Production¶
Core Argument¶
Grant’s chapter on production is a polemical intervention into the post-war Labour government’s economic strategy, arguing that the official trade union leadership and the Labour Party have abandoned any socialist perspective and instead embraced capitalist rationalisation at the expense of the working class. The core argument is that the Labour government’s call for “increased production” is not a neutral technical necessity but a class weapon. Grant insists that under capitalism, production is not for social need but for profit, and that the drive to raise output serves to intensify exploitation, not to improve living standards. He draws on the historical experience of the war years, when production drives were accompanied by wage restraint and the suspension of trade union rights, to argue that the same logic is being applied in peacetime.
The chapter’s key claim is that the working class cannot accept the capitalist framework of production without betraying its own interests. Grant cites the example of the Soviet Union, where nationalised industry and planning allowed for a genuine increase in production without the antagonism between labour and capital, though he is careful not to present the USSR as a model to be copied uncritically. He contrasts this with Britain, where the Labour government maintains private ownership and merely manages capitalism. The evidence he marshals includes the continuation of wartime controls, the refusal to nationalise key industries under workers’ control, and the pressure on trade unions to discipline their members against strikes. He points to the TUC’s collaboration with the government’s productivity campaigns as proof that the union bureaucracy has become an instrument of capitalist discipline.
The historical context is the immediate post-war period, when the Attlee government enjoyed enormous working-class support but was already preparing to integrate British capitalism into the American sphere of influence via the Marshall Plan. Grant’s polemic is directed squarely against the reformist leadership of the Labour Party and the trade unions, who argue that increased production under capitalism can benefit the workers. He also attacks the Stalinist-influenced left, which tail-ends the Labour government’s appeals for sacrifice. The chapter is a defence of the Marxist position that only the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of workers’ control over production can resolve the contradiction between the need for output and the interests of the class that produces it. Grant’s tone is combative, insisting that any compromise with the logic of capitalist production leads to the demoralisation and defeat of the working class.