Join the Worldwide Movement for Socialism!

By SocialistAlternative.org Capitalism is an international system in decay. Multinational corporations want to produce their products at the lowest possible costs. This overarching desire for short-term profit leads to low wages and crumbling benefits. On a world scale, the actions of the reckless massive energy companies and the waste of an ever-expanding global market have led to an environmental crisis of momentous proportions, resulting in the highest temperatures ever recorded, the melting of polar ice caps, and an increased intensity of storms. These global problems must be met with international solutions and a worldwide movement. Socialist Alternative stands in political solidarity with the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) – an organization in over 40 countries fighting for fundamental change – in arguing for a socialist transformation of society. The crisis of capitalism is reaching a dramatic phase, with more and more people looking for solutions to poverty, racism, sexism, declining benefits, environmental destruction, and mass unemployment. The root of these problems is a system that thrives on low wages, slashed social programs, and divide-and-rule tactics to attack oppressed people. The capitalist system provides no way out of this devastation. The super-rich put the pain caused by this crisis onto the backs of workers and youth by laying people off and cutting education, health care, and pay while at the same time bailing out the banks. Still, the crisis continues and deepens as the super-rich globally sit on trillions of dollars that they refuse to invest, while hundreds of millions of people lack jobs and the basic necessities of life to survive. The CWI and Socialist Alternative propose democratic socialism as a means to alleviate this madness. Socialism isn't about dictatorships, one-party states, or a loss of basic rights. Democratic socialism is about using the resources of society for the good of the vast majority rather than just for the profits of a few. Through democratic control of the resources of the top corporations, we could decide to invest in clean energy rather than environmental devastation. We could put all the unemployed to work and use new technology to reduce the working week without loss of pay rather than as a further weapon in the hands of the bosses to speed up the workforce and boost profits. We could decide to use our human potential for education, health care, and housing rather than war, discrimination, and waste. We support and demand improvements in the lives of ordinary people immediately, but we also realize that it will take mass movements to win reforms. Socialists participate in movements to inspire others that an alternative world can be built and that by mobilizing the tens of millions who have an interest in fighting for a new and better society we can build more powerful and dynamic movements. We need democratic structures in our movements and we need bold socialist demands so we can speak to all those pushed down by the capitalist system. In every movement, we need to realize that the capitalists will take away any positive gains we can win as long as we leave their power and control intact. Likewise, the rich and powerful would aim to isolate any people or country that moves in a socialist direction. The capitalists have a global market, and they don’t want anyone setting a “bad example” by using the resources of their country for the benefit of the 99% rather the rich elite. This is one reason why the CWI organizes internationally, to provide solidarity and support for movements worldwide and also to learn lessons from the struggles in Greece, South Africa, England, Brazil, and elsewhere. Internationally and in the U.S., working-class power can be built out of movements to defend our rights and fight for a better world. Democratic, fighting unions, new political movements of the 99%, and our protests in the streets can be the building blocks of a struggle for a socialist society. This means movements need to be linked up with a clear program of demands, and activists must learn from historic and international struggles. Through movements and political education, we can raise consciousness. The CEOs and big shareholders want us to think that they create the jobs and that we can’t survive without them. In truth, working people produce everything, provide all the services, and distribute everything. All the super-rich do is control the profits and work on ways to further exploit and divide us. In short, bosses need workers and we don’t need bosses. Taking the economy into the hands of working people can be the basis for providing full employment, countering environmental destruction, and starting the process of ending discrimination. Socialists have as our aim an end to the dictatorship of big business and the beginnings of a society based on real democracy and an end to oppression. Join Socialist Alternative and help build the growing movement against capitalist misery worldwide.

Crisis in the pub trade

This weekend I stepped in my local as you do for a few pints after a long tiring week to find the prices had gone up by 15p on all drinks. I knew a price rise was coming but 15p on drinks that already mostly cost over 3 quid. To me this is getting silly and is driving pubs into closure. You may ask why I care. I’m socialist and we oppose capitalist form of industry. Well for many having a drink with your mates at the weekend is still a working class past time and always has been walking out of the factory or pit gates in the 19th century and beyond and having ad rink with your work pals was a good way to end the day before going home to your family . To see this great industry be on its ass in many aspects is sad it will force more and more to come to the pubs less and spend less having a knock on affect. Breweries are often run for capitalist ends these days its big business I would propose bringing the breweries into democratic public control and removing the boss’s so that good quality cheap beer is available to working class people as and when they want it. I don’t buy this argument we must tax the hell out of people for drinking. There is a minority who do drink a lot regularly the media call it binge drinking but we have to look at the deeper social factors as to why some people revert to this more and more. Is there a lack of opportunities in their lives? Low pay? No jobs? Lack of a decent education? Could be many reasons caused by society and the pressures it bears on people especially young people. The great British pub is famous around the world it is something we should be proud of and look to protect. Our beers are some of the best in the world and the workers who work hard to produce this would be ideal to own and control production using the profits to reinvest in better technologies and to pay the workers who work for the pubs and breweries a decent living wage and once that blind drive for-profit is eliminated the price of good beer can come down dramatically to be once again affordable to the many not just the few. In a socialist society peoples past times will be affordable and open to all not use as a profit making exersise by the boss’s like we have now.

Greece, attempts to run factories under democratic workers control

The following is a statement from supporters of the Vio.Me workers’ union, which was translated on the excellent From The Greek Streets blog: Occupy, Resist, Produce! “We see this as the only future for workers' struggles.” Makis Anagnostou, Vio.Me workers’ union spokesman Tuesday, February 12, 2013 is the official first day of production under workers control in the factory of Viomichaniki Metalleutiki (Vio.Me) in Thessaloniki, Greece. This means production organized without bosses and hierarchy, and instead planned with directly democratic assemblies of the workers. The workers assemblies have declared an end to unequal division of resources, and will have equal and fair remuneration, decided collectively. The factory produces building materials, and they have declared that they plan to move towards a production of these goods that is not harmful for the environment, and in a way that is not toxic or damaging. “With unemployment climbing to 30% – sick and tired of big words, promises and more taxes – not having been paid since May 2011, the workers of Vio.Me, by decision of the general assembly of the union declare their determination not to fall prey to a condition of perpetual unemployment, but instead to take the factory in their own hands to operate themselves. It is now time for worker’s control of Vio.Me.!” (Statement of the Open Solidarity Initiative, written together with the workers of Vio.Me – full statement: Viome.org) Workers in Vio.Me stopped being paid in May of 2011, and subsequently the owners and managers abandoned the factory. After a series of assemblies the workers decided that together they would run the factory. Since then, they have occupied and defended the factory and the machinery needed for production. They have continued to reach out to other workers and communities throughout Greece, receiving tremendous support. The solidarity and support of all of these groups, communities and individuals, has made an important contribution towards the survival of the workers and their families thus far. This experience of worker’s occupation to workers recovery and control is not new – either historically or currently. Since 2001 there are close to 300 workplaces that are run democratically by workers in Argentina, ranging from health clinics and newspapers and schools, to metal factories, print shops and a hotel. The experience there has shown that workers together cannot only run their own workplace, but can do it better. The example of Argentina has spread throughout the Americas, and now to Europe and the US. In Chicago, workers of New World Windows have begun production under workers control after years of struggles with former owners and bosses. And now in Greece, workers are again showing that the way forward – out of unemployment – refusing the crisis – is workers control and directly democratic self-management. “We urge all workers, the unemployed and all those who are affected by the crisis to stand by the workers of Vio.Me and support them in their effort to put in practice the belief that workers can make it without bosses! To participate in the struggle and organize their own fights within their work places, with directly democratic procedures and without bureaucrats.” (Union’s website: biom-metal.blogspot.gr) As with all factory recuperations, the question of initial financing is central. While solidarity has been able to maintain the lives of the workers of Vio.Me and their families, the capital needed to continue production is huge. The workers’ union has a business plan that is sustainable, but will take time to get off the ground. These first months are crucial. Financial help can make all the difference. Any contribution is helpful. Direct financial support can be sent to the Vio.Me workers’ union in Thessaloniki through the International Solidarity Website: viome.org Solidarity Statements as well as questions can be sent to: protbiometal@gmail.com Signed, Thessaloniki Solidarity Initiative, Brendan Martin (Working World), Dario Azzellini and Marina Sitrin

RMT step up campaign for renationalisation of the railways

Support for bringing the railways back into public ownership is as strong as it’s ever been. The case to bring railways back in-house is something the RMT union and others have been demanding for years. The campaign is building momentum all the time. TUSC is committed to bringing the railways back in to public ownership but disgracefully the Labour party still will not commit to pledging to bring the rail back in house. The cost of running the railway has increased since privatisation when Tory propaganda said costs would fall. Fares have risen 50% in ten years, and are up to ten times higher than in other parts of Europe. A rail season ticket is a major item of expenditure. Freight charges have played a part in discouraging more freight on rail. A senior accounting lecturer at the University of Essex, John Stittle, offers the following view: "The state is putting an awful lot in. If British Rail had the same funds now we would have a gold-plated state railway." Clearly some increase in costs resulted from more services being run and catch-up expenditure on infrastructure which was neglected. Even so, privatisation has seen virtually no increase in electrification which benefits reliability and the environment. Costs of privatisation Costs, which the authors say would be cut out by public ownership, include Network Rail debt interest which would be less expensive to the government, fragmentation costs, profits for contractors at various levels, and rewards for investors. Removing these costs could lead to an 18% reduction across all fares, rather than the 6% increase introduced this month. It is estimated that 5% of Train Operating Companies' costs are caused by their interface with Network Rail, and that between 300 and 500 rail workers are engaged in delay attribution (identifying reasons for delays). The industry guide to delay attribution runs to 90 pages. When maintenance work was brought back in-house by Network Rail, the savings were £264 million a year. Renewals and enhancements to infrastructure are still outsourced with profits estimated at £200 million a year. The small numbers of companies which own trains and lease them to the Train Operating Companies are hugely profitable, one estimate is that profits before tax and interest are 41% of income. But the case against privatisation is not solely based on avoidable costs. There is effectively no competition in the privatised railway. There is hardly ever a real choice because one franchise has an effective monopoly. Overcrowding is now a major concern for travellers with implications for safety. The rush hour becomes crush hour and the festive season a battle to find a seat. Ticket purchasing can be very complex and the lack of cooperation between service providers means passengers can be stranded. There is increasing pressure from firms to cut ticket office and station staffs - more potential travellers is discouraged and turn to the car. The promised electrification between Manchester and Liverpool will use quarter-century old trains; such is the lack of a viable UKbased train building capacity. Section six of Rebuilding Rail is a discussion on the objections which supporters of privatisation make to proposals to remove the profit motive and franchise system. These include objections that privatisation means innovation, investment and efficiency, the cost of buying assets back, and the restrictions imposed by European Union law on public ownership. While these issues can't be ignored, the main problem to be solved is to develop a movement with the political will to overcome these and other obstacles in the way of returning the rail industry to public ownership, and to introducing for the first time measures to ensure democratic control. In the part of Rebuilding Rail dealing with "The Solution", the authors list many aims for the rail industry with which socialists would agree and have been campaigning for. They point out that "the purpose of the railway system is primarily to provide a public service not private profit". Public ownership is therefore the solution - including train operating, infrastructure, rolling stock, etc. There needs to be a structure to provide integration, expanding capacity, more freight on rail and rail industry manufacturing. Some other points have not kept pace with reality, eg "devolution to regions and counties" at a time when county councils are withdrawing from doing anything themselves and becoming commissioning bodies handing contracts to private firms. Interesting figures are given relating to train and rail manufacturing and comparisons of the UK with other European countries, Japan and New Zealand, in terms of public/private ownership, and the rail share of the freight market. The authors show that "a unified public sector train operator" along with direct public ownership of Network Rail, control of buying and building trains and increased use of freight on rail are necessary and beneficial. Even so it is clear that every problem would not be solved overnight. The skills shortage in building trains, long-term plans for training enough drivers and guards, improving communications systems would need planning and investment over a period. But bringing the rail industry into democratic public ownership is not in the end a legal or technical issue, the impression given by some of the arguments in this report. The real problem is political will. Rail unions, passengers and the wider working class all support renationalisation. We need to build a mass workers' party that, unlike the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour, will carry out this measure. Using electric trains is far more efficient and potentially far better for the environment. Britain's first electric line was the City and South London railway in 1890, London's first deep tube, now part of London Underground's Northern Line. Most of the Southern Railway network was electrified between 1923 and 1939. Yet today there are still large parts of the railway yet to be made electric. A socialist plan for the rails would include electrifying the remaining lines. Of course, this needs to be linked to a socialist plan for renationalised utilities that would replace polluting energy such as coal and gas with renewable sources. Train Operating Companies (TOCs) 'predict' their revenue - if a TOC takes less than 98% of that forecast, it gets bailed out by the taxpayer for 50% or 80% (depending on the size of the shortfall) of the missing takings. In October, it was announced that the annual 'revenue support' totalled £451 million, a big chunk of the railways' annual £4 billion government subsidy (double the subsidy for British Rail). Socialist nationalisation British Rail wasn't perfect - though far better than the mess that exists today. When it was first formed, in 1948, many of the same bosses stayed in place. Regions competed with each other. The Socialist Party calls for the railways to be renationalised under democratic working class control and management, using the experience and expertise of rail workers and passengers, to run trains as a public service and not a big business cash cow. With extracts from this fantastic article with an interview with RMT general secretary Bob Crow on rail renationalisation http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/748/15987/16-01-2013/renationalise-the-railways-now

Time to renationalise the railways, let’s do it properly this time

With today’s news of further huge fare hikes for the good commuter of this country getting to work will be set to become more expensive than ever before. I believe now is the right time to renationalise our railways bring them back under democratic workers control this time. Boot the profiteering boss’s out and have workers who know the railways run this. This is the RMT’s policy and I strongly support it. The amount by which rail fares could rise from January is to be revealed, with some commuters set to see rises of more than double the rate of inflation. The Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation - expected to remain at 2.8% - is used to calculate the rises. Some English fares will rise by RPI plus 3%, while in Scotland they will go up by RPI plus 1%. Wales has yet to set a figure for its increase. The extra money is helping to fund huge investment across the network. There are no fares increases currently planned in Northern Ireland, where fares are not linked to RPI. The figures for planned rises in England and Scotland are an average across regulated tickets, which make up half of all fares. These regulated fares include season tickets and off-peak intercity journeys. Some passengers could see their journey prices rising by more than the average, as train companies are allowed to increase them by more, as long as they cut ticket prices elsewhere. BBC transport correspondent Richard Westcott says passengers and taxpayers used to split the cost of running the railways, with both sides paying about half each, but successive ministers have cut the amount of government funding and that has resulted in regular fare rises. The latest rise will mean fares in England will have gone up by more than inflation for 10 successive years, resulting in some of the most expensive train journeys in Europe, our correspondent adds. It is essential working people have a good railway to rely on it would actually be far cheaper to run the railways this way the cost to passengers would be far less too as workers would set the prices at a fair rate as the need to make profit would be gone. Instead focusing on a good reliable service that meets the needs of the passengers and the country and economy as a whole. There is a great need for socialist economic planning of the economy nationalising the railways could be the first step to taking the commanding heights of the economy into public ownership running for people’s needs not the profits of the boss’s.

The need for a second Egyptian revolution to hand workers power

There has been some brutal scenes over the weekend of riot police violently clamping down on protests rising up in the squares of the city from the people who helped over throw their previous dictator Hosni Mubarak

From the BBC:

Clashes are continuing between demonstrators and security forces in the Egyptian capital as protests enter a fourth day.

At least 13 people died and hundreds were injured over the weekend as troops launched a major assault to clear Cairo's Tahrir Square of protesters.

Efforts to clear the square appeared to continue on Monday, with tear gas canisters being thrown at protesters.

The unrest casts a shadow over elections due to start next week.

It is the longest continuous protest since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.

Demonstrators say they fear Egypt's governing Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is trying to retain its grip on power.

The council, led by Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, is charged with overseeing the country's transition to democracy after three decades of autocratic rule under Mr Mubarak.

Calls for his resignation could be heard during th
Parts taken from www.socialistworld.net CWI committee for workers international.

Eight months after the overthrow of Mubarak, workers and youth still face poverty, unemployment, corruption and repression

The court trial of Mubarak continues, together with his sons, Gamal and Alaa, and some of their cronies. Ahmed Ezz owns 70% of Egypt’s iron and steel production (bought cheaply when state-owned industries were privatised) and 50% of ceramics. He was a leading member of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, senior member of the National Assembly and friend of Gamal Mubarak. On 14 September, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a fine of LE660million ($111m = £70m) for corruption. For a man reported to own $1.5billion in 2008, the fine is small change. All privatised industries should be renationalised, without compensation to the owners, who made fortunes while paying low wages.

It is estimated that corruption - including bribery, tax evasion, theft, nepotism and extortion – may have cost the economy as much as $57 billion in 2000-2008, or an annual average of $6.4 billion. That’s about $800 a year for every man, woman and child while 40% live on less than a dollar a day.

Unemployment rising
The economy has been hard hit by the fall in tourism, one of Egypt’s largest employers. Revenues are down $1billion a month. Egypt Air is losing 56% of its passenger traffic. This is partly because of fears of insecurity following the violent attempt of the old regime to hang on to power, but also because of the global financial crisis, with falling living standards in many countries.

Withdrawal of foreign capital in the six months after the revolution totalled about $16 billion. A 7% fall in GDP during the first quarter of the year was the equivalent of a $30 billion loss to the economy. These factors have resulted in unemployment, already high, growing to anything between 10-20%. Rising prices also make life a growing struggle.

An opinion poll, last April, found that 63% felt unemployment was the biggest issue facing society. Eighty percent expected their household’s financial situation to get better in the next year. Seventy five percent were confident that the new government was able to address the main issues facing the country. Of those who participated in protests during the eighteen days that overthrew Mubarak (one quarter of respondents), 64% said unemployment and low living standards were their main reasons for doing so, compared to 19% who said lack of democracy and political reform.



Now that it is becoming clearer to working and middle class people that the economic situation is getting worse, and that the government is unable to improve living conditions, growing numbers of workers are taking strike action. They are realising that it is only by their own action that conditions are going to improve and that they cannot rely on the government to change their lives for the better.



Many are angry at the slowness of change and how the military rule are hanging on to power an d the democracy they were promised is simply not happening as far as they can see.
Some weariness after eight months of weekly demonstrations, many of them enormous, is to be expected. But there is also a growing realization that demonstrations are insufficient by themselves to change the situation. Working class solidarity and struggle by striking, and in some cases occupying workplaces, is growing and has the power to force concessions from government and employers. Momentum towards a national general strike needs to be built, to draw all sections of workers and youth together to win real democratic, workplace and social gains. This entails rank and file, democratic control of mass action and creating mass committees of action in the workplaces, communities and colleges that are linked up at local, regional and national levels.

Democratic socialist programme
But wage rises will not last long while prices continue to rise, and do not directly benefit the unemployed, poor farm workers and other sections of the poor. The capitalist system will always try to take back whatever it is forced to concede, while ever it remains in place. The task of active trade unionists, youth and socialists is to raise the idea of a government of workers and the poor to complete the revolution started on January 25th.

The strike wave raises the need for workers in different industries, both public and private sector, to organise their own mass workers’ party. Activists from different struggles need to join together. Youth and students, those fighting for democratic rights and other social and community campaigns also need to join with organised workers.

A democratic socialist programme would include a decent minimum wage of at least LE 1200 linked to rising prices, decent education and healthcare systems, a massive house-building programme and a shorter working week to provide jobs for the unemployed. These must be linked to nationalisation under democratic workers’ control and management of all big companies, large estates and banks. The economy could then be planned to meet the needs of the majority instead of the profits of a tiny minority.



It is time the Egyptian people were given what they demanded in the first place. Freedom, real freedom. Freedom from capitalism and repression .

Contradictions of capitalism - where £11 billion is not enough

Banking giant HSBC has said it will cut another 25,000 jobs by 2013 and exit operations in 20 countries as it looks to save billions of dollars.

The announcement came as the bank reported pre-tax profits for the first six months of the year of $11.5bn (£7bn), up 3% on the $11.1bn the bank made a year earlier.

HSBC said it did not expect any of the new job cuts to fall in the UK.

The bank had already announced 5,000 job cuts, 700 of which are in the UK.

Together, the job cuts amount to about 10% of HSBC's total workforce, although the company stressed it will also be recruiting staff by 2013.

"The net number will be a lot smaller than the 30,000 [job losses]," said group chief executive Stuart Gulliver.

As well as the job cuts, bank said it is closing its retail banking operations in Russia and Poland and selling three insurance businesses as part of pre-announced plans to save $2.5bn-$3.5bn by 2013.

On Sunday, it announced the sale of 195 US retail branches, primarily in New York, to First Niagara Bank for about $


This to me is just quite ridiculous and highlights even more the contradictions in teh capitalist system of profit and even mor profit. Even when a global bank like HSBC makes a huge profit of 11 billion pounds it is still deemed not enough and job cuts and branch closures are needed. Why you may ask ?

The bank put it down to efficiency savings and improvements in technology. In reality its cost cutting and in order to squeeze even more profit out of their customers and their overheads.

It is systematic of the capitalist system that a profit is not just enough. They crave more and more and complete domination of a market. This can often lead to monopolies developing in the markets. Which capitalism isnt supposed to do. But still does. The natuarl competition requires business's to compete and under cut eachotehr leading to some dropping out who cant keep up.

Its a real dog eat dog world in the free market and banks are no different.

How can a bank be making 11 billion pounds profit yet the rest of the country is facing tough austerity measures cuts and tax rises.

It is just not on and i urge the banking sector to be taken under democratic workers control where the profits were put back into society and the wealth is spread equally for the benifit of all not justa few.

This is what would happen under socialism where a workers bank was run for the workers by the workers and no rich business.

Economic crisis in them and us Britain

this is the excellent editorial from this weeks edition of the socialist, a weekly paper by the socialist party of England and Wales. if you like this article and wish to view more just like this please do visit
www.socialistparty.org.uk


Wages fall: Office for National Statistics 2010 survey of hours and earnings

For a few at the top, Britain is still booming. In 2010, while the majority suffered the biggest squeeze on their incomes since 1977, the earnings of FTSE 100 chief executives rose by 32%.

The number of billionaires increased from 53 to 73. For the working class, by contrast, the economic crisis which began in 2007 has intensified a long-term trend for its share of the wealth to decrease.

The TUC has produced a report exposing the myth that living standards for the majority were increasing during the boom. On the contrary, the report shows that low-paid workers' incomes have fallen in real terms over the last 30 years.

The number of workers whose wages are at least a third less than median pay has soared from 12% in 1977 to 22% in 2009. Since 2007, as unemployment has rocketed and wages have been squeezed, poverty has increased dramatically.

In March this year the BBC Panorama programme carried out a survey of actual take-home pay. This showed that, on average, workers are taking home £1,088 less a year than two years ago when the sum is adjusted for inflation.

Their real pay has fallen by 5% since the beginning of 2009, which was half way through the recession. Nor is there any prospect of strong growth for Britain's economy, on the contrary stagnation is the rosiest scenario on offer.

As the weak growth in the US stutters, the IMF has also downgraded its growth predictions for Britain this year to just 1.5%, warning that there are significant risks of inflation, low growth and unemployment.

Nonetheless, the IMF has thrown some crumbs of comfort to chancellor George Osborne by backing the government's determination to forge ahead with the biggest cuts to public spending in 80 years.

This is the IMF whose policies have failed in Greece and whose structural adjustment programmes have caused untold misery to workers and poor people across the world.

The IMF's commendation is not, however, the unified position of the strategists of capitalism. The OECD has warned that if Britain's growth is lower 'than expected', as the OECD itself now predicts, the pace of the cuts should be reconsidered.

A number of capitalist economists, including some who wrote to the press supporting the government's strategy just a year ago, are now urging the government to rethink.

For example, Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who until February was chief economist at the Cabinet Office advising the prime minister, said: "You do not gain credibility by sticking to a strategy that isn't working."

However, these commentators do not have a solution. Like Eds Miliband and Balls they are only arguing for the pain to be less deep but more prolonged.

Nonetheless Osborne's cuts will massively exacerbate the problems. George Osborne has attempted to brush off the criticism and to continue to insist that he 'has no plan B', however, the disastrous results of 'Plan A' are still to be played out.

The government's savage cuts are only beginning to be implemented. As more public sector workers are thrown on the scrapheap, and other cuts hit the public and private sectors, tax revenue will decrease and benefit claims, measly as payments are, will spiral.

The result will be enormous human misery and could even mean an increase rather than a decrease in the government deficit. There is no prospect of 'rebalancing' Britain's economy, of the puny manufacturing sector compensating for the cuts in public spending.

On the contrary, manufacturing is already suffering as consumer spending falls. It is already 2.1% lower than at this time last year, and is likely to fall further.

Production for need
The Con-Dem government can be forced to retreat from its plans. It has already been shaken by the TUC demonstration on 26 March - the biggest trade union demonstration in Britain's history.

On 30 June the government is likely to face the first coordinated strike against its policies by several trade unions. This has to be a step towards a one-day strike of the whole public sector.

This would terrify the government and give enormous confidence to the working class. At the same time a socialist alternative to the capitalist system needs to be put forward.

Capitalism is a blind system, based on the drive for short term profit. It is also in fundamental crisis.

The Socialist Party calls for the nationalisation of the big banking and finance companies. Compensation should be paid on the basis of proven need - without one penny going to the rich speculators who are demanding that the working class pay for the crisis for which they - the speculators - bear responsibility.

It would then be necessary to introduce a state monopoly of foreign trade - so that it would be a democratically elected government - not the market - controlling imports and exports, including capital.

A socialist nationalised banking sector would be democratically run by representatives of banking workers and trade unions, the wider working class, as well as the government.

Decisions would be made to meet the needs of the majority, for example offering cheap loans and mortgages for housing and for the planned development of industry and services and ending all repossessions of people's homes.

However, that would only be the start. The capitalist crisis has led to enormous economic destruction.

In Britain around 10% of wealth has already been lost as a result of the recession, due to factories and workplaces closing, resulting in 2.5 million, and rising, officially unemployed.

That is why a crucial step towards solving the economic crisis would be to also take all the big corporations that dominate Britain's economy into democratic public ownership.

This would then allow for production to be planned to meet the needs of all people and the planet and not for private profit.


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Socialist Party editorial

Economic crisis in 'the