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YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT is spiraling out of control. Last November saw a record number of young people without a job. Nearly one in five 16 to 24-year-olds are claiming Jobseeker's Allowance. It represents the highest rate of youth unemployment since records began in 1971.
These youngsters join a total of around two-and-a-half million unemployed. And things don’t look any brighter for the foreseeable future. Factory closures - throwing hundreds of workers onto the dole – still seem to be the order of the day.
Solidarity Trade Union has put forward several ideas to tackle youth unemployment – including meaningful training schemes, apprenticeships and jobs.
Solidarity National Executive member David Durant has also called for:
“a massive jobs creation programme. Virtually every day we hear that our public services are at breaking point. So why not train up more doctors, nurses and other health care workers? Why not train more lecturers and teachers?
We also need an emergency programme of national works. This would include re-building our transport infrastructure, cleaning up our towns and cities, making all dwellings fit and habitable and tending to the land”.
Mr. Durant also proposed lowering the age of retirement:
“Why not let workers retire earlier – and pay them an adequate pension – so that we can combat this chronic youth unemployment?”
The idea of an emergency programme of national works has interested many Solidarity members and supporters. What would it involve? How would it work? Could it be implemented? Indeed, could some form of conscription – basically a non-military form of national service – help to solve youth unemployment?
One book that attempts to answer these questions is The ABC of the Welsh Revolution. It was written by Derrick Hearne – and published by Y Lolfa, Talybont, in 1982 – from a radical Welsh nationalism point of view.
This book is worthy of in-depth study. It deals with subjects of great interest to trade unionists – such as communism, community benefit, free collective bargaining, monetarism, capitalism, nationalisation and trade unions themselves.
Before looking at Hearne’s ideas on conscription, they need to be put into context. To do this we can do no better than quote from the The ABC of the Welsh Revolution:
“Wales today is near extinction. Economically exploited, culturally divided and psychologically destroyed, she is a wasteland on the edges of Europe. Few imagine that change is possible; fewer that an actual solution exists to her enormous problems.
This book is about that solution. Rejecting both Communism and Capitalism, transcending old left/right dichotomies and also traditional Welsh Nationalism, it describes Wales as a small, sovereign Community Benefit state.”
Hearne believed that - if Wales was to survive and to have a future - conscription was a necessity. Additionally, it was to be viewed not so much as military but as an economic expedient. Its principal beneficiary is not the state, but the community, to which the state is but a servant.
Hearne examined the circumstances in which his future Welsh Wales would inherit. The outlook was bleak: an ageing population, inflation, a serious shortage of skilled workers and a demand for unskilled labour, a chronic shortage of capital.
He was an early opposed of Globalism:
“If we open our frontiers to the free movement of labour, we will be flooded with immigrants. The free market would push up wages, particularly for unskilled labour, and we would experience what England has already experienced. The less attractive jobs, particularly in the service industries, are filled with immigrants. On cultural and social grounds, is this what we really want? The less attractive jobs in our community will be done by our own young people. It would seem that Welsh freedom is economically and culturally impossible without conscription. We may just as well kick against a gorse bush as attempt to ignore this. There is only one way in which cheap labour can be forthcoming. There is only one way in which trade unionists can guarantee high real wages for their adult members. There is only one way in which the rudiments of the Welsh language can be quickly re-introduced into the communal life of our young people. There is only one way in which the whole of the child-bearing population can be deliberately and systematically conditioned to Welsh loyalties. Finally, there is only one way to force a rampant and malicious fascism beyond our borders to hesitate before intervening to nip the co-operative society in the bud. The price of freedom is vigilance. That way is universal military conscription.”
He therefore called for conscription into “the Army of the Republic of all young men and women full time between 18 – 20 years” and conscription “of 14 free labour days every year from all able-bodied citizens up to the age of 60, to be directed by the neighbourhood council.”
The tasks of the full time conscript army were mainly social and economic. They included: care of the land, maintenance of the roads and railways, providing farm labour, and various environmental projects.
Hearne knew his ideas on conscription would be attacked. But what was the alternative? The infrastructure of his nationalist Wales would be built on a shoe-string. He saw no alternatives - other than conscription. “Let those who disagree show good cause.”
He saw conscription as a way of building a healthy community spirit. Indeed, Hearne declared that “conscription equals community” and “conscription is a tool in the re-creation of a spirit of community. This is a state of mind brought about by working together.”
He also believed that conscription would promote “such basic concepts as equality of the sexes, the social value of work, and neighbourly self-help. These attitudes are experienced, not taught. Conscription will become the last and most important link in the chain of public education. It is the basic qualification for Welsh citizenship.”
As noted earlier, Solidarity Trade Union believes that The ABC of the Welsh Revolution is worthy of in-depth study. As a free and autonomous nationalist Union, we are particularly interested in ideas that are “in direct antithesis to the theory and practice of capitalism and communism.”
His view, however, tended to be expressed in militaristic tones whereas,in our view, a non-coercive, non-militaristic version would find greater acceptance and support. A voluntary Youth Corp and Citizen Corp are ideas worthy of consideration.
We believe that Hearne’s idea of conscription, though wrongin several important respects, is thought-provoking, to say the least. Could it help start a debate as to how to solve the tragedy of youth unemployment?
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Comments
I think that there’s some merit in this idea of a non-military form of conscription/National Service. Sometimes radical problems need radical solutions. Hopefully, it can go some way in dealing with youth unemployment.
To me, it should not be seen as a form of slave labour or exploitation of our youth. I regard it as an anti-capitalist measure. It would do away with mass immigration as immigrants are exploited and tend to end up in lower-paid jobs.