Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Public Information Films, Part One
The Nanny State is a government that regulates the private lives of its citizens. It's a pejorative term, used by British Tories to castigate the Labour government for laws against things like smoking and speeding. It infers that, if the Left gets power, it will curtail your civil liberties.
The Nanny State label gets selectively applied to a government that, in any case, is indistinguishable from the Tories. The British state curtails the liberties of young people through ASBOs, detains terror suspects for 28 days without charge and shoots the liberties out of Iraqis and Afghani citizens. But the Nanny designation ignores state oppression and focuses on individual behaviour.
The term contains a kernel of truth: once upon a time, the British government did try to tell its subjects what to do. It began making Public Information Films (PIFs) at the end of World War Two on a wide range of topics, from colonial policy to new suburbs. As they reached their heyday in the 1970s, PIFs focused on personal advice and safety.
A still from Fatal Floor
To understand why the British state decided to 'nanny' its citizens, it's important to understand the political context. The state faced pressure from employers to modernize, promote investment and train a higher-skilled workforce. From below, workers', tenants' and community movements demanded control over production, better services and more representative government. As Cynthia Cockburn argues in The Local State,
The government's response was corporatism: creating the conditions of capital accumulation, but through balancing the interests of workers and businesses. Buzzwords like consultation, participation and stake-holder were born.
In our era, the terms morphed into excuses for neoliberalism: justifying cutbacks and restructuring by getting workers to take part in them. But in the 70s, the 'cradle-to-grave' welfare state hadn't been dismantled. Government was eager to show it took an active role in the lives of its subjects.
This makes sense for two reasons. Firstly, there's no point modernizing the technical infrastructure of a country - creating faster cars, installing transformer stations, and so on - if your subjects are going to stumble into or in front of them. If capital is going to be more productive, the state must reproduce the next generation of workers. Those workers have to know how to use the home appliances and machine tools they're supplied with.
Secondly, the class struggle was at an impasse. British workers had achieved huge gains in the 1970s, achieving control over workplaces in some actions. There were glimmerings of revolution. The state needed to show that it cared - not simply as a jailguard, but as a guide, mentor and caretaker. As a nanny.
Public Information Films, shown on TV commercial breaks, accomplished both tasks.
Tomorrow: the dark underside of Public Information Films.
The Nanny State label gets selectively applied to a government that, in any case, is indistinguishable from the Tories. The British state curtails the liberties of young people through ASBOs, detains terror suspects for 28 days without charge and shoots the liberties out of Iraqis and Afghani citizens. But the Nanny designation ignores state oppression and focuses on individual behaviour.
The term contains a kernel of truth: once upon a time, the British government did try to tell its subjects what to do. It began making Public Information Films (PIFs) at the end of World War Two on a wide range of topics, from colonial policy to new suburbs. As they reached their heyday in the 1970s, PIFs focused on personal advice and safety.
A still from Fatal Floor
To understand why the British state decided to 'nanny' its citizens, it's important to understand the political context. The state faced pressure from employers to modernize, promote investment and train a higher-skilled workforce. From below, workers', tenants' and community movements demanded control over production, better services and more representative government. As Cynthia Cockburn argues in The Local State,
Since its inception workers have gradually come to recognize that social welfare is part of their wage – the ‘social wage’ – and to press for increased provision…. Second, as technology advances capital requires a more highly specialised and trained workforce…. For capital to increase its productivity it must tend to socialise (that is to turn into a collective activity) the general conditions of capitalist accumulation. (63)
The government's response was corporatism: creating the conditions of capital accumulation, but through balancing the interests of workers and businesses. Buzzwords like consultation, participation and stake-holder were born.
In our era, the terms morphed into excuses for neoliberalism: justifying cutbacks and restructuring by getting workers to take part in them. But in the 70s, the 'cradle-to-grave' welfare state hadn't been dismantled. Government was eager to show it took an active role in the lives of its subjects.
This makes sense for two reasons. Firstly, there's no point modernizing the technical infrastructure of a country - creating faster cars, installing transformer stations, and so on - if your subjects are going to stumble into or in front of them. If capital is going to be more productive, the state must reproduce the next generation of workers. Those workers have to know how to use the home appliances and machine tools they're supplied with.
Secondly, the class struggle was at an impasse. British workers had achieved huge gains in the 1970s, achieving control over workplaces in some actions. There were glimmerings of revolution. The state needed to show that it cared - not simply as a jailguard, but as a guide, mentor and caretaker. As a nanny.
Public Information Films, shown on TV commercial breaks, accomplished both tasks.
Tomorrow: the dark underside of Public Information Films.
Labels: corporatism, nanny state, propaganda, Public Information Films
