Power to the people!*

Based on our glorious leader’s stirring speechifying, freedom fighters at my works have struck the first blow for liberty by going on a work-to-rule, They will be collecting their cards at lunchtime. Victory! It matters not what the confected dispute was about, the simple fact is that the business owner is an autocrat; his gaff, his rules. So, as a result of his annoyance he has introduced a new system. Admittedly it’s a bloody great bludgeon to crack a thin-skinned peanut of a non-problem. But while it hasn’t bothered those of us who toe the line, it has, somehow, bothered some of those who maybe don’t.

It’s much like socialism in that regard. Most people go to work, do what is required, take their pay and do with it what they want. Others seem to find time to devote more and more of their energies to being dissatisfied and given that misery loves company they expend even more effort trying to recruit others to the cause. Thus are shop stewards born and should Labour gain power under the current regime – Derek-bloody-Hatton has been allowed back in – we can look forward to wildcat strikes, sympathy walk-outs and flying pickets (everybody’s favourite was that one with the mutton chops).

Younger readers (who am I kidding? You’re all over fifty, admit it) won’t know about this, because it has been redacted from the official party history of the Glorious People’s Republik of Hackney and Liverpool, but back in the 1970s, workers in private firms sometimes came out on strike in sympathy with nationalised company workers determined to harm the country’s prospects. Unlike the governments of the time, such businesses didn’t cave to the threat, but simply locked the gates; the turkeys had voted with their feet for their very own early Christmases.

Power to the people is all well and good, but with power comes responsibility and it is very fucking irresponsible to try and damage your own place of work. Actually, in our case, I have a sneaking suspicion that it may have been a deliberately obtuse ploy to provoke a reaction. And thanks to this glorious national practice-strike, the first blows have been struck against corporate – actually one-man, private – capitalism and the first of the wounded are on their way to the dole queue. Round one winner, the boss.

Of course under the Dear Leader such actions must be made illegal; how dare private companies decide for themselves how to go about their business? Instead the outrage will pave the way for the state to decide what business you are in, how many people you employ and what you pay them  and hey bingo – full communism! Hoorah! But there is one wee snagette I can see. How will this work when the workers are given their promised shares in the means of production? How will they go on strike against themselves?

They're putting the banned back together...

A small matter, I am sure, for the beauty of socialist theory is that you make it up as you go along. Something doesn’t work? Well, it clearly wasn’t real socialism, was it? No, comrades, under real socialism what you need to do is... Keep stoking the fires of envy, keep telling people they’ve never had it so bad, prescribe the way forward to Nirvana and when people get lost tell them they just didn’t do it properly. Genius!

Note:
1. Power to the People = Power to the same old people, obviously