George Walford: Labor Agrees With Us

S.i. contends, with evidence and argument to support the contention, that economic collectivists are in the minority; the majority hold to economic individualism, they are more concerned to pursue their own interests than those of the whole community to which they belong. The Labour Party has never been active in the pursuit of common ownership of the means of production, but it has tended to give the interests of the community, particularly the more excluded portions of it, priority over those of individuals. This has never attracted the support expected, and after the poor showing made in the last election Labour’s leaders have been thinking again. Bryan Gould announces that the party needs to offer policies which can be sold not just to committees but to the electorate, and the policies he has in mind will be ones which appeal to the self-interest of the voters. (The new policies will, of course, also be true to “our socialist values” – the verbal decencies must be maintained and there are, after all, a few votes in labour-socialism). (Sunday Times 5 July 87).

from Ideological Commentary 29, September 1987.