also be laid at the door of the labour movement. Certainly the state could not compel them to change, but had they chosen to do so it would have happened.

Immediately, sure. However, and Braverman is incredibly good on this, technical change is used by the employer to disorganise labour. Hanging on to craft skills isn't an effective way to resist, nor does it result in production for society's benefit. But it is a sensible response when you've been taught that any change in the technical nature of production is aimed at dismantling the possibility of a decent life. The final cause of resistance to modernisation is the use by employers of technical change to benefit themselves in class war. That's one of the reasons why the German example of post-war industrial unions works in capital: there's a benefit in it for labour other than "keeping a crap job."

Getting Torydom and Liberality to support the workplace being a site of social distribution would mean overturning Mancunian economic liberalism. Fairly unlikely.

yours,
Sam R.
 
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