Discussion Forum for Readers and Supporters of European Action

From the Editorial of European Action number 15 (March/April 2008):

PERILS OF ‘INDEPENDENCE’ IN KOSOVO
The Americans are sticking their noses into Eastern Europe again and they are the main exponents of the break-up of Serbia. This is intended to provoke Russia, of course. As Kosovo is historically a part of Serbia it would have been constitutionally correct to have consulted Serbia first, instead of this so-called spontaneous uprising by the people with their new flags and banners supplied by the CIA.
President Bush now dictates the destinies of the European peoples so that they can be sucked into the globalist morass with the World Bank pulling all the strings.
Kosovo will be no more independent than when it was tied to Belgrade. That is the fate of petty nationalism.

Edited by author 17-03-2008 23:00
Change of subject if you don't mind, but Robert you mentioned what sounds like a pro-Russia policy a post or two ago. In that regard whats your declared view of Kossovo's declaration of independence? (Rejected of course by Russia) I rather think the UK's legitimising of the further break up of Serbia was a mistake, not least for the precedent it sets. Of course America was one of the first nations to recognise Kossovo. What is their agenda?
Presumably we don't want the Balkans becoming a set of ever smaller statelets which are less and less economically viable. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the Union reject petty nationalisms of any variety
within Europe? Could you clarify that the Union Movement does not just want a 'mere' federation of Nations?

Thank you Robert, that clarifies the situation. Syndical ownership of industry and the Wage-Price mechanism are complementary not alternatives. There was another party (beside the Anarcho-syndicalists) who embraced a degree of syndicalism and that was the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB). The problem was you had to embrace all their internationalist clap-trap at the same time.

Edited by author 15-03-2008 16:54
From an article by OM in the National European of 1964:

"The wage-price mechanism could secure that throughout Europe the same rate is paid for the same job, thus eliminating unfair competition; also that wages, salaries and fair profit are progressively raised as science increases the means to produce, thus preventing slumps and unemployment by a proper balance between production and consumption. It will be found that no reform short of these measures will prevent recurrent economic crises and that such a policy is impossible without the economic leadership of European government within the system of Europe a Nation".

Syndicalism is the policy promoted by European Action as the only fair way to run industries. FG is right. The only alternative to workers' control is the bungling of a state bureaucracy or the old capitalist parasitism involving absentee shareholders who have no working connection to the industry.
The wage/price mechanism is a method of Government leadership in the area for maintaining a parity between wages and prices which can only be achieved within a self-sufficient economy free of international competition.
Syndicalism, on the other hand, is the method of running industry in a fair and equitable way. Workers' control within the wage/price mechanism.
So you see, European, the wage/price mechanism does not replace Syndicalism. They complement each other.
European Action is bringing out an exact facsimile of the 1953 pamphlet, A Workers' Policy Through Syndicalism, to be available to all readers of the paper. It remains a good read to this day and just as relevant.
Many more Union Movement pamphlets in facsimile format will be published by us in the coming months.

European, there is no longer a white Africa and no more a white Commonwealth. Africa has thrown out the white man and what is left has no future under black rule. We should now be looking towards Russia as an extension of Europe a Nation. Years ago in 1979, I wrote an article 'From Lisbon to Vladivostok' with that idea in mind. This, then, in the days of the old Soviet Union.
Jean Thiriart always wanted to make a deal with Soviet Russia along those lines. Now that we can truly see the real nature of American administrations, it seems the only sensible expression of 'Real Politik'. Another advantage would be being on the same land mass.

Edited by author 15-03-2008 15:58
I always looked at the Wage-Price mechanism as a fast fix measure to establish some of the benefits of syndicalism right away until syndicalism proper was being established.

This is the only area which I felt some disagreement with OM's later views, he said that so long as working people were getting good wages they wouldn't care who owned industry. Yes, but someone has to own industry and the only other alternatives to the employees is the state or absentee capitalist shareholders. We know the first doesn't work because it destroys initiative, enterprise and incentive and capitalism by definition means someone other than the workers taking the profits.

Also, of equal importance, the actual 'sense' of owning the company you work for is of tremendous psychological importance in engendering initiative, loyalty and common purpose among the work force.

Mosley advanced beyond syndicalism (as he had beyond the pre-war Corporate State) to the simpler concept of the wage-price mechanism. European Government should intervene to raise wages and lower prices throughout Europe. Of course when a business has grown too large for control by the founder or his descendants and has become a monopoly combine owned by absentee shareholders, these should be bought out and control handed over to a syndicate of the workers.
Mosley was also right to propose that Africa should be divided between white and black living as friendly but seperate cultures, nations and governments. Independent white states should be established in Southern Africa. Whites and blacks are suffering under Mugabe's brutal Marxist regime in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). Increasing numbers of whites are fleeing to Europe. The article on Ian Smith in the latest issue of European Action was timely. The British Isles, mainland Europe and 'Europe overseas': the White Commonwealth and White Africa, with close co-operation and barter agreements with the Syndicalist countries of Latin South America, with their large populations of European origin can become the greatest civilization mankind has ever known.

The John Lewis Partnership has its own website. It is worth a visit.

In the 1970s Britain's dead-duck motorcycle manufacturing companies were combined into the Meridian Motorcycle Company which was owned by its work force along syndicalist lines. It really was a case of allowing worker ownership a chance so long as capitalism can't make a profit out of it. The experiment failed because Britain's motorcycle industry had fallen so far behind Japanese imports.

The only other syndical experiment in the UK is of course the John Lewis/Peter Jones/Waitrose partnership where the company is theoretically owned by the staff who all share the profits. I remember years ago talking to someone who worked at Peter Jones who said the arrangement was not a happy one for the staff who still 'enjoyed' low pay and management with the them-and-us mentality.

However last week I was in the Halifax bank when in trooped a number of check-out girls from Waitrose opposite. They were paying in their share of the annual profits and from what I overheard the average was about £2000.

Does anyone else know anything about the John Lewis Partnership and whether the partnership aspect works successfully?

I would just add to FG's synopsis that syndicalism as industrial democracy is the highest expression of social justice above and beyond both capitalism and communism.

As OM wrote in the piece from 'Mosley - Right or Wrong?' quoted below, there is no reason why existing European banks and building societies shouldn't be responsible for providing syndicates with the capital and finance that they need. They would of course have to operate within new laws created by the National European Government to prevent investment capital leaving or entering Europe without Government sanction.

I don't think OM distanced himself from Raven's syndical ideas, rather he developed them from the pre-War Corporations, to a more purist form of syndicalism in the immediate post-War period and finally to the 'Wage-price mechanism'. The latter sought to apply the benefits of syndicalism in a much simpler and quickerway, whilst orthodox syndicalism would still be applied to the then nationalised industries as a large-scale trial.

I've always favoured formal syndicalism ("Industrial Democracy") myself as it is something that ordinary people can easily understand and see the benefits of.

Edited by author 02-03-2008 10:38
For the benefit of the forum:

The problem of banking was seen by Mosley to be in the international trading system whereby finance could move money out of the system and damage governments. Banking as such could be creative if contained within an insulated economic system such as Europe a Nation. Currency exchange would also not apply.
As such, finance was free to operate under those terms.

No rudeness in my message. I clarified the purpose of this topic and gave you a choice. You took the correct course. Bye, bye.

Offered the choice and given your rudeness I'll choose the latter option.

Raven Thomson's 'Our Financial Masters' was pre-war British Union policy.
This forum is concerned with the post-war policies of Union Movement.
Now stick to the topic or go elsewhere.

Alright I think I see where your going with this, or rather where O.M. was going.You say you are only the drummer, does that mean you were once in the U.M. drum corps?

I know O.M. distanced himself somewhat from Raven's writings in latter years, but Raven's "Our Financial Masters" is essential reading concerning finance and money creation.

Edited by author 01-03-2008 22:21
All of these matters are for the people to decide. I am only the drummer.
Personally, I am opposed to usury so we could call on the services of the Bank of Dubai.

Seriously though, this from 'Mosley, Right or Wrong':

"Creative finance will have a bigger part to play than ever and can reap great rewards if it plays that great part in the national interest. All the traditional abilities of British finance and those of other European centres will be required to develop new enterprises in Europe and its overseas territories. This can provide them with bigger opportunities and in the end - when basic needs are satisfied - with bigger reward than the present speculative scramble within a dying system. Provided they so operate within the European system, banking and finance will be free. There will be no need to control these forces, once we have removed their power to take money from the country, which we shall do by creating a self-contained system insulated from world markets. After that, the energies of finance can only assist the country. It will get its reward from creative work and not from wrecking trade or government."

The incentive of profit would be retained for the creation of new enterprises ... which, when large enough, would be syndicalised.