nothing to halt it.
Scotland foreshadows what will hit vast sections of the British working class as the process of economic decay and capitalist concentration of industry around the Midlands and the South East accelerates-a process speeded up, but not fundamentally changed, by membership of the Common Market. But Scotland shows more than this. The discovery which, if exploited in a planned way, could bring the greatest promise of change-North Sea oil-has resulted instead in the greatest explosion of unstable multi-national investment yet seen in Britain. It has also given rise to a situation unparalleled in the rest of Britain, where the major capitalist party, the Scottish Nationalist Party, has opposed the Common Market. BACK-DOOR DEAL The importance of this fact is that the SNP, far from swelling the ranks of those fighting the multi-nationals, is doing a backdoor deal with the oil monopolies and their financiers to strengthen the multi-nationals. This gave the Labour anti-Marketeers in Scotland a particular duty to understand and explain clearly the nature of the Market, its origins, the alternatives, and the way in which the fight against it must be conducted. Instead, despite the united opposition of the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish TUC, the "lefts' not only failed to organise a united campaign against the Market, but they did not even recognise the measures necessary to conduct the real fight: against the multi-nationals.
The real enemy is well known to Scottish workers. Singer, Plessey, Honeywell, Timex, ITT and Hoover are household names. Every one of them has seen major battles over pay and conditions, or has introduced lay-offs and short-time working. In two successive, protracted strikes, ITT virtually closed down their STC factory in East Kilbride to get rid of the militants. Every time a new pay claim threatens Chrysler, the American managers are roped in to announce that the factory will close if the trouble continues. The power which Chrysler possesses is enormous: before they would come to Scotland they got a special agreement guaranteeing them a certain percentage of CADULLS ALTERNATIVE Scottish workers have been caught in a crossfire between America, Europe and the Middle East. Foreign and multi-national control of industry is far higher in Scotland than the rest of Britain, and is still rising. Yet a whole section of the capitalist class in Scotland, spearheaded by the Scottish Nationalist Party, is seeking an alternative outside the Market.
The SNP has now replaced the Tory Party as the main ruling class party in Scotland. Sir Hugh Fraser, Sir William Lithgow, and Lord Clydesmuir have given the SNP far more than respectability. They have put the backing of Scotland's main capitalists squarely behind the Nationalists, and they have lined up the important finance companies involved in oil-Noble Grossart, Edward Bates, and the Scottish banks. They have made the Oil Connection for the SNP, enabling its influence to grow in capitalist circles to the extent that SNP leaders like William Wolfe tour North America and speak with Kissinger and Kennedy, while the Arab states in OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum and Exporting Countries) of Scotland began-in textiles, engineering, steel and even coal-Scotland has alternatively suffered as a 'distressed", 'depressed' and now 'development' area. High unemployment and poor housing, low wages, a high net emigration and atrocious social services and conditions have been the lot of three generations of Scottish workers. The ravages of industrial development and decline are a direct result of the blind and irrational way in which the capitalist economic system works-and Labour Governments along with Labour-controlled councils have done OPEC meetings with equal status to the governments of other countries!
The SNP has opposed the EEC at the same time as it paints a sham picture of an independent Scotland, using North Sea oil to bargain with the world. More dangerous still, a whole section of the Labour Party in Scotland-the devolutionists-have been using very similar arguments. Both call for a Scottish Assembly because they believe the solution to the crisis in Scotland lies through the use of North Sea oil.
MONOPOLIES
The SNP propose the private ownership of oil in a Scottish capitalist economy. The Labour Party official policy is for the private ownership of oil within a British capitalist economy. The Scottish Labour Party Executive, which took a strong stand against devolution, proposes the full public ownership of the oil and oil-related industries-a substantially different attitude.
The attitude of the SNP and the proposals of the Labour Party do not differ in one fundamental respect-the oil remains in the hands of the oil monopolies. The propaganda of the SNP is thus based on a huge and monstrous lie. The slogan 'It's Scotland's Oil' is a meaningless con, because it hides the fact that the oil is neither England's nor Scotland's but belongs to the international oil monopolies.
The most illuminating insight on what the SNP is up to is provided by the way it has changed its position on the Common Market. Three years ago its position was No Voice, No Vote, which meant it was not opposed to the Common Market, but would campaign against Britain going in because Scotland could not decide for itself whether or not it wanted to go in. But this was before the SN's links with the oil monopolies were consolidated.
Unlike the rest of the capitalist class in Britain, the SP's backers are not after effective competition with American capital through protection against it, but after collaboration with it. In the case of Edward Bates, new whizz-kid merchant bankers, the process has gone even further. Bates' chairman, in his last annual report, announced that profits were down on the previous year. The reason for this, he said, was that investment prospects in Scotland were not adequate.
There was no room for expansion for all the capital (Bates expanded from £2.5 million to £24.5 million between 1969 and 1972)
they had amassed. They were going to invest it ... in America!
CAPITAL EXPORTED This follows an all too familiar pattern.
The problem for the Scottish economy has never been the amount of capital owned or controlled by or through Scottish bodies.
Scotland is the home of one-third of Britain's investment trusts, one-sixth of all life insurance companies, and a substantial part of the unit trust and savings movement. But of all the capital raised in Scotland (capital raised per head of population is higher in Scotland than the rest of Britain), one-third was invested in the USA and nearly-all the rest abroad.
(The Banker, May 1974).
The backers of the SNP are not interested in prosperity for the Scottish working class. branches in Scotland. capitalism. ment in Scotland for Scottish capitalists. Their job is to pass on the capital generated or sent into Scotland and invest it where it will make the most profit. They are the 'fences' for the super-profits of the oil monopolies, and the fact that they live in Scotland in no way means they will store their goods there.
These events also demonstrate the real nature of the threat posed by the EEC. It is not, as the Labour left' would have us believe, the threat to British "sovereignty". It lies in the fact that the big firms, the big industries, the big monopolies that dominate the lives of most workers have become international. The threat to the working class comes from the fact that these companies want to use institutions like the EEC to strengthen themselves against the world working class PAWN The SN's strategy is the strengthening of the multi-nationals by a different road. They gave the game away when they were interviewed by the Scotsman for the April "Oil Register'. They said, in answer to a question as to what they saw as the relation between oil and Europe, that Scotland should use its oil resources to obtain special trading agreements with the EEC and the European Free Trade Area countries. This means that the oil companies will use Scotland as a pawn to get the trading agreements they wantwillingly assisted by the multi-nationals with The devolutionists take exactly the same position when they back the Labour left's policy of 'special trading agreements' as the alternative to the Market, accompanied by import and exchange controls. Import and exchange controls can be avoided by the multi-nationals transferring. money and products 'internally', and provide no protection against the anarchy of the world market. The "lefts' take this wrong position because they believe that parliamentary institutions, be they British Parliament or the Scottish Assembly, can possess the powers to deal with Nothing reveals the sham character of the tional industry. nronosed Assemhlv and the weaknecs of the lefts, more than the fate of the policies which have already been used, and which t Labour left and the TUC so earnestly back against the EEC - its regional policy The Labour Government particularly encouraged American investment in Scotla in the 1960s. In a situation where the num of pits dropped from 166 to 47, and the number of miners from 83,000 to 39,000 between 1958 and 1968, and where the nu THE SOCIALIS The development of offshore oil could. in opportunity for the workers of Scotland and I the oil reserves could help to satisfy the energ working class, but of workers throughout the It would enormously extend the lifetime o emergence of a whole range of oil-related and astable base for the long term employment o onment and of social amenities and housing c their families in Scotland particularly in a p starvation of the regions and allocate necessars But a planned economy would have to be taking into account the overalf and long term carried out. This would mean at least ensurin • the effect on jobs in existing industries of il energy-related industries, ship-building and so • the creation of housing and a stable commu •the effecis of investment on amenities and t ion, preserving the environment ete to car oursuca pramming l wowd be ne tax concessions to the multi-nationals, and ute controls, and occasional free trade agreements •the nationalisation without compensation at industries and the drawing up of an integrated Ion of North Sea oil. •the nationalisation of basic industries and ch as part of an integrated plan for the siting of in provision of social and other services in the Se • the nationalisation of the banks and finance ment for these projects •complete control of all foreign trade and the countries •the development of international working el the basis for a workers" plan on a European sc Market for a United Socialist Europe. ber of yards on the Clyde fell from 17 to three with the loss of 15,000 jobs in the same period, Labour's regional policy had the effect not only of accelerating this decline in traditional industry, but also in replacing it with a lesser amount of unstable, multi-naFurthermore. this investment has done
oil monopolies