We expected networks to deliver more protests against global capitalism,
of the sort that have just taken place in Melbourne - Congratulations!
But there are special reasons why networks have produced the cascade of
positive feedback leading to the petrol tax revolt in Britain.
The petrol blockade in Britain has developed as suddenly as the national
mourning over Diana, promoted by 24 hour news services. It has also been
lubricated by the new networking possiblilities of e-mail, fax, mobile
phones. It has a contagious sense of populist power against the powers that
be. Blair is now on the wrong side of that public perception.
The water had been tested with a Dump the Pump campaign earlier this year
calling on people to boycott garages on Mondays. That got nowhere but lay
the seeds of the idea. The techniques were ignited in Britain from
frustration about French blockades and stories of Britons getting held up.
The class base of the activists are small bourgeois and petty bourgeois
severely squeezed in the finance capitalist dominated economy, or at the
very least resentful at not being able to participate in the relative boom
in Britain. They are small farmers, or self employed haulage contractors or
employers of half a dozen to a dozen lorries. The are practising leaderless
resistance and therefore cannot be stopped by the laws that the Thatcher
government introduced and Blair maintained, against secondary picketing by
formal organisations. The drivers of the petrol tankers are sympathetic and
agree at every opportunity not to cross the picket lines.
The Trades Union Congress has deplored the risk to jobs.
By contrast the revolt against the poll tax leading up to 1989 was
spearheaded by the lumpen proletariat, living on benefits and able to
organise and sacrifice their liberty over several years.
The current petrol blockade is an object lesson in how finely
interdependent a modern economy is for the circulation of goods and
services. Just an interruption of a few days has led one of the biggest
supermarket chains to declare that it will be out of food in seven to 10
days - a symptom of the "just-in-time" system of miniminsing circulating
capital by reducing unnecessary stock levels.
The high petrol tax in Britain was started by the Conservative chancellor
Lamont, and added to with the "fuel escalator" of Ken Clarke. The Labour
government had already stepped back from continuing the latter. But in the
competition with the Conservatives to cut income tax, they have relied more
an more on indirect taxes. This has led the ratio of tax paid on petrol
that is startlingly high.
Western European governments however cannot immediately lower taxes on
petrol just because OPEC countries are increasing the price. This would
come close to a direct transfer of resources from western European
governments to oil producing countries to subsidise their share in the
energy market.
The overall picture of the world economy is that oil is becoming a rate
limiting factor for the Western European countries which has triggered a
dangerous tax revolt developing at non-linear speed. It will damage their
economies and make them less resilient compared to that of the USA, and
less able to protect themselves from rising oil prices in the future.
It is a popular revolt led by special sections of the petty bourgeoisie and
bourgeoisie. In that respect it is poujadist. There is also the sense that
the Conservative Party has been so weak that it does not present an
effective outlet for protest, so as in France the central government is
seen as massively strong and requiring a revolt of this nature to stop its
intentions.
The Labour government cannot negotiate with the revolt because the revolt
is leaderless. The government's hands are also tied by the delicate pattern
of figures of gross domestic product, gross tax receipts, and inflation
rate. The petrol blockade is so deflationary that to keep the balance it
probably now needs to release a sum of money equivalent to the perceived
excessive petrol taxes anyway. However it cannot be seen just to give into
them.
A victory for democracy and direct action? Yes.
But reactionary in the most literal sense of the word, spearheaded by
reactionary sectors of the economy, and without a strategy for the economic
future of Britain in a world in which the environment is already becoming
an obvious limiting factor.
Chris Burford
London
