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THE PLACE OF THE RULING CLASS IN BRITISH HISTORY
If the working class is to become the ruling class in a socialist society it must be capable of ruling.
To be capable of ruling, a class must have a clear understanding of what elements in the society ensure its survival and development and how they do so. The problem for a ruling class is to protect those elements and permit the process of development to continue. It is when the ruling class fails to do so that the government and laws break down. The elements of the society are then laid bare and those parts of it which are necessary for survival and development prove their necessity through victory in the conflict resulting from the breakdown of law and order.
We can see this process in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The English ruling class (consisting of the aristocracy, landed gentry, merchants and manufacturers) had recognised in the sixteenth century that capitalism was economically superior to feudalism and that for the continuing survival and development of society it was necessary for capitalism to be given full scope. In the 17th century in the conflict between the Crown and Parliament, the ruling class were united in opposing the royal prerogative: the King's right to put his interests above those of society. They saw that the monarchy had a function: to act as the head of the Executive arm of Government - no more and no less than this. The Civil War was fought not because a section of the ruling class were reactionary and hanging onto an outworn social epoch, but because there was disagreement about what political form would best ensure the development of capitalism. The question of support for capitalism and the social relations arising from it was never an issue.
The necessity for a central executive power was proved in the Protectorate when Oliver Cromwell functioned as the monarch - exercising more 'royal prerogative' than Charles I ever dared. The difference was that Cromwell used his prerogative in accordance with the needs of society. He continually attempted to re-establish other political forms in the society: the House of Lords, Parliament, an established Church. He was unable to do so because the gentry and the capitalists withheld their consent from his regime; they tolerated it because they lacked sufficient power to both overthrow him and construct a stable political form. Nevertheless his reign was successful: capitalism prospered under him. The Restoration proved that the section of the ruling class who had argued the necessity of the monarchy had been correct. The refounding of the monarchy was a progressive step in British history because it allowed for the continuing political and economic development of society. The regicide and usurper Cromwell continued to be revered by the British monarchist ruling class. When the Bradford capitalists constructed their town hall in the 19th century they put a statue of Cromwell in its rightful place in between the other kings of England.
A 'pure' bourgeois democracy advocated by the Levellers was impossible because it made no provision for the administration or organisation of social needs. Its advocates argued that 'the will of the people' was sufficient: once that was determined the rest would be bound to follow. Its opponents argued that unless the institutions and mechanisms for social survival and development were intact, the people's will could not be expressed: it would remain at the level of will ... the needs of the society would remain needs, incapable of being met. This indeed is the meaning of anarchy, when the needs of the society are not accounted for by the institutions of the society. The raw materials are there (producers and means of production) but the means of organising those are not. It is important to recognise that no section of the English ruling class seriously disputed the society's 'right' to develop itself: indeed they recognised that development was only a 'right' because it was necessary. What was at issue was how it could be done without jeopardising society itself.
The establishment of William and Mary on the English throne is defined for history as the Glorious Revolution. How can an affirmation of royalty be termed a revolution? How could the late l8th century Whigs (Burke,Grey, Fox) find in this act an affirmation of the bourgeois principles of Liberty or Freedom? The answer is clear to anyone who looks at history dialectically. The meaning of an institution can only be ascertained in watching how that institution interacts with the society which is its base. It is a dialectical interaction; no social institution exists independently of society. In England the monarchy provided the basis for the democratic development of society. After the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution had formally and consciously established the principle of constitutional monarchy, not only was the Crown not despotic (the royal will prevailing in the society whether or not it met the society's needs) it was also not conditional absolutism (the royal will obeyed if it accorded with social needs and revolted against when it did not). The Crown was the nominal head of the administrative apparatus necessary to translate social needs into practice; it also was the nominal head of the ideological apparatus necessary to pose the questions of the society's needs and development in a conscious way to the people. The institution of the monarchy did nothing more.
The history of the development of capitalism in Germany shows that it is certainly unnecessary to allow for the democratic development of society in order to develop it socially and economically. German capitalism became a serious competitor of Britain in the 1880s. The progressive English capitalists saw clearly that the German methods of production and social administration were not only more scientific than the British, but in many cases more humane (child labor had never been permitted in Germany). The German institutions certainly resembled the British - she also seemed to be a constitutional monarchy. The difference lies in the relation of the political institutions to the society itself. In Germany the Crown and its government took the measure of the society and based their measures accordingly. Parliament did not register the final result of the society's deliberations, arguments, struggles on an issue - it was rather the vehicle of the government which registered the results of the government's analysis and judgment of the society. The difference is not in the institutions and cannot be discerned from their formal similarities or dissimilarities. Nor can it be discerned by the formal relation between the instituion and the society. The German Parliament was democratically elected. The difference can only be seen dialectically, through the working out of history. When World War I had forced Germany into a state of anarchy, the society proved incapable of reconstructing its old institutions or of constructing new ones. Without the existence of a conscious Executive, the society could not function. Neither the bourgeoisie or the working class were capable of constituting such a conscious Executive. In Germany because there had been no need for consciousness and political development apart from the Executive, that Executive had made no provision to let the component parts of the society develop in this way. Yet German absolutism had been as effective an instrument of social organisation as British democracy for capitalism.