A Letter From London: Myth Of Affluence: Girilal Jain

As in previous years the Conservative party has put forward the claim that it is the party of social progress and change. The claim is not confined to its “revolutionary” programme of taking Britain into the European Economic Community. It continues to propagate the myth that it has helped to usher in a more egalitarian and affluent society. In fact this claim does not withstand a careful scrutiny.

British society is no more equal now than it was before the second world war. According to the statistics published by the Board of Inland Revenue, 25 per cent of all personal wealth is owned by half per cent of the population. Two per cent of the population account for 50 per cent of the personal wealth. These figures are revealing enough. But they are open to challenge which means that in fact the position is much worse.

In a new study entitled Income Distribution And Social Change, Professor Richard M. Titmus of the London School of Economics has examined the relationship between the figures of the Board of Inland Revenue and the distribution of real wealth and income and his conclusion is that the figures do not tell the whole story. He has shown how the top people manipulate their incomes in such a way that large slices escape taxation. Since capital gains are not subject to tax, income can easily be transferred to that head. No one has challenged these conclusions.

Disparity

This disparity is automatically reflected in the inequality of opportunity in fields like education. The report by an officially appointed commission showed that a child’s chances of getting higher education depend more on the income and class of his parents than his ability. While the child of an unskilled worker has just one per cent chance of getting higher education, the children of those in the professions have 34 per cent chance. The public and private schools are reserved by the upper class children.

It will surprise many people in India that the percentage of students who go to university in our country is higher than in Britain. In Britain out of the total population of 50 million only 110,000 are enrolled at the universities. For a population of 440 million the figure in India is over one million. Last year, universities other than Cambridge and Oxford received 190,000 applications for some 25,000 places. Admittedly, many students applied in more than one university. Still the picture is one of applicants outnumbering the available seats. In the face of this problem, the Conservative Government overruled the University Grants Commission on the expansion programme.

The story of affluence is a similar myth. The blue book on national incomes shows that even counting husband and wife as one person, 42 per cent of the people have incomes before tax of £500 a year. It is common knowledge that nearly 2.5 million old people, widows and disabled live below the poverty line. The progress of slum clearance – there are cases of eight persons living, cooking and washing in one dingy room – has been so slow that even the Conservative party conference has been forced to demand that the rate of new constructions be doubled.

How then have the Conservatives succeeded in maintaining this myth of an increasingly egalitarian and affluent society? There are several reasons. First and foremost is the fact that the people have never had it so good. For instance in 1938 there were 1.8 million insured workers registered as unemployed and 1.3 million were receiving    national assistance. By 1957 the first figure had dropped to 300,000. It has         risen slightly in recent years but not much. In 1938, only 800,000 married women were gainfully employed. In 1958 their number had risen to 3.5 million.

Consumer Goods

Secondly, as one writer put it in the right wing Spectator last week, “the mass media are organised round the selling of consumer goods and the lovely things we can buy – in our newspapers, on television and posters and hoardings even in buses and trains we are lapped in an atmosphere which suggests that these things are permanently on tap for all of us… for all these reasons the idea that most people are better off than they actually are is believed even by most people.”

This writer noted that the Labour Government after the war succeeded only in halting the growth of inequality. Since 1951 the Conservatives “have followed a policy of redistributing wealth, away from the poor towards the rich. Abolition of food subsidies, charges on prescriptions, cuts in the health sector, neglect of pensions – these and a host of other measures have worsened the relative position of the poor, the sick and the old… at the same time cuts in income tax, the raising of the surtax level and a host of yet other measures have improved the relative position of the rich”.

The more fundamental fact seems to be that in the post-war period capitalism has made a remarkable comeback not only in Britain but all over the Western world. For one thing the cold war has helped it to discredit the concept of public ownership. For another, the system has developed sufficient productive capacity to look after the needs of the people without subjecting itself to a fundamental change. Most men do not care much about inequality as long as they have a secure job and a steadily rising income. That is precisely the dilemma of the leftist movement in these countries. Radical programmes do not win votes.

At the Labour party conference last week, one leader raised a big laugh when he named “socialist” leaders and parties in the European Economic Community with whom it would find it possible to co-operate if Britain joined the Community. The laughter was in good humour but it told quite a tale. Fortunately the British Labour party is not quite so ineffective as its counterparts in the Community, but it found it wise to reject a demand for placing more industries on its list of those it would nationalise if it is returned to power. The leadership wisely fights shy of the word “nationalisation” itself.

There is the other fundamental fact that technological innovations make capital intensive industries obligatory and they need large markets. That is one reason why the big industrialists and financiers in this country find the pull of the European Economic Community irresistible. They do not lose a night’s sleep if small industries perish in the process. The march is towards mass production supermarkets and chain stores. Western Europe has accepted the American lead. As far as one can see, democratic socialism will languish in Western Europe, as cartels and monopolies will prosper. That will not be the only casualty. The countries of Asia and Africa will feel the pinch even more.

In a letter to the Tribune, the well-known playwright, Mr. John Osborne, has described the Common Market as an explosive alliance of rich money changers, a bizarre rabble of tradesmen and a squalid chamber of commerce with a large and impressive membership of political mercenaries. In keeping with his penchant for graphic phrases he adds, “as drab a name for a monumental swindle has not been coined since a bright German adman thought of putting wholesale murder on the market as national socialism”. It is not a small mercy that such voices of protest can still be raised.

The Times of India, 13 October 1962

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