Comrade Jack Lewis article on the Housing Finance Act, "Much more than a Rent Rise' (The Red Mole 52), is a much needed analysis. However there is a central flaw to Comrade Jack's analysis, that is that the central aim of the Housing Finance Act is to ameliorate the crisis of social expenditure under Monopoly Capitalism. This is to fall into the trap laid by Tory spokesmen on Housing. In fact attempts by the ruling class to solve the critis of social expenditure can only be seen within the context of the immediate problems of the bourgeoisie: to increase the rate of profit at the expense of the working class. It is the role of the H.F.A. within that context which is central for revolutionaries. Whilst Jack is correct to say that the H.F.A. is not merely a rent rise, he fails to relate this aspect of the problem to the struggles of the working class as a whole. What for example is the connexion between the H.F.A. and the 'anti-inflationary" package agreed by Heath, the CBI and the TUC? As I see it the H.F.A. is precisely designed to be the flip side of the wage freeze coin. That under precisely the same rhetoric about the plight of the low paid workers the state is attempting to attack the working class through the Housing Act, whilst holding wage increases down to E2 a week. Thus it is no accident that the Tories are prepared for a struggle on the Housing front, because it is these sections of the working class's fighting ability which are weakest. Because social democracy defines politics as fighting elections for local and central government, and economic struggles as organising in Trade Unions, the working class relates to the struggle over the H.F.A. by putting pressure on the Labour Party. In fact since tenants have no economic strength what rent strikes do take place will be localised and fragmented. Meanwhile the Trade Union bureaucracy is let off the hook by being allowed to bical mat prodiens over nousing shou pe taken to the Labour Party!
It is this situation which gives the state its room for manoeuvre. Secing the confusion in the working class it is attempting to inflict a defeat on the working class by meeting opposition to the H.F.A. in a determined way - hence the elements of a trend towards a strong state contained within the H.F.A. Whilst the imprisonment of S shop stewards provoked a massive response inside the working class the imprisonment of 50 rent strikers will not produce anything like the If tenants are left to fight it out on their own 1 ne suggestions as to the ro or tae local govemment workers must be seen as a sprigboard into the trade union movement. The 100 ol revolutionaries is to show how the H.F.A. can only be snas hed through a united struggle of the working class on the question of rents and wares, against tne state. A SWEEN SUCE as: SMASH THE FAIR RENTS! SMASH THE E2 NORM! seem to be precisely the type of idea that needs to be advanced since it embodies both the idea that the working class does not take responsibility for the problems of capitalism be they of social expenditure or inflation, and the idea that the co-ordinated attack of the ruling class must be met by a co-ordina od response from the working class.
Yours Fraternally, J. C. Clore.
JACK LEWIS replies: Everything that the ruling class does is in one way or anotner remica te the desire of the bourgeoisie to maintain its profits, but to make this central to every analysis of every act of the capitalist state is to travel the path of economism.
It is, of course, true that the ruling class faces a crisis of profits and it is also true that a whole series of government measures are designed to reverse this trend. Whether the Housing Finance Act was introduced as a result of the Tory Party worying about the general problem of declining profits or not might be an interesting subject for academic speculation, but it has nothing to do with the problems of fighting the Act. Nor has it even got anything to do with the propaganda we should be concentrating upon around the Act. Unless, that is, one wants to argue that if it was not for the general decline in profits such a vile Act would not nave been introduced. such a notion would be very misleading since the pratical conclusion might just as well be that we should try as tenants to help the ruling class get over its conjunctural problem so that the Act would be TomOYCO.
What the article tried to do - and what anything userul as a guide to acuon must do - Was tO place the Act in the context of the real social crisis which it is supposed to help solve. Not the crisis of capitalism' which every socialist propagandist can speak about in complete ignorance of the complex problems of the masses: such general truths mean nothing to everyone but the converted and do not tell them anything about how they can relate to the real world. Instead I tried to deal with the more "modest' task of pointing out the real problems producing a crists in tne nousing conditions of the masses in British cities today. Secondly, the article points out why it is impossible for the bourgeoisie to resolve these problems and what effects the Act will have upon them. It is of course true that elements of the Housing Act have a bearing on the wage control plans of the Government. In particular the increased rents ol the nigner par workers to unance reoates to the lower paid is paralleled by Heath's use of wage differentials against the higher paid. But to call it 'the flip side of the wage freeze coin' is to miss the point. In the first place, the "coin" has dozens oi sces ancin une secono pace a 1 more Dower ful and flexible weapon for boosting profits than a cumbersome Housing Act is quite simply the taxation system. So one is still left with the problem of explaining the meaning of the Act for the mass or working propie in tais country If comrade Clore is saying that the bourgeoisie lives off profits and that this is the heart of the matter then again he is missing the point. Of course there is a huge profit element in housing and perhaps that this would not be news to most workers). But the bourgeoisie is not a decadent class merely because it makes profits. It is decadent because it cannot do anything as well as the workers' state will And the mass of people will overthrow the bourgeoisie for this reason, not out of Christian outrage agams prontechne
northern provinces and the region around 'THE SITUATION IN INDOCHINA (Approximate Government-controlled areas of South
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