first published in mid-January 1999 by Roger Warren Evans

SOCIALISTS UNDERSTAND that "the economy" embraces every aspect of our lives together, every monetary and barter transaction, every tax and its deployment, every benefit, every gift and every kindness. The distinction sometimes drawn between the "market sector" and the "public" sector is entirely false, a capitalist deceit. Both sectors form part of an indissoluble whole. Indeed, it is the public sector which, through law and government action, provides the entire framework for the trading sector, the so-called "market economy".

THE MATERIAL SUCCESS of a society is a reflection of the skills and commitment of its members, not the other way around. For it is people, not capital, who drive the global economy. What matters above all is the capacity of each member of society to earn an appropriate living, in a diverse . global market-place. For many, that living must now be earned in a variety of different ways, by way of full-time or part-time employment, through self-employment or business enterprise, or a combination varying from time to time. English speaking, egalitarian, tolerant, classless, and they need assistance. Our people must learn to compete more effectively by giving higher priority to trading success. Wales must become a trading nation.

THE PROVINCE OF WALES must be built from within. For decades, the Labour Party has focused on Westminster. Young politicians have aspired to a London career. Trade unionists have striven to take command of the levers of primary legislation, as a means of re-balancing the injustices of the capitalist market place. Loyal local Party supporters have laboured to secure a place, for their representative, in the Westminster sun.

IT WILL NOT BE EASY for Labour in Wales to generate an entirely new focus, a new socialist perspective. But that is precisely the challenge to the Party. Labour in Wales, while keeping faith with the UK Labour movement, should chart its own socialist path, as a self-governing province within a sovereign state. Cardiff must not be conceived as a sub-committee of Parliament Square. The socialism of the new province of Wales must be built from within

THIS IS TRUE of every sector. In economic development, Wales should move away from top-down systems of grant-dependency: new trading talents should be developed from within, among those who seek to live and work in Wales. In each succeeding generation, a higher proportion of talented teenagers should be encouraged to enter the trading sector, giving high priority to business and to trading success. Incoming firms should be attracted to Wales by their prospects of trading success, not the availability of grant.

FOR INDIVIDUAL WORKERS, the new disciplines of portfolio employment should be taught and explained. The inventiveness of the voluntary sector should also be cherished, and cultivated, within the communities of Wales. In the arts, examples already abound of the potential of Welsh talent, and it will be the special responsibility of Labour to foster those talents. Wales as a country seeks sporting success, and our young seek the fulfilment of sporting achievement. That success, and that achievement, will be found from within

. P0LITICAL PHILOSOPHIES are about values, about priorities. But no political party can escape the routine disciplines of organisation, and their impact upon Party members. Modern mass democracies have generated the need for organised parties, and continue to exert the most powerful influence upon the political systems which they serve. When the first Labour MPs entered the Commons in 1906, there was no Party structure at all: there were simply 56 MPs to whom the adjective Labour was commonly (and in some cases, controversially) applied. There was no such thing as "Party membership", either in the Commons or in the country; the same was true of other political groupings, the Liberals and the Tories.

THAT INFORMALITY has gone for ever. Without the coalescence of politicians into Party groupings, each attracting their own "Party supporters" in the country, and without an acceptance of the informal disciplines which they engender, informal democracies easily descend into anarchy, or give way to more formal military or religious forms of organisation. Political parties are often unattractive and unforgiving organisations, but they are preferable to any known alternative.

FOR WALES, the creation of new political structures within each Party, within the Assembly and throughout the province, will pose a real challenge to the new political cadre. But for Labour, the challenge will be acute. . For Labour does not have a tradition of openness, in Party matters: the Party has not yet comes to terms with its own mass membership and how members are to be engaged in the work of the Party, when Labour is in government. In fashioning the new Welsh constitution, Labour in Wales should make a fresh start.

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