LEWIS COSER
79
seem to see no reason why they should stay behind in the
scram~le
to
keep up. It's everyone, or at least every group, for itself. The ship of
state isn't sinking, of course, but people
try
to make sure that they
have a lifeboat seat. When I recently opened an account at a British
bank, the manager told me, "Don't exchange too many dollars now,
the pound is weak, will get weaker, and won't stabilize maybe for
the next four years or so ." Such advice to a visiting American, I
submit, would have been considered unthinkably unpatriotic even a
few years ago.
While the Labour government is supposed to muddle through
until the North Sea oil-expected to redress the balance of payments
and to stop the hemorrhage of the pound-begins to flow, the
Labour left also muddles through and suffers from a dearth of fresh
ideas. Key members of the old Left now sit on the front benches and
accept, though often reluctantly, government discipline. Oth.ers have
muted their criticism as the big unions, at least temporarily, have
swung behind Wilson's social contract. What remains is a New Left
increasingly made up of students and young professionals who talk in
the jargon of Frankfort school Marxism, totally unintelligible to the
average Labour Party supporter. And Ian Mikardo and the remainder
of the
Tr£bune
group's stalwarts sound stale, clamoring that there is
nothing on the British scene that further nationalizations, still higher
wages, and, perhaps, import controls won't be able to cure.
The Liberals hope for greater parliamentary influence through
proportional representation. But since the Tories have just un–
mistakenly indicated that they aren't interested, the Liberals are
likely to linger on in a state of utter political and ideological
confusion, trying to be all things to all men, women, and children.
The Tories, in contrast, under the guidance of their new leader,
Mrs. Thatcher, have decided at their recent conference to move firmly
into the nineteenth century . While Gerald Ford may not be suf–
ficiently emphatic in his allegiance to free enterprise to please a
Milton Friedman or a Senator Goldwater, the New Tories leave no
doubt as to the totality of their commitment. They are shouting from
the roof tops that they will no longer be an echo and that their voice
will be that of unrestrained Manchesterian capitalism. One may
admire the courage of this return to first principles, of un–
reconstructed reaction replacing the half-hearted welfare state philos-
