LONDON — The idea that Britain has a "dot com" economy got a severe jolt with the week-long protests outside the oil depots, which brought the country to a complete stop. It became rapidly apparent that, to function, every aspect of industry and commerce needed transport, a very material thing, which any number of electronic pulses down telephone lines just couldn't supply.
Protests over petrol prices, sparked by a similar wave of protest in France, came from a new alliance of truckers and farmers, and shook New Labour to the core. But the protests were effective because the petrol tanker drivers refused to cross the picket lines. This reflected huge public support — more than 90% in most opinion polls — for the cause of lowering the 70%-plus taxation on petrol.
As widely commented, the vast array of anti-strike laws was useless in dealing with this protest, because there was no industrial dispute. The protests outside the oil depots were aimed at the government and not the oil companies. The tanker drivers refused to cross the blockades because they agreed with the protests, not because they were "intimidated".
The Trades Union Congress, meeting in glorious irrelevancy in Glasgow, immediately denounced the protesters and chimed in behind Labour government ministers in demanding "parliamentary democracy" be allowed to function free of "outside interference".
Green groups also bitterly opposed the protests on the grounds that petrol prices should be kept high, to discourage car use, with its consequent damage to the environment.
Many commentators noted that the protesters were a potential "Poujadist" movement — a populist petty-bourgeois movement — and that the independent truckers and farmers were likely to be in the van of anti-Europe and anti-Euro campaigns.
At first blush then, there was not much to support in the protests from a socialist perspective. Surely the right to cheap or cheaper petrol, regarded as sacrosanct in the US, cannot possibly be defended by those who want to prioritise public transport, promote the use of the railways for freight, and defend the environment.
After all, didn't people notice that the cities were becoming havens of quiet and clean air, with people walking and cycling to work, or using public transport, which generally coped well with the extra demand? And didn't this demonstrate that Britain doesn't need Thatcher's "car culture" or thousands of trucks blocking up the streets?
In fact, knee-jerk hostility to the protest movement from greens and trade unionists is way off the mark, and totally fails to grasp the real causes and significance of the movement. Protests against the price of petrol were the tip of the iceberg of public resentment at the indefensible tax regime imposed by Tories and Labour alike — in one of the world's most expensive countries.
The move away from direct to indirect taxation has raised prices on virtually everything and helps rob most people of much of their disposable income — however low their income tax level is. Moreover, the truckers and farmers were right to protest against the insanely high level of petrol tax. The majority of the population rely on road transport in some aspect of their lives.
Of course, leftists and greens are opposed to that and want a sane integrated transport system which prioritises public transport — preferably environmentally friendly forms of transport like trams, trolley buses and trains. But the reality is that, in the here and now, the very high price of public and private transport is intensified by the petrol tax scam.
Most car owners, who rely on their motors for taking the kids to school, shopping and going to work, are workers, not well-heeled professionals or capitalists. High-priced petrol of course impacts harshly on truckers and farmers.
But why should socialists worry in the least about these "petty-bourgeois" small business people — whether they have public support or not? The answer is that the "petty-bourgeois" character of these people is a very complex question, which the left has to study properly.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, de-nationalisation, de-regulation and outsourcing created big new layers of small businesses — people who 40 years ago would be working for a company were forced into becoming independent operators. A haulier who owns one truck may scientifically speaking be "petty bourgeois", but s/he will often struggle to make ends meet, let alone make a profit.
Equally, the situation of small farmers is in many areas totally desperate. They are cruelly squeezed by the supermarkets and the food companies who buy their produce. High food prices are not preventing many small farmers from going to the wall. Paying exorbitant sums just to be able to run their tractors adds insult to injury.
In this situation, it is utterly foolish for the trade unions to simply denounce the protest movement. Protests led by the petty bourgeoisie often will find reactionary leadership and forms of expression — if the labour movement and the left stand aside or oppose them.
Isn't that an absolutely obvious and fundamental lesson of Marxism? That the political representatives of the working class have to put forward solutions for the crisis of the petty bourgeoisie, squeezed and ruined by the monopoly bourgeoisie?
Public support for the petrol protests was also deepened by the fact that, for most ordinary people, government taxation seems like a bottomless pit, with few discernible benefits. The health service and social services just seem to get worse. What are people paying these very high levels of tax, especially Value Added Tax at 17.5%, for? For the endless amounts of money given to keep open the ridiculous Millennium Dome? What do the working class and the poor get out of all this?
There's another aspect of these protests, also widely commented on. This is, allegedly, boom time for British capitalism but, as everyone knows, the benefits are scooped up by the rich, with little "trickle down" to huge sections of the temporary, casualised and part-time workforce.
When the trade unions are cowed into immobility, when the labour movement is incapable of giving leadership to anyone about anything, then others will fill the vacuum.
But the left, especially the Marxist left, has to break from the old social-democratic nostrum that we like high taxes because they redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, and benefit health and social services.
High taxes in Britain redistribute income from the poor to the rich. Protests against taxes often mobilise a wide cross-section of the community, even sections of the petty bourgeoisie. That doesn't mean that socialists shouldn't support such protests when they are just; quite the opposite. Remember the poll tax?
BY PHIL HEARSE