In defending him against the malicious Daily Mail, Ed
Miliband tries to depict his father Ralph as a man who “loved Britain” while at
the same time distancing himself from his actual views.
The assumption that everyone has to love “their” country is,
of course, a patriotic, populist sentiment encouraged by the media and
political elites. Its purpose is to bind the whole population together behind
the state, especially in times of crisis.
"Your King and Country need you”, went the recruiting
slogan of World War I. All the parties supported it, including Labour. Millions
believed in it enough to volunteer to join what would be become a human
slaughter house on the battlefields of Europe.
For Ed Miliband to suggest that because his father fought in
World War II he “loved his country”, is plainly wrong. In the main, British
soldiers fought for self-preservation, for their comrades and communities
against the Nazis. It was possible to fight without “loving your country”.
Many had spent years on the dole, living in appalling
housing with no health service while the political elites were oblivious to
their plight. What was there, for these soldiers, to “love” about this
class-divided Britain?
As for the notion that World War II was a “war for
democracy” against fascism, that was simply not the case. The British ruling
classes flirted with the Nazis for six years before war broke out. Rothermere’s
Daily Mail found much to admire in Hitler’s Germany. A whole group favoured a
separate peace with Hitler after hostilities began and they almost prevailed
inside the cabinet.
For the ruling class, it was above all a war to preserve the
British empire and, in line with foreign policy down the centuries, an effort
to prevent one European power from dominating the continent.
It’s hard to believe that Ralph Miliband “loved his country”
in an unthinking way, in the fashion that his son describes. Of course, he was
grateful for being allowed in as a Jewish refugee. But as his political
thinking developed, he could never espouse a concept that is embraced mainly by
the right wing.
As a Marxist academic, he understood the significance of
class in capitalist societies like Britain. In place of an abstract “country”
there was a society divided along class lines, where interests did not coincide
but were in constant conflict.
In 1983, Ralph Miliband wrote an essay called “State Power
and Class Interests”. This took up the issues of the state in relation to the
rule of capital, which had recently become the subject of intense debate in
Marxist academic circles. He wrote:
“… The contradictions and shortcomings of capitalism, and
the class pressures and social tensions this produces, require the state to
assume an ever more pronounced role in the defence of the social order. The end
of that process is one form or another
of ‘Bonapartism’. Meanwhile, it makes for a steady inflation of state power
within the framework of a capitalist-democratic order whose democratic features
are under permanent threat from the partnership of state and capital.”
This “partnership” is what his son wants to develop under
the populist umbrella of "One Nation Labour". As he says in his own
article in the Mail: “I want to make capitalism work for working people, not
destroy it.”
But how on earth can a system that is run for profit, for
the benefit of shareholders and funders, ever do what Miliband junior wants?
Even if we all declared that we “loved our country”, the real world would
confirm that Ralph Miliband was right and his son 100% wrong.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
