Can fascism make a comeback?

Yes it can I’d argue and it already is in some parts of the world in places like the Ukraine and Greece for example there are significant forces building and more worryingly growing all the time. When I was a member of the socialist party combating fascism was not a priority we were always told the capitalists would only use a fascist koo as last resort and the working class will have many chances’ to take power well before it comes to fascism. What they did not tell us was that fascism could make a comeback well before that and indeed right under our noses’. For me it appears as though the old centre ground centre left and centre right are in crisis and are finding their votes and popular support in collapse right across Europe. The centre left in particular is facing a big decline as ice outlined in previous posts on this blog this is no more confirmed than France's president Holland this week seeing his poll ratings sink to their lowest ever for any French president of all time. This is quite an achievement considering the dross they have produced down the years. Fascism can find a hold in times of fear and desperation in the downtrodden middle class's but also the working class too. Fascism was always considered a middle class movement those who have been disenchanted but this misses the point fascism can cover multiple classes in its mass popular support it is a tempting appeal when things are heading quickly down. Fascism in its traditional sense opposes communism but this is the traditional understanding we have fascism in the future and even today will and do look very different to what we understand it to have been in the past. Things do not repeat themselves in history but can take parts of the past with them. I think we may see the rise again of a mass movement against corruption on a European scale and even more so in here in the UK with the likes of UKIP appealing to those who are fed up with the current political elite even though many of their leading figures are hardly too far out of touch of the political establishment themselves. IN a piece in the guardian last November "In the years since the global banking crisis in 2007, commentators across the political spectrum have confidently predicted not only the imminent collapse of the euro – but sooner or later an unavoidable implosion of the European Union itself. None of this has come to pass. But the "European Project", launched after the devastation of the Second World War, now faces the most serious threat in its history. That threat was chillingly prefigured last november in the launch of a pan-European alliance of far-right parties, led by the French National Front and the Dutch Party of Liberty headed by Geert Wilders, and vowing to slay "the monster in Brussels".. Of course, the growth in support for far-right populist, anti-European, anti-immigrant parties has been force-fed by the worst world recession since at least the 1930s and possibly since before 1914. Mass unemployment and falling living standards in the euro-area and the wider EU made worse by the crazy and self-defeating austerity obsession of European leaders has opened the door to the revival of the far right. Parties that skulked in the shadows for decades after 1945, playing down their sympathies with fascism and Nazism are now re-emerging having given themselves a PR facelift. Marine Le Pen, leader of the French NF, plays down the antisemitic record of her party... The Dutch far-right leader has ploughed a slightly different furrow – mobilising fear and hostility not against Jews but rather Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands. Like Marine Le Pen, Wilders obsessively focuses on the alleged cosmopolitan threat to national identity from the European Union. It is a chorus echoed in other European countries by the Danish People's party, the Finns party and the Flemish Vlaams Belang among others. For now, the French and Dutch populists are carefully keeping their distance from openly neo-Nazi parties such as Golden Dawn – whose paramilitary Sturmabteilung – have terrorised refugees and immigrants in Greece, and the swaggering Hungarian Jobbik, who terrorise the Roma minority. For now, our own Ukip is tactically keeping its distance from the new European far-right alliance while whispering a similar story about "east European immigrants". Ridiculous comparisons have been drawn by some commentators between the rise of the populist far right and the growth of the radical left – notably the Syriza party in Greece, which has pushed for a reverse of austerity crisis policies, both in Greece and throughout Europe. In fact, Syriza represents the main challenge to Golden Dawn's offensive. Moreover, while the Italian Northern League may be drawn to the far-right alliance, the bulk of the semi-anarchist followers of the comedian Beppe Grillo in the Italian parliament are anti-fascist and unlikely to take the same path. According to some pollsters – the far right might win as many as a third of all the seats in the European parliament after the European elections this May. That would still leave the centre parties – Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals – with many more members. But for the European parliament to form a credible majority all of these parties might well be forced much closer together than is good for them or good for European democracy. It could threaten eventual paralysis of the European parliament itself. Such a situation would be unsettlingly reminiscent of 1936, when the centre and the left – notably in France – temporarily halted the swing to fascism but formed an unprincipled and ineffective coalition. Its collapse on the eve of the Second World War accelerated the advent of Phillippe Petain's Nazi collaborating regime. History does not normally repeat itself in an automatic fashion. But it would be foolish to take the risk. More worrying than the growth of the far right are the temporising gestures to the racists and anti-immigrants now coming from mainstream Tory and even Liberal Democrat politicians and from some of the new "Blue Labour" ideologues. The warning from the likes of David Blunkett that hostility to Roma immigrants might lead to a popular "explosion" is worryingly reminiscent of Enoch Powell style rhetoric. An effective antidote to the growth of far-right populism requires that the European left is capable of articulating and following through on a comprehensive alternative to economic stagnation, an ever-widening income and wealth gap, the degradation of our social standards, civil liberties and democratic rights and the mindless drift to a global arming catastrophe. But to succeed that alternative has to be fought for at European as well as national and local levels, and to be delivered will require more, not less, European integration." So to conclude fascism is back in some shape or form and can grow further still if allowedto. Our job must be to oppose it wherever it raises its ugly head. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/15/far-right-rise-european-marine-le-pen-geert-wilders

The rise of Golden Dawn and the threat they pose

The rise of fascist or semi fascist and racist ideas is on the rise right across Europe and something all on the left should take note of and wake up to in my view. With the likes of UKIP on the rise in Britain who are not out and out fascists but are certainly unpredictable and leaning more and more right by the week dragging political discourse in this country with it it would seem we should all start to wake up to a real threat of collapsing traditional political parties and emergences of new reactionary often racist but verging on the very real threat of openly fascist organisations and politically motivated groups too right across Europe today. Below I republish a excellent article about a recent murder in Greece by the Golden Dawn who are out and out neo Nazi’s in most peoples books now and are actively on the streets attacking political opponents and much much worse and must be confronted head on with the utmost urgency too. With thanks to Yiannis Baboulias "The other night, 34-year-old anti-fascist and left-wing rapper Pavlos Fissas was stabbed to death in Athens while he was surrounded by a group of 30 thugs in Golden Dawn shirts and military trousers. The victim, whose stage name is MC Killah P, had been watching a football match with his girlfriend. The Greek media is reporting that the murder came about after fighting between the fascists and anti-fascists, but according to eyewitnesses there were no clashes. The source – a local woman with no stated political allegiance – said that while Fissas was surrounded by the fascist mob, the murderer pulled up in a car, parked in a hurry, jumped out and attacked him straight away – details that point towards a premeditated attack. Fissas was stabbed twice in the heart, and once in his stomach. He died later in hospital. The murderer was arrested later and confessed to both the murder and the political nature of his act. The same sources allege that a group of police officers at the scene did nothing to stop what was happening – according to the left-wing Athens-based website Left.gr, police told onlookers that they could not intervene because the assailants were “too numerous”. The attacker was eventually arrested by an officer and his car was taken away. Two hundred anti-fascists gathered at the scene later, and calls for protest marches all around Greece were put out. The Golden Dawn claims that the perpetrator isn't a member of their organisation and is threatening anyone who implicates them in the murder with lawsuits. However, police sources have confirmed to Kathimerini newspaper reporter Jean Souliotis that his party membership card was found in the rubbish bin outside his house. According to sources, he is associated with the Piraeus branch of the Golden Dawn. As far as Golden Dawn violence goes, this was an extreme incident but not an isolated one. There seems to have been resurgence in Golden Dawn attacks of late, to the extent that you wonder if this is a calculated strategy to escalate tensions between the far-right party and its political opponents. Late last Thursday night, 30 Greek Communist Party (KKE) members were putting up posters in the streets of Perama, when a group of 50 masked individuals wearing Golden Dawn insignia attacked them with iron bars and wooden sticks with nails through them. Nine KKE members were hospitalised. When I spoke to Sotiris Poulikoyiannis, President of the metalworkers union and one of those attacked, he told me that, “When they came for us, they were shouting, ‘We’re running this place, this harbour is ours.’ They were well prepared and equipped, they had sticks with nails in the end – this wasn’t a random attack. The two people in charge of the group even identified themselves.” It doesn't look like a coincidence that the attack came after a speech by two Golden Dawn MPs in the area. One of them, Yiannis Lagos, told his activist branch, “You choose how you want to move forward, and we’ll back you up." This had echoes of a speech he made last year, after which an attack was unleashed upon some Egyptian fishermen. On both occasions, no charges of incitement to violence were brought against him, and it's unlikely that any will brought against Golden Dawn after Fissas' murder. Curiously, while the Golden Dawn has been ramping up the violence it has also been flirting with relative respectability, by courting New Democracy – the large centre-right party that is in the government at the moment. New Democracy kept schtum about the attack on the communists in the domestic media, only condemning it in Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine. Last week, high-profile Greek journalist Babis Papadimitriou asked, “If SYRIZA [a left party] can work with KKE, why can’t a more serious Golden Dawn support a conservative alliance, like what happened in Norway?” Several MPs and advisors have hinted at the possibility of a potential alliance between the centre-right party and the neo-Nazi gang – if only the second would “shape-up”. Though Golden Dawn has attempted, in its own, ham-fisted way, to engage with mainstream political processes – bringing leftists to court for slander, standing in the Athens mayoral election – it seems their idea of “shaping up” doesn't extend to not murdering political opponents in bars. The brother of Nikos Mihaloliakos (leader of the GD) is rumoured to be recruiting heavily from circles of lawyers, businessmen and academics – supposedly upstanding professionals who are a little bit too fond of the Greek Junta and the colonels who overthrew the Greek government in 1967. However, with this latest murder, the Golden Dawn’s dual tactic of shaking the hand of the respectable political classes at the same time as they’re using the other hand to plunge knives into their enemies may finally have come unstuck. The Minister of Citizen Protection Nikos Dendias has said the government will look to change the law around criminal organisations, hinting at a ban of the far right-party. Unfortunately, such a change could have implications for radical leftist organisations as well, meaning that the Golden Dawn could drag their foes down with them and mortally wound Greece’s democracy. Which means that, ultimately, they would kind of get things their way after all. " All very worrying indeed I’m sure you would agree. Many of this kind of event is not being covered in the news in Britain but as I’ve said before Britain is a few years behind Greece in terms of the crisis and we should not look on in fascination in what is happening in Greece itch the rapid growth of the far right but with absolute concern and look to learn the lessons. With thanks and extracts from http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-golden-dawn-murdered-an-antifascist-rapper-last-night

War and capitalism

War is part and parcel of capitalism all around the globe all wars are related to capitalism and the drive for increased profits all the time. So for organizations like the Stop the War coalition fronted and lead by counter fire who have their roots in the SWP in Britain to celebrate the vote in parliament last week which by the way was by a very narrow margin that this is a victory for democracy and for the anti war movement is just horrid. War is a big business industry with weapons and arms being mass produced and creating jobs and huge profits for capitalism. The Second World War for example increased the rates of profits for war nations as huge investments were made to produce things for the war effort. A snippet from a comrade of mine who I’ve been lucky enough to meet who runs his b log at the socialist way you can follow and read at http://thesocialistway.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/capitalism-cause-of-all-modern-wars.html?spref=tw&utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer2d98b&utm_medium=twitter "So when we say that capitalism is the cause, it is also necessary to recognize a distinction between what may in general be called ‘economic’ causes of past wars and the particular causes of wars that arise under capitalism. For instance, insufficiency of food in the past ages could induce a tribe to make a war on a neighbouring tribe to gain control of more fertile land. Such a war would accordingly be described as being due to an economic cause, the absolute shortage of food; and it might be impossible with poor tools at hand and methods known at the time to solve the problem in any other way than fighting it out for the chance that the victors might survive. In our own time the problem is a different one. Now at this present time the means exist for producing enough to supply continuously the needs of all. With modern industrial and scientific knowledge ample food, clothing, houses and the rest of the needs of human beings could be produced if all the resources were used and none were wasted. The trouble is that they are not used to the full. In a multitude of ways production is deliberately restricted; land and materials are utilised for profitable non-productive purposes; millions of men and women through unemployment or military service and armament production, are withdrawn from the task of satisfying human needs; growers are given financial inducements to curtail production, and periodically vast amounts of food and other materials are destroyed in order to keep up prices - quite apart from the destruction that takes place in war itself. If in our own day millions of people are still undernourished or starving, while simultaneously in the US and other countries enormous quantities of foodstuffs are withheld from the market (with deterioration or even destruction as the likely end), it cannot be said that undernourishment or starvation is economically unavoidable. It is capitalism that presents governments with the choice between releasing the food for sale at what it will - which would ruin farmers by depressing prices - and withholding the food to get the high prices with the result that poverty-stricken people cannot buy it. Capitalism and capitalist interests induce every government to behave in a manner which creates antagonism with other capitalist groups and governments, with war as the threatened outcome. The needs of the world’s population could be satisfied by co-operation but it is in the nature of capitalism to prohibit genuine co-operation. " It is clear that war is a necessary enventuallity under capitalism where resources are fought for and markets are competitively fought over. Most wars come down to economic reasons behind it even if it’s not spelled out. Under socialism three would be no need for wars and conflict due to the fact that people’s needs will be met under a democratically planned system. To get there we have a long long way to go but there can be no pace on this planet for as long as capitalism exists and reigns supreme.

Marxist crisis theory, does it matter?

I’d argue it does very much. To have an understanding on crisis and the reasons why and how they occur under capitalism and why the system is riddled with contradictions and crisis is key to understanding the world we live in in 2013. In 2007/08 many so called economists were caught off guard when the economic crisis or what it has now been dubbed the great recession hit. Why was this? Well many economists are pro capitalist and do not understand the labour theory of value but also they were taken in by the system thinking that the boom times could keep on rolling and rolling indefinitely. As Marxists we know capitalism is a system which serves rich elite who control and own the means of production for profits sake. The recent economic crisis and persistent recession are bringing out new interest in Marx’s writings. We are in danger of Marx being reduced to a figurehead Who can be used by anyone to mean anything, as members of the “Marx industry” use his name to promote their own theories even when the result is to make Marx’s own theory disappear from view? Marx’s works can be difficult to understand today, when we have little context for the milieu in which he was writing, yet once understood, they illuminate capitalism and what must be changed in order to replace it with a new human society, as no other thinker’s writings can do. We want young people and new people looking for revolutionary ideas to be able to learn and evaluate Marx’s theories for ourselves, not to be misinformed by “Marxists” who are promoting their own theories as superior to his. Many economists including many Marxists point to one of the contradictions of capitalism at present of the huge hordes of money many capitalists are sitting on. This is indeed interesting and has puzzled me for a very long time. Until I myself read Marx and tried to get my head around how this could be. As comrade Bruce Wallace points out on his excellent blog http://69.195.124.91/~brucieba/ “By 2020 (seven years!) The capitalists will have $900 trillion of financial assets worldwide, compared to $90 trillion of GDP. Yes that’s right they are in massive debt but will have assets ten times the size of world economic output! How can this be possible? Some Marxists suggests that the capitalists have loads of capital (awash in profits, drowning in capital and other aquatic metaphors) and won’t invest because there is no demand. Yes this is the stock Keynesian bourgeois economist’s explanation of crisis. However we have a problem? How is it possible to be in massive debt but to be awash in assets at the same time? Well it isn’t. The projected $900 trillion in assets isn’t real! This represents the massive fictitious capital that has swollen and will continue to swell through the proliferation of financial instruments such as credit default swaps and other exotic financial trickery. In reality things aren’t so rosy. The US capitalists for example are in massive debt and any assets need to be balanced against that. Market Watch reported in August 2010 (which is a bit dated but trends have continued since then) ”According to the Federal Reserve, nonfinancial firms borrowed another $289 billion in the first quarter, taking their total domestic debts to $7.2 trillion, the highest level ever. That’s up by $1.1 trillion since the first quarter of 2007; it’s twice the level seen in the late 1990s”. So is it any wonder I’m starting to question and wonder just a little bit about our own economic analysis of the socialist party and the CWI. As Michael Roberts a Marxist economist who I’ve been following of late who I find has an interesting take on the global financial situation says in a recent blogpost “In my view, we are now in a Long Depression, centred in the advanced capitalist economies but also affecting the emerging capitalist economies. The latter do better because they still have ample supplies of cheap labour available to exploit (well, at least some larger emerging economies do). So absolute surplus value can be increased without Marx's law of profitability applying too strongly. What do I mean by that? Well, capitalists are permanently engaged in the search for value, or more specifically, surplus value. They can get that globally by drawing more of the population into capitalist production. The big issue is how much longer capitalism can continue to appropriate value from human labour power when the workforce globally can no longer expand sufficiently. Ironically, the UK's right-wing City paper City Am put it from the perspective of capital: "People, not commodities, land or even capital, are the ultimate resource of an economy, as the US academic Julian Simon famously put it. Without talented, motivated, skilled and educated individuals, nothing is possible; capital itself is a product of labour. Human ingenuity is able to overcome everything. Malthusians who dream of a shrinking population and who reflexively believe that every country is over-populated are wrong. This is always a lesson that nations suffering from shrinking populations relearn at great cost: all the productivity growth in the world is rarely enough to compensate for the psychological and actual effect of a declining population." More important, more people mean more potential value to be appropriated by capital. But getting more value and surplus value through extending the size of the workforce is increasingly difficult or even impossible in many advanced capitalist economies. Instead, in these economies, capitalists must try and raise surplus value though the intensity of work and through more mechanisation and technology that saves labour i.e. relative surplus value. But that, as Marx explained, brings into operation the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the ultimate barrier to further accumulation and growth in value (see my post on http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/crisis-or-breakdown/). “ Understanding crisis is crucial to have a chance in understanding the tight turns and longer term trends in capitalism and when the opportunities are best for the workers to go on the offensive. Right now workers are very much on the back foot defending their gains. As capitalism continues to struggle to improve the rate of profit more workers will be encourage into fighting back. Understanding crisis as a Marxist is crucial and taking a serious approach to the study of Marx’s work is the first step towards that. With thanks to my comrade Bruce Wallace and his excellent blog at http://69.195.124.91/~brucieba/

What did those behind the ‘Ring of Steel’ decide ?

www.socialistworld.net, 28/06/2013 website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI Representatives of the 1% pledge more austerity, war and environmental degradation Kevin Henry, Socialist Party (CWI Ireland) Sixty million spent on security so that people could have a peaceful protest, Obama parades around as a man of peace as bored school students listen on and the local politicians get to bask in the reflected glow of the G8’s ’great’ leaders. But when the media are discussing all that, what were those behind the huge security fence around the Lough Erne Resort actually discussing? "Fire up the world economy?" In the Belfast Telegraph we are told by Cameron that “the whole point of this meeting in Lough Erne is to fire up our economies and drive growth and prosperity around the world, to do things that make a real difference to people’s lives.” The summit began with an announcement of EU/US free trade agreement. This is despite the fact the mandate to negotiate the deal was approved by trade ministers meeting in Luxemburg the week before and discussions had been ongoing. Of course never let the facts getting the way of a good story! Cameron claims that such an agreement would create two million jobs and mean adding as much as £100bn to the EU economy. These figures are effectively plucked out of the air and change in every statement made by the key proponents of this free trade agreement. The real agenda of these negotiations is the ’liberalisation’ of our public services and a race to the bottom in terms of workers’ rights and environmental standards. This agreement will include an ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ mechanism that would allow foreign investors both in the EU and the US to bypass the normal legal system and directly challenge governments at international tribunals whenever they find that laws in the area of public health, environmental, labour or social protection interfere with their profits. For example, many of those protesting against the G8 visit in Fermanagh were specifically concerned by the issue of ’Fracking’ or hydraulic fracturing. This mechanism is used in other free trade agreements and currently by a US energy firm to challenge a moratorium on fracking in Quebec. This agreement is will be used as part of a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms workers’ wages and conditions and to undermine trade union rights in the name of competitiveness and free trade. Including making it easier for EU companies to access the labour market in the so-called ’Right to Work’ states i.e. states that deny basic trade union right such as to collective bargaining. (For more on this Free Trade Agreement see: EU-US Free Trade Agreement: Race to the Bottom of the Atlantic) Rewriting the rules on tax? We are also told that the summit would deal with transparency around tax issues. The leaders of the G8 clearly feel the pressure on tax evasion. Global tax evasion means multinationals get away with hiding $3 trillion a year in profits, according to research from Tax Justice Network, while as much as $32 trillion could be stashed away by individuals in tax havens. Every time these leaders close hospital or propose new austerity measures they are faced working people asking what about Vodaphone or Starbucks taxes. The capitalist leaders claim that action on tax evasion has to be dealt with at international gathering and a big song and dance was made that it would be dealt with at the G8 summit. British Prime Minister David Cameron said the summit declaration had "the potential to rewrite the rules on tax and transparency for the benefit of countries right across the world, including the poorest countries in the world." Unsurprisingly, however the ’Lough Erne declaration’ on tax commits governments and multinational to very little. It outlines a few basic principles, such as the sharing of tax information among authorities and that more steps are taken to force companies to report where they pay taxes. But, in the words of a War on Want spokesperson, “as always the devil will be in the detail, and there’s no detail here." The deal falls far short of the comprehensive public register of owners that NGO groups had being calling for. The deal does not commit countries to making information public, only to share it with other tax authorities. Of course talk is cheap! Not a penny more in taxes will be paid by Amazon, or any of the other companies that operate intricate webs of offshore companies to avoid tax. Syria: “Blood is on the hands of both parties." Away from the formal sitting of the G8, the focus of the meeting was on Syria, a conflict which has left an estimated 93,000 people dead and which is a source of massive tension between the G8 leaders. With the US, Britain and France wishing to more openly arm the rebels (in reality, they already do through Turkey and Gulf regimes) and with Russia central to arming the Assad regime, this tension is reflected in the comments of the Canadian Prime Minister Harper that the summit is “the G7 plus one.” On the eve of the summit, Russian President Putin and Cameron held a press conference. When Putin was asked whether he had “the blood of Syrian children on his hands” - a reference to Cameron’s recent comments at the UN - Putin replied that “the blood is on the hands of both parties." Obama is now public in his intention to arm rebels and Putin claims that all that his government is doing is supplying "to the legitimate government of Syria.” Even within Harper’s G7 there is divisions. While Chancellor Merkel is complicit in dropping the EU’s arms embargo, she ruled out taking part in arming the rebels and stressed the need for a ’political process.’ The resolution the G8 managed to cobble together on Syria stressed the need for a "political solution to the crisis based on a vision for a united, inclusive and democratic Syria". For all the Western powers claiming to be defending the Syrian people, the resolution makes no reference to the alleged use of chemical weapons or the future of Assad, due to resistance from Putin. It only states that a transitional government must be formed "by mutual consent" between the different sides of Syrian society. Importantly, however, it makes clear that Syria’s military and security forces will be allowed to remain intact following a transition of power - seen as a tacit encouragement to Assad’s senior officers to launch a coup. In reality, while both sides will continue arming their respective sides, the Western powers do not feel confident enough in the opposition, either politically or militarily, to openly fully back and arm them, at this point. Some of the powers fear further destabilising the region and they also realise there is little public support for imperialist intervention in Syria. A Pew Research poll indicated that 70% of Americans oppose arming the opposition. For socialists, the Syrian civil war, which is also a proxy conflict between big powers’ interests, is a testament to the failure of capitalism in the region. None of the parties – all of which have blood on their hands - offers anything for the Syrian masses. Arming factions or holding ’peace conferences’ or encouraging a military coup will just replace one butcher regime with another. It will take revolutionary struggle, as we saw in Tunisia and Egypt, armed with a socialist alternative that can end the rule of the reactionary forces trying to carve up Syria. The rule of the 1% Despite a massively publicised campaign by charities around aid and world hunger, where was that on the G8 agenda? In fact, the amount of money the world’s richest countries give to ’developing countries’ fell by $2.9 billion between 2011 and 2012. And on climate change, the issue is all but ignored accept a tag on page at the end of the summit communique. The pro-big business politics pursued in the ‘Ring of Steel’ at Lough Erne, is a vindication of what the Socialist Party and others who organised against the G8 said in the course of our campaign; the G8 represent the interest of the 1% and the policies of austerity, war and criminal environmental policies. We need to build a socialist alternative, so that the decisions that affect the future of our society are not taken by CEOs in boardrooms or unrepresentative politicians behind Steel fencing. But instead the resources of society are publically owned and democratically controlled and managed by working people.

world in crisis, central banks not providing the anser

Increasing concerns and contradictions Per-Åke Westerlund, from Offensiv, newspaper of Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden) The severe downturn in 2008-09 made the world economy into an experimental workshop. But neither extreme austerity or trillions to the banks has led to a solid recovery. Now there is growing concern among politicians and economists. At the center of concern is the crisis in Europe. In early 2012, both Italy and Spain were close to sovereign defaults, which in turn would have made the whole euro project collapsing. EU’s leading politicians and institutions were scared into taking extreme measures. The European Central Bank, ECB, promised "unlimited access" to capital for both states and banks. Since then, the ECB lent 360 billion euros to Spanish banks and 260 billion into Italian. A large part have been used to buy their respective state bonds. The interest rate gap - how much more it costs for Spain or Italy to borrow than Germany - have fallen from 6-7 percentage to 2-3 percent. The ECB’s generosity is matched by other central banks. The U.S. Federal Reserve is in its fourth round of Quantitative Easing which means that the Fed buys government debt notes for $ 85 billion each month. Japan’s new right-wing government has now embarked on a "quantitative and qualitative" monetary policy in double pace compared to Fed. In two years, the central bank (Bank of Japan, BOJ) will use equivalent to a quarter of Japan’s GDP - the third largest economy - to purchase government bonds, equities and real estate. Central Banks But now there is increasing concern that central banks’ intervention is not the solution, but rather deepens the crisis. "Some of the leading figures in central banking concede they were flying blind when steering their economies," reported the Financial Times (18 April), from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) spring meeting. Lorenzo Samgh of the the ECB’s executive board: "We do’nt fully understand what is happening in advanced economies." The head of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, said that no one can be sure that the expansionary monetary policy is correct and wondered if they are “running the risk of reigniting the problems that led to the financial crisis in the first palce?”. Central bank intervention has eased the immediate crisis for the most vulnerable banks and states. But they do not kick start economies - investments in the advanced capitalist countries is still at a record low. However, the new policy opened for sharper conflicts between nation states. The Japanese currency, the yen, has fallen by 25 percent since last year. It has benefited the Japanese export industry, at the expense of for example German and South Korean industry. The IMF’s semi-annual reports from April (Global Financial Stability Report and World Economic Outlook) notes that central banks’ actions have achieved “a broad market rally” but also created new risks. Capital now flows back from the richer countries to developing countries, creating potential instability. The Fed boss Ben Bernanke recently warned that banks’ speculation may increase. IMF But especially worried is the IMF for what happens when easing ends. There is no equivalent in history to learn from. "Continued improvements will require further balance sheet repair in the financial sector and a smooth unwinding of public and private debt overhangs. If progress in addressing these medium-term challenges falters, risks could reappear. The global financial crisis could morph into a more chronic phase marked by a deterioration of financial conditions and recurring bouts of financial instability", writes the IMF. The conditions raised here - balance sheet repair and unwindling of debts - have so far failed, which points towards a more chronic crisis. The second leg of the crisis policy - the extreme austerity measures - have had worse immediate effects. 19.2 million are now unemployed in the euro zone, of which six million in Spain alone. In Greece, youth unemployment is 59.1 percent. The New York Times reported in an article on Greek school children who faint and are searching for food in the bins. The Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Caolho - a strong proponent of the infamous Troika (IMF, EU and ECB) austerity - promised in 2011 that "two terrible years" would be followed by recovery. But as a result of the extreme austerity, in 2013 Portugal "faces a much deeper and longer recession than the government or international lenders had foreseen" (Financial Times). The IMF estimated in April that the risk of recession (the economy contracts) in the euro zone was 50 percent. Since then, the ECB president Draghi warned that even France is dragged deeper into the crisis. The EU has given Spain and France two additional years to meet the rule that budget deficits should not exceed three percent of GDP. Under new rules they would otherwise been fined. In a large survey among capitalists and finance investors in Europe, made by the credit rating company Fitch, a large majority believe this year’s calm in Europe is transient. "Fitch warns in a statement that it [2013] can once again become a summer marked by the euro crisis, just as in 2011 and 2012, since there is a strong contradiction between the recent stock market rally and euro zone recession and rising unemployment." (From Swedish daily, Dagens Industri). No capitalist solution None of the capitalist institutions have a solution. Many warn that austerity has gone too far, but stil emphasise the need for a balanced budget for the "medium term". How quickly the Cyprus crisis threatened to spread shows that EU countries need a banking union, writes the IMF in its report. And before the ECB’s "limitless" capital flow eased the crisis, leading EU politicians like Germany’s Angela Merkel and European Commission President Barrosso put forward the EU needed a much tighter budget policy and synchronisation. But national interests and conflicts makes especielly German politicians hesitating. The risk, in their view, is that Germany then definitely become the guarantor of banks across Europe. In parallel with the growing contradictions within the EU member states there is a sharp increase of distrust against the EU itself. In Spain today 72 percent are critical of the EU, against 23 per cent before the crisis. Germany the increase is from 36 to 59 percent. The crisis has been exploited to push through many of the counter-reforms the capitalists dreamed of. Worse pensions in Italy, easier to fire workers in Spain, pay cuts of 50 per cent in Greece and so on. Now the capitalists increase their pressure on French President Hollande go the same way. He has already abolished the capital gains tax and promised to reduce the cost of unemployment insurance, pensions and municipalities. At the same time, the political pressure from below is increasing. In a French opinion poll, 70 percent believes a "social explosion" is possible in the coming months. The IMF in April again lowered its forecast for world economic growth this year to 3.3 percent (though 3.5 in October). World trade is expected to only increase by 3.6 percent this year after 2.5 percent last year. The index of large corporate purchasing managers in both the EU and Japan is still below 50, indicating that the economy is not growing. But even the index for China is just over 50. China China’s economy - the world’s second-largest, estimated to overtake the U.S. before 2020 - is now slowing sharply. The large stimulus package in 2009, which held up growth through massive investment, is now hitting back with full force. Debts of municipalities and provinces is estimated at between 20 and 40 percent of the country’s GDP. In the first quarter of this year these debts increased twice as fast as in the same period in 2012. The IMF and politicians in the West are talking about how consumption in China must increase and investment must go down. But lowering the investment share of GDP from the current 50 percent to 30 percent in a position when economic growth will be 6 percent instead of the previous 10 percent "would cause a depression, all on its own", concludes economics columnist Martin Wolf of the Financial Times. Demand would collapse, with considerable effects on the world economy. Governments and capitalist classes now places greater pressure on other states. The U.S. wants to see greater demand in Germany and Europe, while European politicians requires that the deficits in the U.S. and Japan are reduced. The budget deficit in Japan this year is near 10 percent of GDP for the fifth consecutive year. Public debt is expected to be 255 percent of GDP in 2018. The U.S. deficit is five per cent of GDP and the debt is 110 percent. Growth in the US is expected this year to be the highest of the developed capitalist countries, 1.2 percent. But the forecast is uncertain since the automatic cuts, the sequester, will have effect in the latter half of the year. With the failures of "unorthodox methods" more and more people will realise that there is no solution within the framework of the capitalist system. The resistance from workers and poor will grow, like for example the general strike in Portugal in early March, which was the largest since the revolution in 1974. The task for socialists is to build new workers’ parties with a clear socialist answer to the crisis.

Italy - The economic crisis becomes a political and institutional crisis

www.socialistworld.net, 11/05/2013 website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI The latest events that have happened in Italian politics mark a new phase of development in the crisis in the third European industrial power. With extracts from Marco Veruggio, ControCorrente (CWI Italy) The economic storm that has wreaked havoc on the economy first transformed itself into a social crisis and now into a veritable institutional crisis. Youth unemployment has gone over 30%; more than 450,000 workers risk finding themselves from one day to the next without any income due to the funds running out for the lay-off pay paid by the regional governments; in 2012 more than a thousand firms a day closed. The phenomenon of suicides is growing; on 14 April, in one day alone, a small fruit seller and two unemployed people took their lives. Against this tragic background, the extreme fragmentation of the Italian capitalist class and the absence of a political representation of the workers is producing an analogous fragmentation and loss of control of the so-called ’political class’. Workers and vast sectors of the middle class accuse the politicians of continuing to demand sacrifices from them and at the same time remaining in possession of their own privileges. While the Italian bourgeoisie on the one hand calls on the parties to carry on with their anti-people measures without listening to what is going on in the streets, on the other they criticise them for not having enough of a consensus to guarantee governability and demand ’class unity’ to carry out the reforms ’Necessary for the country’, that is for them, against the workers and the middle class. The escalation of suicides, just as the extreme gesture of one unemployed man from the South who, during the swearing in of the ministers, opened fire on three policemen of the parliamentary guard, declaring afterwards that his real target was the politicians, indicate the climate of exasperation. But at the same time they show how exasperation, without a political and social outlet, is destined to tranlsate into such gestures - desperate at the same time as merely symbolic. Berlusconi resuscitated by the Democratic Party The Democratic Party, at the end of 2011, with Berlusconi reduced to historic lows of credibility, was afraid of saying no to being the agent in Italy on behalf of the European Central Bank and of going to elections and succeeded from then until today in doing everything that was within their power to restore Berlusconi’s lost credibility and risk their own. They voted together with him for the raising of the pension age, the cancellation of Article 18 (of the labour statutes), the IMU - an odious tax on first homes and, after having governed a year and a half with the Centre-right, carried out an election campaign on the slogan ’No agreement with Berlusconi’. And while the leader of the PD, Bersani, was giving interviews explaining in a confused way what his party would do once it had won the elections, Berlusconi was taking over the talk shows promising the abolition of IMU. Beppe Grillo was filling the squares demanding the abolition of politicians’ privileges, but also the establishment of a citizen’s wage, the nationalisation of the banks and big companies like Monte dei Paschi and Telecom and the cutting of military spending, cancelling Italy’s commitments in Afghanistan and Mali. The result of the election followed the laws of marketing technique: in a market full of products substantially the same and ’costly’, a quarter of the consumers chose not to buy anything; one quarter chose a new brand, original and low cost (the Five Star Movement of Grillo); the rest of the demand was divided equally between the other products, preferring the traditional ones (PD and Berlusconi’s PDL) to ones that were just as costly but with no history (Monti). After the election, Bersani, secretary of the PD, the second force after the M5Star in number of votes, but first by number of parliamentary representatives, employed all his own tactical skills to commit suicide. He asked for the job of forming a government without having the numbers and got it. He continued to repeat that never and once more never would the PD make an agreement with Berlusconi (while he had declared himself ready for a pact with Bersani ’for the good of the country’). He wrote an eight point programme, the fruits of a compromise between the half of the PD that wanted to go with Berlusconi and the half that was against and trusted Grillo to support a PD government to get some points implemented. The first of those points was, ’to reconcile the discipline of the budget with productive public investments and to obtain maximum flexibility in the medium term targets for the public finances’. This was a proposal so ridiculous that even a comic would not have been able to accept it, and Grillo rejected it. It provoked the indignation of the centre-left and the press - ’irresponsible: he’s playing Berlusconi’s game’ - and even the criticism of the leader of the ailing Rifondazione Comunista - Ferrero - who, in his position, would have accepted the eight points without even reading them. Meanwhile, the other delicate institutional game was approaching and that was the election of the new President of the republic. Berlusconi declared that he was ready to vote for a candidate of the PD, provided such a candidate was ’not hostile’ (meaning disposed to guaranteeing the impunity and survival of himself and his businesses). Grillo at this point puts forward an intellectual, with no past and with no high ambition*, from within the PD - Stefano Rodotà, as a candidate, well regarded even in the ranks of the radical chic left as well as the PD electorate. But Bersani meets Berlusconi and together they agree a common candidate - Marini, former Christian Democrat general secretary of the trade union federation CISL and amongst the founders of the PD. A choice that everyone justifiably interprets as the prelude to a ’broad agreement’ government. If Bersani had accepted Rodotà, he would have become president of the Republic with the votes of Grillo and the centre-left, would have given the task of forming a government to certain representatives of the centre-left unacceptable to Berlusconi and at this point it would have become very difficult for Grillo not to support such a government. However, everyone understood, including the PD voters, that the earlier agreement, the choice of Bersani, is due to an objective reality: the PD has more interests in common with the PDL than with M5S and on the other hand for 20 years every time the PD had the possibility of wiping out Berlusconi, it pulled back. The revolt broke out. The PD had to meet and withdraw the candidature of Marini and put forward Prodi, not welcome for Berlusconi, wailed about betrayal. The candidature of Prodi was agreed unanimously, on the same day that 100 PD parliamentarians voted in secret urns for other candidates. The last resort before complete institutional chaos, is the reappointment of Napolitano, also ex PD and extremely acceptable to Berlusconi who was the first to propose his reconfirmation. Bersani accepts and announces, finally, in the end, his own resignation as secretary. Members of the PD occupied several party offices. Dozens burnt their membership cards in the squares. Napolitano and ’national responsibility’ Paraphrasing the title of a film by the Cohen brothers, some students, after the re-election of the President of the Republic, went onto the streets with placards saying: ’ This is no country for young people’. Napolitano, old post-soviet archeological remains, who defined the Soviet Union’s intervention in Hungary as the only to ’prevent it from falling into chaos and counter-revolution’ and ’to safeguard world peace’, then leader of the right wing of the Communist Party of Italy (financed by Berlusconi), friend of the corrupt Craxi and his Socialist Party and friend of America and the first Italian ’communist’ invited to the United States, became the real dominant figure in Italian political life in the last few years. He has been the truest representative in Rome of the interests of Brussels and Frankfurt and the most fervent backer of Mario Monti. Napolitano was acclaimed in Berlusconi’s era as a shining defender of morality. In fact, in 2004, when he was a Europarliamentarian, he was surprised by a German journalist trying to claim EUR800 for a flight from Brussels to Rome that cost EUR88 and reacted by having the journalist identified and taken in by the police. Recently he tried to interfere in the court case of the Palermo magistrates over the state-mafia dealings in the ’90s and managed to get tapes destroyed that had recordings of his phone calls with Nicola Mancino, interior minister at the time and between the main people on trial. After the recent Monte dei Paschi banking scandal broke, Napolitano asked the press ’not to make too much noise’. A few hours after the news of his being re-nominated, thousands of people including many youth, besieged the parliament shouting ’Rodota! Rodota!’ and ’Napolitano, we don’t want you!’. After the vote, the PD and PDL MPs had to be escorted out of the parliament by police. Coins were thrown at the leader of the ’left PD’. The ex-deputy secretary, Franceschini, was besieged by hundreds of people in a Rome restaurant. An episode which is related only to the superstructure, like the election of the head of state, has become for thousands of people, worn down by the economic crisis and disgusted with politics, symbolic of a political class that preaches change but practices conservation, the spark that sets off the fire. Some old woman, interviewed in front of the parliament, said: ‘One month ago I was in Saint Peter’s Square to celebrate the new pope Francis I. The Catholic Church gives us an impression of trying to implement some change. The Italian state is not able to do the same’. Grillo described the re-election of Napolitano as a ’mini coup’ and the same evening invited Italians to besiege parliament, announcing that he would arrive in the late evening. ’We must be in our millions’, he said. But a few hours after, he cancelled the demonstration, suggesting ’the violent ones should be isolated’ and gave the time for meeting in a square on the following afternoon. But the day after he appeared for just a few minutes. The Grillini MPs, the only ones who can walk the streets of Rome without an escort, responded to people calling for a march on the President’s residence - the Quirinale - by saying ’it’s not worth it’. ’In parliament we are many, and we can do ’cool’ things!’. A left with a minimum of credibility would have been able to move into this vacuum and played a political role. Instead, the self-styled leaders of the far left limited themselves to criticising Grillo for not having done what they should have done. National responsibility Napolitano, who is 88 and once again ready to do battle to avoid the country ’falling into chaos’, has given the responsibility of government to Enrico Letta, ’young’ ex-Christian Democrat leader of the PD, liberal, nephew of Gianni Letta - trusted right hand man of Berlusconi and skilful operator in the most difficult negotiations between ’The Cavalier’ (Berlusconi), the centre-left and Italian and international capitalism (sitting on the advisory board of Goldman Sachs from 2007). Letta Jnr has put together a techno-politico government, confirming various ministers of Monti’s (but not Monti), among them the one for European relations - a reassuring signal for Brussels. On the political slopes, while various big names from the PDL are entering the government, in key rolestaking care even of the personal interests of Berlusconi, most of the leaders of the PD - with D’Alema and Bersani at their head, remain outside. There are only Letta and Franceschini, from a Christian Democratic background, some minor ex-PCI leaders and many unknown personalities, women and young people (among them a black woman doctor of Congolese origin and a one-time woman canoe champion from Germany), who owe eternal gratitude to Letta for having got through the casting for the reality show ’New faces at Chigi Palace (home of the government)’. But the ministries that count remain firmly in the hands of seasoned politicians and experienced functionaries of the state, amongst them, at the economy, the ex director-general of the Bank of Italy. Anyway, this is not about a Summer-time government but meant to last long enough for a restructuring of the political system to avoid coming out of elections once more without a governing majority. The social version of the government of ’national responsibility’ is the Pact between producers proposed in Turin by the bosses’ organisation, Confindustria to the union federations - CGIL, CISL and UIL - ’to save the factories and the country’ because ’we’re all in the same boat’ and promptly accepted by the unions. Some weeks later, the unions in Bologna invited Confindustria representatives to speak on the platform at the May Day demonstration in front of no more than 300, many of them trade union bureaucrats and pensioners. Landini, the general secretary of the metalmechanics’ union (FIOM), responded to Confindustria that ’like on the Titanic we are all in the same boat, but those who were in the engine room were the first to drown’, provoking criticism from the CGIL general secretary, Camusso. FIOM has made a call for a national demonstration on 18 May of engineers, of students and the social movements for the right to work, the right to education, to health, and social justice and democracy. It could be the first opportunity to test how much the latest political developments have changed the mood on the streets. But FIOM, without a political focus, risks being crushed in a pincer: Landini has been playing a ‘half political role’, due to the vacuum on the left, creating high expectations, more political than trade union, more amongst activists than metal-mechanics. On the other had, he has to manage a retreat on the trade union front due to sudden defeats, to political and social isolation and even a certain disorientation of the leading group in FIOM, without a clear trade union strategy and politically suspended between certain illusions in relation to the centre-left and the absence of a credible alternative on the left. The left without a plan The PD comes out of these events with its bones broken. Starting out with a centre-right in a coma and victory in its pocket they have succeeded in an enterprise which is something incredible, bringing Berlusconi back to power once more, making a deal with him in front of his electorate, without restraint. It’s like a firefighter who sets fire to his own car in full daylight on the pavement in front of his house, to get money from the insurance. Now a congress is being prepared in which Fabrizio Barca, ex minister of Monti, should be representing the ’internal left’. In the meantime critical voices are being raised in the ruling group and realignments taking place, voting their confidence in Letta. But the real incurable fracture, which indicates the end of the PD, is that with its own social base and its own electorate. A fracturing which will be heavily reflected inside a CGIL which is marching towards the congress in a devastating political, trade union and financial crisis. If the PD has broken bones, Rifondazione and the left parties are by now in a phase of decomposition. Nichi Vendola, of the SEL (Left Ecology Liberty), after an embarrassing electoral result, has been forced to break with the PD and to support Rodotà as President of the Republic. He has announced that he will create a ’constructive and responsible’ opposition to Letta and planned to launch on 8 May a new ’workshop’ of the left, seeking to gather the right of the RC and certain renegades from the PD. To the left of the RC, Cremaschi, former number two of FIOM now retired has launched a new appeal for an ’anti-capitalist and libertarian movement’, with half the forces that belonged to ’No debito’. (ControCorrente did not belong to it, only maintaining discussions with them.) ALBA (’Alliance of work, public assets and the environment’) continues to propose a ’new political force’, but is run by a handful of intellectuals, deprived of any social base, of an organised force and of a clear political programme. The secretary of Rifondazione, Ferrero, resigning after the disastrous election, but in charge until the next congress (fixed with great calm for the end of the year), leads an already virtual party by means of his own Facebook page, commentating on the on the initiatives of others and often giving advice to Grillo on the tactics to use against the PD, which Grillo wisely does not follow. Inside the RC, without his own independent political project, Ferrero follows ALBA with interest, one part of his people have joined Cremaschi’s appeal, while the right tries to have a dialogue with Vendola. The Communist Party of Workers, the only list with the Hammer and Sickle - a symbol which always has a certain appeal for us - at the elections reached an historic low. Critical Left - the Italian section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, is living through the nth split in the name of the movements. Falce Martello - the section of the International Marxist Tendency, is enthusiastically preparing for a congress in which Ferrero’s centre and the right will be fighting over the mortal remains of the RC. For the Italian left a real ’trek across the desert’ is starting. The absence of a generalised social response to the offensive of big capital renders the current proposals ’to rebuild the left’ pathetic attempts to put together bits of the political and trade union bureaucracy without a clear political idea and incapable of exercising an attraction for workers and young people, all to the advantage of Grillo. These leaders, always ready to quote Gramsci (usually incorrectly), instead of putting themselves on the terrain of a ’struggle for hegemony’ over ordinary sectors of their electorate, run after him, one day exalting them and the next accusing them of being fascist. On the other side, in a country that has had the biggest Communist Party in western Europe and a lively extra-parliamentary left, against the background of a stagnation of the class struggle and of the crisis of the trade unions, a generation of activists over 40 are living with the feeling of being orphans of the past and don’t manage to be a point of reference for the youngest. With the result that the best part of the activists tend to distribute themselves in a casual way amongst the various discussion tables on the left or limiting themselves to waiting for something to happen. Only an unfreezing, at least partial, of class conflict can unblock the situation, bring into politics new forces and restore enthusiasm to the old militants. The shock represented in the nth compromise between the centre -right and the centre-left by the definitive loss of credibility of the PD and in bourgeois democracy itself, the new wave of anti-people policies that await us could make millions of people understand that nothing remains but to struggle, relying only on our own forces. It would be necessary to try and rebuild with our own hands what the leaders of the left have destroyed: a party capable of giving a voice, programme and organisation to workers and ordinary people in society. * ‘senza infamia e senza lode’ means’: he’s not responsible for big mistakes nor for big victories in the past. He’ s not worth of big criticism nor of big praises.

Spain, property bubble explosion and the aftermath

I watched a BBC documentary this week by Paul Mason one of the BBC’s better political correspondents on Newsnight this week. The show took you right from when Spain had its first democratic elections after the fall of Franco right up to the present day post 2008 housing crash where all of Spain’s huge property bubble went through the floor in a spectacular way. Spain was rocked to its very foundations when the sub prime mortgage effect of property in Spain crashing and huge debts were mounted up when people simply could not pay back the interest let alone the re payments. Thousands upon thousands of workers in the construction industry were thrown out of work into poverty those who had stable jobs earning a decent wage in construction found themselves right up against it and now Spain unemployment stands at 25 % and a lot higher for young people who have felt this harder than most. The biggest crisis in Spain is currently the housing crisis where forced evictions are occurring regularly. I wonder myself if our comrades in Spain could take a leaf out of our American comrades who used the occupy movement to defend families being forced out of their homes by big banks. In recent weeks Amaia Barakaldo Egaña climbed onto a chair and jumped from the fourth floor of her building. This was the second high-profile death related to mortgage foreclosure in only a few weeks. The outstanding debt default which led to the eviction was less than € 214,000. José Miguel Domingo, 53, was found dead in the courtyard of his home in the neighbourhood of Chana in the city of Granada. Joseph had a loan for 240,000 euros. A man also jumped from a balcony in Valencia before being evicted. He was hospitalized with serious injuries. They are the last three known cases of a social drama that is taking place in the Spanish state, a graphic reflection of the barbarism of the system and the crisis of capitalism. Every day of the first half of this year (2012) 500 evictions were executed in the Spanish state, a social drama that overflowed into a people’s revolt with the second suicide in 15 days. These tragic cases have caused widespread shock and anger. In Madrid, about 50 people threatened with eviction for non-payment of their mortgages were sleeping rough in a camp in front of the main branch of Bankia in Celenque Square, near the Puerta del Sol One of these protestors said: "People are extremely angry over the issue of evictions" In Barakaldo where Egaña Amaia lived thousands, 8,000 according to organizers, marched directly following her death, under the slogan "No to unemployment. No to evictions. Yes to Social protection.” During the march, protesters chanted slogans against the banks and financial institutions daubed "murderers" on their windows. Paint cans were thrown at the bank ‘La Caixa’ where Amaia had her mortgage. The demonstrators chanted slogans: "Not a suicide, a homicide," "They have the money; we have the dead", "No eviction without response" or "Stop financial terrorism". The public reaction has shaken both the PP and PSOE and they have been forced to be seen to be ‘doing something’ about the issue, entering emergency negotiations to agree on a “humanitarian” bill to stop executions in very limited extreme circumstances. It was the pressure from social movements and the street that has obliged them. PSOE particularly must be condemned particularly for its opportunism. During last PSOE government issue was repeatedly raised IU / ICV and measures were put forward to end the drama of evictions. These measures were repeatedly rejected by PP and PSOE. The Police Trade Union (SUP), adopted a semi-revolutionary decision in response to the movement. They said they would legally support agents who find themselves unable to execute evictions. It also requested that the Government take measures to stop the evictions. Other police unions branded the eviction orders as "barbaric" and "very difficult to implement." The Basque Police union, Erne, also said that the organization will support and provide legal defence to members who refuse to participate in evictions. Judges also denounced usury, unjust enrichment and abuse by banks. A judge said: "Judges are not the mere appliers of the letter of the law." The reactions of the police and the judges in the face of the protests are very significant. The PP policy of cuts and attacks on living standards of workers is reaping a whirlwind of opposition. These cracks are the first to be seen in the state machinery. Clearly many in the police and judiciary have no desire to continue with the policies of the PP and its consequences. The TV channel La Sexta has shown images of police actions in which they resemble an occupation army. They are seen going from house to house throwing families out of their homes. The feeling of great injustice is a very bitter taste in the mouths of millions in Spain. Even the Queen daytime television presenters, Ana Rosa Quintana, dared to call for civil disobedience! Because of this social pressure, in Euskadi, Kutxa and Caja Laboral had to immediately suspend all evictions, even before the PP government announced their measures. Although clearly insufficient, the temporary measures that the PP government have announced can be considered a victory since they would never have been implemented without pressure from below. The anti-evictions movement also shows that a sustained and determined movement can force the government to back down. However, the fight should not stop here. The conditions of the two year moratorium are very restrictive and the problem is far from solved. The consequences of evictions and the opposition will continue. Mortgage law and the law of civil procedure will be untouched. People who are evicted in Spain face abusive default interest charges and court costs. As well as losing their homes they also have to keep paying the mortgage even though the bank can sell their property! The PP Economic minister, Luis de Guindos claims that people have to rely on the Banking Code and the willingness of the banks to follow ‘good practice.’ Some hope! There is one law for the working class and another for bankers and big business. Since 2008 bankers and politicians have ruined building societies and banks yet have received multi-million euro payoffs while in the same time period half a million working class families have lost their homes in Spain. Perhaps the saddest aspect of Amaia case was that she was a PSOE member along with her husband and a former councillor. A party with ’Socialist’ in its name should offer a vision of the future and have a programme to fight the injustices of capitalism. However, these tasks are on the shoulders the left real. Our challenge is to completely stop ALL EVICTIONS and nationalise the banks and use their enormous wealth and empty housing stock to ensure the right to adequate housing through social rents for all workers and their families. Second part of this post taken from www.socialistworld.net the homepage for the Committee for workers international CWI

Europe’s car industry another crisis in the making

Below I republish an excellent article posted a few months back by the CWI detailing the slowing down of the European car market. What has always been thought of an ever expanding market now appears to have dark clouds on the horizon for German, French and Italian car manufacturers. Europe’s car industry Another crisis in the making www.socialistworld.net, 27/09/2012 website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI For a European-wide and international strategy of the trade unions to defend factories, jobs and working conditions Stephan Kimmerle, CWI “It’s a bloodbath of pricing and it’s a bloodbath on margins”, Sergio Marchionne, boss of troubled Fiat and chair of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) wails about the European markets. “Europe’s auto industry has reached day of reckoning”, was the headline in the New York Times. With the slowdown of growth in China the car industry internationally faces harder times. But for Europe it’s a disaster. Sales in Europe went down from more than 15 million in 2007 to approximately 12.4 million in 2012. A further clogging up of the outlet of exports to Chinese markets will drown the European plants in overcapacity. Given the fact, that huge over-capacity already existed before the crisis, the constant cost of maintaining the factories puts enormous pressure towards the closure of around 8 to 10 plants, according to capitalist commentators. This implies getting rid of the capacity to produce at least 3 million vehicles in Europe - an equivalent of around 250,000 jobs. According to analysts, factories must operate at 75% at least to be profitable. The destruction of that capability to produce goods – not necessarily cars – and the sacking of a very skilled workforce, lining up in the ranks of the mass unemployed – is the capitalist ‘solution’ to this problem. However, so far in the course of this crisis, only a very few plants have been closed in Europe (e.g. Opel Antwerp, Fiat in Sicily) and, at the same time, new capacity has been built up in Eastern Europe and internationally. Winners and losers The developing car crisis is hitting the different mass producers in very dissimilar ways. While Volkswagen appears to have increased its share of the market (despite some problems for its Seat arm), the Peugeot group (PSA) and General Motors in Europe (Opel, Vauxhall) seem to have suffered the most. Opel has losses of €938 per car sold, Peugeot-Citroen €789. Opel is discussing whether to close factories either in Eisenach (eastern Germany) or Bochum (western Germany). Ford is considering the closure of its plant in Genk, Belgium. Peugeot announced a reduction of its 100,000-strong workforce in France by 8,000 including the closure of its plant in Aulnay-sous-Bois near Paris (in total 14,000 jobs will be lost from the global 210,000 workforce according to this plan). While the workers at Aulnay took to the streets in protest and to demand that their jobs are safeguarded, a so-called expert, on behalf of the French government, just argued to close Peugeot’s Madrid plant instead and sack the workers there. The announcement to make the workers redundant in France’s Peugeot plants in June immediately triggered protest actions across the country. On 9 October, the CGT trade union federation has called for a demonstration of car workers in Paris, confronting the bosses presenting the new models on the same day. However, delegates coming together from the different factories of Peugeot had to push the trade union leaders to take this and more decisive action, and there is no strategy to fully use the power of the combined workforce in Aulnay and other plants. While the Aulnay workers went on strike, others were not called to join in. The differences between companies also reflect the uneven effects of the economic crisis in Europe and the devastating effects of the austerity measures imposed on Southern Europe. While German car sales are stagnant, France saw a decline of 14%, Italy minus 20%, while the number of purchases went down over 40% in Greece and Portugal. The decline in sales in Southern Europe had a much bigger effect on Peugeot and Ford purchases given their car fleet and traditional markets. Ford implemented short-time work, for example, at its plant in Cologne, Germany, which produces for these markets. At the same time, workers are being blackmailed to accept worsening working conditions in a race to the bottom. The current problems in Bochum reflect GM’s decision in May in favor of their Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port, Britain. They forced workers to accept longer hours, losses in real wages and more flexibility, with the company dictating the times of work even on the weekend in order that production would be continued there. With this, the internal competition between the Opel plants in Germany (Rüsselsheim, Bochum) and Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port was used again in a successful way by the bosses against the workers. A whole series of deals involving workers giving concessions to save their jobs have been implemented in the past. Now, despite the ‘guarantees’ given to the workers that their jobs would be safe until 2016, the Bochum factory is faced with the danger of closure, and Rüsselsheim will see huge over-capacity as soon as the next changes of models are fully introduced. Unfortunately, instead of developing a joint fight back, the trade union leaders in Britain and Germany always justified the concessions, sharing a very narrow view on defending jobs in the framework of their nation state or even only looking towards saving one plant against another. Strategy of the bosses: following the US example? The bosses’ attempts to make workers pay for this crisis are obvious. But what is their plan to organize a way out? Billions of euros were spent after the crisis hit in 2009 to bail out the car industry in Europe. Looking from a US point of view the New York Times commented: “But instead of using that money to ease painful downsizing of plants and payrolls, governments provided financial incentives for people to trade in older models for new ones, or subsidized worker salaries to dissuade companies from cutting jobs.” (New York Times, 26 July) That’s what happened in the US. In an act of state intervention, the Obama administration took effective control of GM and Chrysler, two of the three big US car companies and organized a massive restructuring in order to restore profitability to the shareholders. The restructuring involved the shutting down of dozens of plants across the Midwest, the loss of thousands of jobs and getting rid of the historic gains of decent wages, pensions and health care for newly hired workers. Their wages of new hires are now at half the previous scale. This ‘restructuring’, at the expense of auto workers, was only possible with the active cooperation of the leadership of the United Auto Workers (UAW), the once mighty trade union of US car workers. A part of the trade union bureaucracy has turned more into managers to run the shares controlled by the UAW at GM and Chrysler, as well as the management of their $1bn Wall Street ‘strike fund’, and of the health plan for retirees which is controlled by the UAW. As part of the longer process of reorganizing the terms of exploitation, a sharp decrease of the wages of US car workers was implemented. The traditional factory bases in the north of the US, with a high level of trade union organization and traditions, have been gutted with production moving towards the US south, where trade unions are hardly present in the auto industry. Several Japanese and German companies now have low-wage car manufacturing plants in the US, which increasingly is seen as a low-wage manufacturing centre. That is the actual restructuring plan that is taking place under the Obama administration – a devastating blow to the living standards and conditions of US workers in the auto industry under the pretext of ‘saving jobs’. But the main objective was to cut costs in order to restore profits for the shareholders. Given the huge over-capacity in this industry in Europe, Sergio Marchionne, Fiat chief and current president of the European auto makers’ association, Acea, called for such a US-style method on an EU level to deal with the problem: “[Europe] needs to provide a unified, concerted road map to get this done,” Marchionne said. “Look at what happened with the steel industries in the ’90s, and copy that example.” That means factory closures, sackings and worsening working conditions for those who keep their jobs, organized by the governments of Europe. Will the European capitalists implement a US-style plan? Unable to solve the fundamental crisis of the car industry, will the European bosses be able to go the way of the US? The different nation states will try to act as in 2009. But it’s more than unlikely that the European capitalists could find a joint approach. In 2009, the different nation states put forward schemes like ‘cash for clunkers’. Formally they dealt with the different producers in a neutral way, but the design of the different schemes was made up of competing national interests. If Fiat and Peugeot are the losers of this crisis, the German state, from a capitalist point of view, does not bother too much. It may even open up new opportunities for Volkswagen. In the logic of capitalism, the tensions and differences between nation states and the companies based on nation states increase. That does not rule out that, in a joint interest to stabilize the economy or to prevent an escalation of protests, some joint actions could be decided on. But, as the euro crisis shows, the nation states in Europe are the tools of the different capitalist classes. They cooperate as far as it is in their interest, but the contradictions are increasing. And the use of their nation state is a one way street for them and does not oblige them to do anything. Two-and-a-half years ago, Fiat chief Marchione argued for what he called an ‘investment plan’ in Fiat’s Italian factories under the name ‘Fabbrica Italia’ (Factory Italy). (The origin of the word ‘Fiat’ is: Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili – Torino). Playing on the Italian card, he argued for state help and massive concessions by the workers in the working conditions and wages. Today, he just argues that an international company (now making more money with the Chrysler arm) needs to re-adjust the plans according to the market developments, despite some repetition of empty phrases of protecting Italian interests. Workers in Italian factories have already been forced onto short-time working linked to loss in pay – some even down to only 4 days of work a month. Perspectives However, it is far from certain that the current winners, e.g. German car producers, will just continue to be on the gain. After the crisis in 2009, it was mainly the Chinese markets that helped to overcome the problems for European car makers. Given the sales in Asia, the higher range cars – the German Daimler, BMW and Audi – has still not been hurt by a new crisis yet, but a slowdown is there. Even booming Volkswagen announced to its suppliers in Germany the possibility of a fall of 10% in production. Daimler announced further programmers to reduce costs. The attempts at increased cooperation between companies increased (e.g. Opel with PSA, Daimler with Nissan). The failure of the Daimler-Chrysler fusion is still a warning, however, that the pressure on companies is immense and that further fusions, as well as the collapse of whole companies, are on the table. The best option the companies are hoping for at the moment is that the decline in Europe is cushioned by markets in the rest of the world. It is very open as to whether this scenario materializes. Even then, it would be linked to further reductions of plants and jobs. An even more severe development cannot be ruled out with a hard landing in China (a growth rate falling to 5%) and other emerging markets being hit by global downturn. Trade union strategy In the first days of horror that greeted the car crisis in 2009 the fear of losing jobs and factories enforced a debate about a change of the whole industry towards electro cars and ‘green mobility’. However, this was quickly forgotten as soon as sales in China increased and cash-for-clunker schemes evolved. Trade unions like the mighty IG Metal in Germany signed agreements that workers had to accept short-time working with severe losses of pay. Contract workers lost their jobs and the core workforce paid a heavy price. Trade union leaders accepted a continuation of a "two-tier system", where younger or new workers are employed on much lower wages and worse working conditions. Trade union bureaucrats in Germany accepted – off the record – to play the same role as their counterparts during the decline of the German steel and coal industries: organize the end of jobs and companies with some minor concessions, avoiding bigger upheavals. The crisis is starting again to bite for car workers. It’s urgent to avoid a repetition of these developments on an even worse economic basis compared to 2009. A trade union strategy is needed to coordinate resistance all over Europe and internationally to defend all jobs and factories and to end the playing-off of workers in one plant or country against others. A unified struggle is needed to fight against all cuts, concessions, job losses and closures. All factories where workers are threatened with redundancies have to be taken over by the states and run under workers’ control and management. But, given the links between the factories, the inter-dependencies and the over-capacity in the industry in general, the struggle for nationalisation cannot be limited to those factories the bosses do not need any more. The whole industry needs to be put under state ownership and democratic management by the workers, the unions and the state to start a transformation. A plan is needed for how to reorganise the car industry and use this well-educated and skilled workforce in the interests of working people in Europe and internationally. If necessary, that might require switching the production to other socially necessary products, reducing the hours of the working week and linking it to a plan to overcome the economic crisis in general – not by cuts, unemployment and poverty but by reorganising the production in the needs of working people. When Marchione calls for a “unified, concerted road map” to slaughter jobs and plants, the workers’ and trade unions’ answer should be united and concerted. To open this road, the trade unions also have to be transformed into fighting organisations, based on internal democracy, building close links of workers European-wide and internationally. A militant movement in the workplaces and trade unions is needed to struggle for these changes, developing direct links of workers’ representatives between factories and countries and overcome the barriers towards a joint fight back.

A Greek exit from the euro looking more like when than if now

With the euro financial crisis deepening by the day and sometimes it f eels by the hour as the markets continue to tumble it looks increasingly likely that Greece will be forced to leave the Euro sooner rather than later now. With senior European bankers discussing the idea over the weekend it looks to me as though they are preparing the ground for a controlled Greek default and to allow them to leave the Euro. As i’ve said on this blog before the Germany economy is very strong but is not without its troubles of course and as a result is already reprinting the German mark currency and is all ready to go if a sudden collapse means it necessary to reintroduce.

I imagine we will see the Greek drachma reintroduced this year too before too long. As Marxists we are always approached as being out of touch but we were the only ones to have predicted the global financial crisis with the Euro zone especially venerable once an economic crisis hit which is always likely under capitalism due to its very nature of periodic crises ingrained in its make up every 10 or so years.

The capitalist state is based on the nation state trying to force 27 odd countries with different economies, cultures, traditions working patterns was just simply never going to work. We don’t oppose the EU on nationalist lines as that divides the working class we oppose it as a boss’s club and was only created to benefit the ruling classes only now it is all falling apart around their ears. In theory the EU could have worked if they’d transformed into a federal body like the United States of America although getting 27 different nations to agree on everything looks very unlikely.

With the markets this morning falling into panic mode due to the uncertainty of the Greek political scene with no government being able to be formed and further elections looking likely the markets don’t like it and well Greece has been running on empty for sometime bumping along the ground and stumbling by getting injections to a dying corpse not being allowed to die just yet due to the fears of others in the EU but I think now the ruling class are starting to consider letting them go. Which would not solve the Greek’s problems one little bit if anything it’ll only make things worse for them as the country is still pretty much bankrupt with huge debts even still? I imagine they will have part of their debt written off but will still endure years if not decades of austerity now with the working class and the poor feeling it most. Leaving the Euro won’t solve things for Greece but it may give the rest of the euro zone a temporary boost but it will be short lived when the crisis shifts to Spain, Italy or Portugal and Ireland which looks its next victims.

A European fight back on a mass scale is needed now the crisis is becoming clearer and workers who are fighting back can see now that they are fighting similar battles to their co-workers in the other parts of the Euro now if they join up the dots and realise they areal fighting the same enemy the system the movement created could be electric.

Greece on the edge, will the EU leaders let them go ?

At the present time, foreign creditors and the Troika (IMF, ECB and EU) are trying to impose a new round of severe cuts on Greece, including 20% wage cuts in the private sector and an immediate slaughter of 15,000 public sector job as part of the destruction of 150,000 jobs by 2015. At the same time, support for the parties supporting the technocrat government of Papademos is in sharp decline. In one recent poll, Pasok, the now neo-liberal former social democratic party, is down to 8%, from 44% in 2009, when it returned to power! The anger and fury about the cuts is now reflected in the hesitancy that ND, the traditional conservative party, and Laos, a right-wing populist force, - in alliance with Pasok behind the Papademos government - are trying to present to the public, before again surrendering to the demands of the markets. “I will not contribute to a revolution out of misery that will then burn the whole of Europe”, Georgios Karatzaferis, the leader of Laos, was quoted, trying to distance himself from the government he supports.



General strike, 7 February 2012

The former banker, Lucas Papademos, was presented in November as a ‘neutral’ technocrat, above the different parties to save Greece after the fall of the Pasok government. On taking over the job of Prime Minister, he had approval rates of 60% or more. Now his support is shattered, and the parties supporting him – Pasok, ND and Laos – have fallen from 83% combined in October 2009 to less than 45% today, with ND on 31% (from 33.4% in 2009) and Laos 5% (5.6%).


Still, the ruling class and their politicians can feel that the mood is explosive.

The failure of two years of severe austerity after decades of stagnation and crisis in Greece is now obvious. The capitalist media and TV channels openly discuss the vicious circle of cuts and further economic decline. It’s widely acknowledged now, that this policy of austerity is a blind alley and capitalist commentators now raise the idea of limiting austerity to allow some limited measures promoting growth. The Troika is more and more criticised for imposing their policies and making the situation worse.

Still no significant part of the Greek capitalists wants Greece to leave the Euro-zone, but the debate is in full swing now on what would happen if Greece is kicked out of the Euro or leaves the common currency itself. Parts of the Greek capitalists are trying to use this as a tool to demand more concessions from the Troika.




With the narrow vote of the Greek parliament last night narrowly voting through new austerity measures mentioned above to be able to qualify for the next installment of the bailout from the IMF. This looks dire for Greecea s it is. They are effectively bankrupt already huge huge unemployment and the suicide rate is shooting up in the last year.

Greek gdp fell 7.3% in 2Q 2011. Est. -5% for 2011. Unemployment est. to be at 1.2M in a country of 12M how can they pay the debt?

Answer is they simply cant. I have a feeling that the EU leadership the ruling class's in germany and France are preparing the ground now for a exit of teh Eurozone for Greece. To me the EU cannot afford to bail out Italy and spain and Greece i think they will sacrifice Greece to try and save the rest of this failed capitalist project.

As for democracy in Greece i think now its long gone. With elections called for April time but all parties manefesto's has to be passed by the IMF. If you think that is democracy having your manefesto passed by the markets first you can think again.

Its time for the greek workers to over throw their government once and for all and to refuse to pay any more of the debt. To urge the cancelation of the debt and the bringing into public ownership the commanding heights of their economy to begin to rebuild Greece under a socialist planned economy.

Not just a economic depression

As we inch further and further towards another recession a double dip some may call it or we could say a longer depression it has been found that people taking anti depressents is on the rise quite dramatically. But is this a surprise. With teh demand for more and more out of workers day by day to work longer and longer hours for less and less. If you have a family this is extra demand on you to bring back a good pay packet.

The number of anti-depressants being prescribed to people in Scotland is continuing to increase, according to the latest figures.

Statistics from the Scottish government suggest that more than one in 10 of the population are on the drugs.

In the last financial year a total of 4.6 million anti-depressants were prescribed in Scotland, up more than 350,000 on the previous year.

It is estimated 11.3% of Scots, aged over 15, take the drugs daily.

The rate of growth in the prescribing of anti-depressants increased from an annual growth of 7.6% in 2009/10 to 8.1% in 2010/11.

The continued rise in anti-depressant use comes despite a Scottish government pledge to reduce it.

The SNP had said they aimed to bring the yearly increase down to zero, and then by a further 10% each year.

The figures also showed a variation in the percentage of the population using anti-depressants across Scotland, with 8.3% of people living in Shetland taking the drugs compared with 12.9% in Greater Gl


Although this report states prescribed drug use in Scotland this is also the case right across the country during these tough times people will be driven to more desperate measures to gt by and make ends meet. It is a sign that workers are being worked too hard and are feeling the strain.

SO if we are facing a economic depression in the next few years lets not forget the human capacity to withstand this and the mental damage it can do to people and their families. This will have a big impact as people fear loosing their jobs and homes. This could be devastating for people. But lets not forget that behind this story is also a private drug company making a huge profit out of producing anti depressent drugs for people to take further exploiting people.

This is all very worrying and further signs of capitalism and its harsh realities.

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