The Socialist issue 18

theSocialist

STRIKE NOW !

A paper of the socialist party scotland committee for a worker’s international (scotland)

Issue No 18 - Sept/Oct 2011

.org.uk

price: £1

Capitalism is a broken system

Youth fight for your future

Build a fighting anti-cuts movement

pages 6/7

pages 9 and 12

pages 3 and 5

s the savage cuts imposed by the Con-Dem government bite ever deeper workers will have no choice but to take to the road of struggle.

Jim McFarlane Chair Dundee City Unison (personal capacity)

Rising unemployment and job insecurity, cuts to pay and pensions along with big rises in the cost of living mean the prospect of even more people being thrown into dire poverty are inevitable unless these vicious attacks are met by fierce resistance.

The massive TUC demo in March of this year, along with the widespread strike action by the PCS and some other public sector unions at the end of June shows that when a lead is given workers will respond.

The government have declared war on public sector pensions and the trade unions must respond by organising a national coordinated one-day strike in the Autumn.

Big public sector unions like Unison, Unite and the GMB should be following the lead of the PCS and start balloting now.

This is a fight we cannot afford to lose. Otherwise we’ll be working longer, paying more while seeing the value of our pensions diminish.

The Scottish Government along with local councils, NHS employers and other public sector bodies are putting the final touches to huge cuts that will have a direct effect on the vast majority of ordinary people across the country.

They have all bought into the cuts agenda promoted by the main parties.

Working class communities and public sector workers can have no trust in any of them to defend our public services. These attacks will have a devastating effect on the day-to-day lives of millions of people.

Vital public services provided to the most vulnerable people and the most impoverished communities will be lost.

Only a campaign involving those communities and the workers that provide them can stop this government of multi millionaires get away with this jobs slaughter.

They not only want us to just have a

working life of poverty. They now argue that public sector pensions are too generous so we must now pay more to then receive a paltry pension in our retirement for those of us lucky enough to live that long.

The key task for trade unionists is to build a mass campaign of determined strike action to show the bosses and their political puppets in all of the main parties that we will not accept these cuts.

A one-day general strike across the public sector could be the first step in uniting the wider working class and trade union movement in the struggle for a better society.

Pressure must be immediately put on trade union leaders to campaign and organise the necessary strike action this autumn.

This strike action would not only pile pressure on to this weak coalition government in Westminster but it would also show to the wider society that there is a powerful force capable of struggle to defend jobs and services.

That type of action could be the starting point for the struggle to build a genuine socialist alternative to the chaos of capitalism that continues to drive millions into poverty and despair.

(solidarity £2)

❐ DEFEND OUR PENSIONS ❐ FIGHT THE CUTS

Stop the cuts demo - Glasgow Saturday 1st October Assemble 11.30am Glasgow Green Demo organised by the STUC Better Way campaign

email: info@socialistpartyscotland.org.uk website www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk website of the committee for a workers’ international: www.socialistworld.net

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2 editorial

www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk - Sept/Oct 2011

EDITORIAL

Marx was right - It’s socialism or the madhouse “The financial system has become a madhouse – a mechanism to maximise volatility, fear and uncertainty. There is nobody at the wheel. Adult supervision is conspicuous by its absence.”

Will Hutton The Observer 6th August 2011

ation, weak growth and flat consumption and manufacturing production.

Housing remains depressed.

“Consumer, business and investor confidence has been falling, and will now fall further. Even worse, leading indicators of global manufacturing are slowing sharply—both in the emerging economies like China, India and Brazil, and export-oriented or resource-rich countries such as Germany and Australia,”

Marx was right

Wall Street has been in turmoil as the US economy falters.

he brutal austerity measures being attempted by the ConDem government in Britain and big business governments internationally are pushing the economy towards a new recession.

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The failure of capitalist governments across the world to find a way out of the economic crisis that erupted in 2008 has been underlined by a slew of economic statistics in recent weeks.

The European Union area slowed rapidly in the period April to June 2011. Germany and France - the two largest economies in Europe - flat-

lined as Europe as a whole slumped to meagre 0.2% growth from 0.8% in the first quarter of 2011. The US is teetering on the brink of a new double-dip recession with marginal growth at best. Japan suffered a decline of 0.2% in GDP. The inability of the capitalists to find a road to growth has been reflected by the unprecedented turmoil over the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Added to this was Obama’s capitulation to the right wing Tea Party over the US budget and fears of a slowdown in China which have produced a profound depression among the world’s economists.

Nouriel Roubini, a capitalist economist who predicted the crash of 2008, commented in the Financial Times, “America’s recent data have been lousy: there has been little job cre-

Join the Socialist Party Scotland I’d like to find out more / join Socialist Party Scotland

Roubini has even cited Karl Marx for his analysis of the tendency of capitalism to go into crisis and to “self-destruct”.

Capitalists internationally were able to keep “growing their system” for a decade or more in the run up to the crash through the expansion of massive debt bubbles. For example UK household debt is now running at almost 160% of income, a rise from 45% in 1980 as a result of mortgages, loans and credit cards etc.

The only way the system could continue to grow was to encourage consumer spending – which makes up around two-thirds of the economy – based on unprecedented expansion in the amount of credit available in the economy. This was particularly the case in countries like the UK, Ireland, the US, Spain. But even more socalled “balanced” economies including Germany and France were hugely exposed to the international property bubbles that their banks invested heavily in.

When the dénouement finally came, collapsing debt-laden banks had to be bailed-out and in some cases nationalised in a huge rescue operation, unprecedented in its scale.

This led to the huge losses run up by now toxic banks being transferred to the public purse. The consequence of this was an explosion in government deficits - the sovereign debt crisis - exacerbated by rising unemployment and falling tax revenues. The hypocritical cacophony of demands by millionaire politicians for austerity and savage cuts inflicted on the poor to pay back the debt has been deafening ever since.

The levels of indebtedness in the

economy has led to commentators like Roubini referring to “zombie banks, zombie households and zombie governments” who are barely alive and infecting all around them due to the levels of debt that they are carrying.

However as the Socialist Party has consistently pointed out, this economic crisis is not our responsibility.

The bankers and bosses are responsible for consciously using credit to extend the growth of their system, which they cashed-in in the form of hugely increased profits and share dividends. This went alongside measures such as privatisation, deregulation, especially of the financial system, an onslaught on working conditions and other neo-liberal attacks on the working class that increased the profits going to the capitalist class.

The share of national wealth going to wages as opposed to profits fell in Britain from 65% in 1973 to 53% in 2005.

As we also explained the savage cuts would only increase unemployment and reduce wages and benefits and depress the economy even further, leading to a new recession and a prolonged period of economic stagnation. That is exactly what’s happened in countries like Greece and Ireland and now the increasing likelihood of a new recession in Europe, the US and the UK. Cameron in Britain, Merkel in Germany etc are capitalist “austerity junkies”. Their only solution to the debt crisis, which is only one aspect of a profound crisis of the profit system, is cuts and more cuts. The overwhelming majority of the capitalist governments internationally support austerity and currently oppose “Keynesian” measures to stimulate the economy. The “bailouts” for Greece, Ireland and Portugal for example come with huge austerity programmes attached, which are designed to brutally attack the living standards of the working and middle class.

The Keynesian wing of the capitalists, the so-called “debt junkies”, which include people like Roubini and Hutton support stimulus measures and an element of debt cancellation.

They have argued for the use of inflation, through Quantitative Easing (QE), to lower the debt albatross that

is hanging around the neck of the international economy, preventing a growth revival.

systemic crisis However, neither wing of the bourgeois have any long-term answers to what is a systemic crisis of the system as a whole. But with a strong likelihood of a new world downturn, further efforts to revive the sick patient through stimulus and other reflationary measures will be attempted.

There are growing divisions between the different wings of the capitalists reflected by the open conflict in the US between the Democrats and the Republicans. Internationally the zig-zag’s from austerity to stimulus and back again is an indication of the growing crisis infecting the outlook of the bourgeois as they thrash around trying to find an exit from their predicament. Ultimately, their only consistent policy is to try and unload the overwhelming costs of the crisis onto the backs of the poor and the working class internationally.

struggle and socialism For the working class and young people internationally the only way out is to take to the road of struggle in defence of their jobs, living standards and a future. The need for widespread and coordinated strike action - a 24 hour general strike - as a first step is posed in almost every country facing capitalist savagery. A mass youth movements across Europe, linked to a mass workers struggle across the continent must be built to defeat austerity and the policies of the European and world political elite.

Central to such a movement is the need to build left and socialist parties with a mass membership of the working class and young people. Armed with a socialist programme to bring into democratic public ownership the banks and big industry in each country, and across Europe, a real alternative to the madness of capitalism could be established. A socialist Europe and a socialist world would lay the basis for a new society based on democratic planning of the world’s resources to replace the anarchy of the market.

Keep up to date with the most comprehensive socialist news and analysis from around the world with the Committee For A Workers’ International

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The paper of Socialist Party Scotland E-mail: info@socialistpartyscotland.org.uk Website: www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk Editor: Philip Stott

www.socialistworld.net CWI CIT

Recent highlights include ● A world turned upside down - the consequences of 9/11 - 10 years on ● The riots - a mass movement is needed to defeat the Con-Dem government ● Israel - A mass movement against the rule of capital. ● China - Thousands protest against pollution from chemical plant .......and much, much more

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fighting the cuts 3

www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk - Sept/Oct 2011

Build strike action to defeat the Con-Dems he coalition government is stripping our communities of jobs and services. It intends introducing a worryingly harsh "welfare" regime in an unprecedented transfer of wealth and power from the majority to a tiny elite who have no interest in society except how much profit they can screw out of it.

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John McInally Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) vice-president - personal capacity

It is truly sickening to listen to a multi-millionaire spiv like Cameron talking about a "sick" society when it is the insatiable greed of him and his kind which is the main cause of the social dislocation he bemoans.

Rioting and looting are not in the interests of trade unionists and working people, whose communities bear the brunt of such events, it is firefighters and other emergency services who have to deal directly with the consequences but also other public sector

workers who have to pick up the pieces.

The Tories, with the acquiescence of Labour, and the rest of the political establishment, not least of all the media, including "liberal" opinion-formers, are trying to portray this as a 'law and order' issue when in reality it is the predictable consequence of decades of neoliberal/monetarist policies.

This is a war on working people generally, but on the most excluded and marginalised in particular.

There is however a direct correlation between the savage attacks on services to communities that need them most and the anger and alienation of large sections of youth who face the worst unemployment levels in decades.

Millions of youth have effectively been told by the coalition government and the wider political establishment you have no future, no access to higher education and no stake in society.

Young people see a political establishment steeped in open corruption, MPs fiddle their expenses, criminal elements like Murdoch etc run the press, police chiefs increasingly see their job as protecting corporate interests and suppressing legitimate protest rather than protecting communities.

Worst of all in some respects is the Labour Party, which at one time pro-

vided a forum for the expression of discontent of the most marginalised but is now another mouth-piece of the corporate elite.

PCS's statement on the riots said "...we have to step back and recognise these disturbances did not happen in a vacuum. It is not condoning violence to say that simply dismissing this as 'mindless criminality' is to give up on our responsibility to look for causes and solutions."

Our society is more unequal than at any point since the 1930s. There will be those who will call for tougher sentencing and more police powers, but these will not solve the very deep problems facing our country. As PCS has argued, we need investment to create the jobs and build the infrastructure that our communities need.

We should also resist attempts to demonise young people in general. They have been the biggest victims of this recession.

The lawlessness of the financial and political elites is a much larger problem that our society must address.

PCS will continue to oppose the barbarism of this government and build support for an alternative based on tax justice, investment and job creation.

Real leadership is required from the

PCS members took widespread strike action on 30th June

trade union movement to speak out for our class including the most marginalised and the dispossessed. In order to do this our movement, and particularly the TUC, should follow the policy of

PCS and other unions and adopt a position of no cuts, and build the kind of widespread industrial action capable of defeating and bringing down this government.

What strategy do we There’s a better way to fight the cuts need to beat the cuts ? he STUC’s “Better Way” Campaign has organised some sizeable demonstrations, which are to be welcomed. But their campaign does not oppose all cuts, they don’t put forward a strategy of meaningful strike action nor to they put any demands on politicians to refuse to implement the cuts.

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he 30th June strike by the PCS and some teaching unions was a magnificent reflection of the mood of working class people to fight back against the Con-Dem government’s plans to force us further into poverty and misery.

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Diane Harvey SACA secretary The number of protests, rallies, and strikes that have taken place over the past few months are proof that when jobs, pensions, services and benefits are threatened - workers, communities and youth are ready to take action to resist those attacks.

The Scottish Anti-Cuts Alliance and its affiliates which include local anticuts campaigns, trade union organisations and youth and community campaigns have been at the forefront of those fight backs. Our campaign was established to fight all cuts, build support for workers taking strike action and demanding that politicians refuse to make cuts asked of them by the Con-Dem government.

We organised a Lobby of Parliament on 15th June to demand that the SNP government refuse to make the ConDem cuts, we helped build support for the PCS strike on 30th June.

The Scottish Anti-Cuts alliance held a successful meeting of 50 PCS reps and activists immediately following the strike day George Square Rally to plan and co-ordinate our actions in future struggles.

And the Scottish Anti-Cuts Alliance

will build for the forthcoming STUC “People First October 1st” demonstration in Glasgow to make that day a massive show of strength by ordinary people from across Scotland, sending out a clear message that we’re not prepared to accept the cuts agenda being foisted on us.

The Scottish Anti-Cuts Alliance are quite clear about where we stand – unequivocally on the side of working class communities.

We oppose ALL cuts. We demand politicians vote against ALL cuts. We call on politicians to set needs budgets which protect our services. We make no apologies for this.

We won’t adapt our founding principles to attract support from politicians or trade union leaders who will then betray us. We provide no cover for those don’t oppose all cuts.

We call on those leaders of the Trade Union movement, and those politicians who expect working class

communities to vote for them, to start representing their members and their communities, and VOTE AGAINST ALL CUTS. As the economic crisis deepens by the day, we say we won’t pay for the greed of big business and the diktat of the markets. We call for a 24-hour public sector general strike in the autumn as the next step of a sustained mass trade-union based campaign against all cuts.

We urge all anti-cuts groups, students and youth, unemployed and disabled campaigners to join with the Scottish Anti-Cuts Alliance to build a mass movement, organised and united on the principle of NO CUTS !

Join us to fight the cuts! ❐ Affiliate to Scottish Anti-Cuts Alliance ❐ Invite a speaker to your Trade Union Branch /Anti-Cuts Group ❐ Contact: scottishanticutsalliance@yahoo.co.uk

Indeed the STUC openly states it’s belief that “it is the scale, pace and balance of the Government’s programme that we take issue with”.

(STUC response to Budget statement).

The STUC’s 'There is a Better Way' campaign is an example of this. The website states the STUC's view that "Deep, Savage and Immediate cuts are not necessary.."

It’s a bit like doing no more than declaring that the Poll Tax is deeply unfair but refusing to advocate and campaign for mass non-payment.

The weapon that defeated Thatcher and her hated tax.

In reality, the idea of separating out “acceptable “and “unacceptable” cuts is rooted in the belief that some cuts are necessary so long as they are "not so deep and not so fast". In effect this means 'don't cut here, cut there' and is a minefield for trade unions who will find themselves drawn into agreeing to cut members jobs and the services in order to save others.

The 1st October Better Way Demo call’s for the “hardest hit” to be protected and for “stronger communities”. Even the title of the demo “People First” makes no mention of it being an anti-cuts demonstration.

Such vague sentiments, albeit laudable, are no substitute for a clear call to fight all cuts and to build unified

and determined mass action.

By only opposing the “scale’ and “pace” of cuts the STUC are bolstering the case for cuts at a slower pace, over a longer period of time. This is the position of Ed Miliband and the Labour Party who support cuts - albeit at a slightly slower pace.

If they are serious about fighting the cuts the STUC and the its affiliates must take the lead from the PCS and advocate effective industrial action and co-ordinate this across the trade unions movement. They should stop giving support to politicians at Holyrood and in Council Chambers who are implementing the cuts!

limited resistance ?

In a similar fashion the Coalition of Resistance (CoR) and the Right To Work (RtW) campaign’s have failed to put a forward a fighting anti-cuts strategy. They have sought support from SNP, Labour and Green MPs, MSPs and councillors who are not consistently opposed to cuts. Some of whom have even voted for savage cuts, for example in the Scottish parliament.

Both CoR and the RtW can end up providing a respectable cover for politicians of all parties who are not consistently opposed to cuts at all.

The CoR also work closely with the STUC and other trade union leaders but at the recent CoR National Conference held in July 2011, a motion calling for the TUC to co-ordinate a 24 hour general strike against the cuts and attacks on wages and pensions was defeated.

Both CoR and the RtW campaign should come out clearly for opposition to all cuts, demand elected politicians refuse to make cuts and set needs budgets, and call for the trade unions to organise national strike action to defeat the cuts agenda.

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4 news

www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk - Sept/Oct 2011

There’s nothing left about the SNP NP government ministers have made huge windfalls by selling their second homes, after the mortgage interest was paid for by the public purse.

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Philip Stott John Swinney, who as Finance Secretary has slashed public spending and imposed wage cuts on public sector workers in Scotland, cashed in by making a £75,000 profit when he sold his Edinburgh residence for £430,000.

Swinney was able to claim back the mortgage interest on his second home in Edinburgh through parliamentary allowances, and did so to the tune of £60,000 over eight years. None of this has been paid back. He now stands to pocket £57,000 after tax deductions after selling the four bedroom house. And all this on top of his £97,000 salary as a government minister.

He's not the only one either. Alex Neil, then the SNP's secretary for housing and homelessness, profited by a staggering £105,000 after tax by selling his Edinburgh flat. Neil had claimed £87,000 from the "Edinburgh Accommodation Allowance" scheme that allows MSPs to bill the parliament for housing costs.

The SNP government has already made £1.3 billion in cuts to public spending in Scotland this year and plans a further £2 billion cuts over the next three years. It's public sector workers, public services and working class communities who will pay the price of this savage austerity while the same government ministers are making huge cash windfalls at our expense.

Salmond and Murdoch Alex Salmond has been forced to reveal that he met News International journalists and executives 25 times over the last four years. Salmond exchanged letters with Murdoch after they met in New York in 2007 just a few months after the SNP formed the

government.

"I enjoyed our conversation and, as ever, found your views both insightful and stimulating" he wrote.

Salmond also invited Murdoch to the Ryder Cup in the US as part of the Scottish delegation, offering to pay for the obviously cash-strapped billionaire's accommodation and tickets.

His love affair with the arch-reactionary Murdoch even went as far as inviting him to the Gathering which was part of the Year of Homecoming.

As First Minister, Salmond, also alongside Murdoch, opened News International's printing operation at Eurocentral in 2007. Coincidently of course the anti-working class Scottish Sun has been a firm supporter of the SNP government and gave the SNP full support during the 2011 election campaign.

No wonder Salmond has been so silent over the phone hacking scandal. By your friends you shall be known.

Cutting tax for the rich The SNP have unveiled their proposals for control over corporation tax to be devolved to the Scottish parliament. A call which was accompanied by an SNP pledge to reverse the planned cuts to corporation tax by the Con-Dem coalition and increase the tax on big business in Scotland?

Aye right! John Swinney instead wants to slash the tax that the multinationals pay to the level of the Irish republic - 12.5%.

He claims: "Control over corporation tax would enable us to boost investment, bringing jobs to communities across Scotland, grow the economy and take the right decisions for Scotland". The right decisions for the millionaires and billionaires maybe, but not for the vast majority of the working class facing cuts in pay, benefits and public services - many of them imposed by the SNP government.

All these examples show that the SNP government is only really interested in the rich and powerful.

The need to build a real mass socialist and pro-working class political alternative to the main parties of capitalism in Scotland is all the more urgent.

Reject Starkey’s racism avid Starkey’s comments on Newsnight expose the racist attitude of the British establishment. He implied that black culture is synonymous with violence and criminality. He also attacked rap music for glorifying riots.

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Wayne Scott Dundee Starkey’s comments are to be condemned. It would be foolish to deny that reaction is present in rap music.

You only have to look to the rapper DMX who writes notoriously homophobic music. You will not have to look far to find rampant sexism in rap either.

However, rap music has many positive aspects and is one the few types of music that paints an accurate picture of the life that many impoverished young people face, which is one of the many reasons that young people have come to love the genre.

The Black Panther Party influenced early hip-hop groups heavily. The Black Panthers were a militant black organization during the civil rights era that advocated self-defence against police brutality. However the group went as far as to call for socialist revolution as well as community control of the police. Their influence is shown clearly in the music of Public Enemy, 2pac and KRS-One. Generations have came to love hiphop because hip-hop artists are the only ones talking about the poverty and police brutality young people suffer on a daily basis, the same poverty

Oil leak shows profit comes first he Alpha Gannet oil leaks have been the UK’s worst oil spillage in a decade. The leak began 112 miles east of Aberdeen, on the 10th August after a routine helicopter flight over the North Sea spotted a large “sheen” on the surface.

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Leah Ganley Despite Shell, the owners of the oil platform knowing there was a leak, no information was made publicly available for two days, until the oil spill covered a 20 mile by three mile area in the North Sea. At this point the company released a statement stating they had sealed the leak; this was clearly untrue. Several days later it was established there were two leaks. The oil leaks have now been stopped after a faulty relief valve has been closed but it took 10 days to plug the leaking pipeline and has left many questions unanswered.

It is estimated 220 tonnes of oil spilled in the North Sea and there is still the further problem of how to deal with another 660 tonnes still contained within the plugged up pipeline.

Questions have been raised as to why it took so long for any information to be made public, alongside calls for greater transparency, from environmental groups, as well as, Richard Lochhead, the Scottish Environmental Secretary.

Feeling this pressure, the Westminster Government have now launched an investigation into what happened, in an attempt to prevent another similarly devastating situation occurring again. It is unlikely that this investigation will go far enough in its conclusions.

Shell has one of the worst safety records of the major oil companies operating in the UK. A Sunday Herald investigation showed that in the last six years Shell has been officially re-

proached for breaking safety rules 25 times.

The information gathered by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show these include four prosecutions for explosions, collisions and accidents, in one case causing a fatality and over £1 million in fines and legal costs. Shell have also faced a number of formal reprimands. These safety breaches include repeatedly failing to properly maintain pipelines and other vital equipment in the North Sea, failing to report a dangerous incident and not protecting workers from hazardous materials. This shows that the current regulatory regime is not working.

The idea of fining companies for breaches of safety rules is meant to act as a deterrent, to ensure compliance but in practice this does not happen.

Just last month, Shell announced it’s profits had doubled in the first half of this year (on the back of rising energy costs for consumers) to £5bn! So fines of £1 million over the last few years are (very) small change to such a multinational company.

Currently it is much more profitable for companies like Shell to spend less on fully adhering to safety regulations and to pay the odd fine now and again.

The poor track safety record of Shell and other major oil companies has lead to calls to changes to the regulatory system particular as the number of oil and gas spills in the last few years has increased as well as the number of major injuries to offshore workers, which has jumped 77% in the last year.

However, greater and more robust legislation regulating the offshore industries will not alone prevent future

“Shell has one of the worst safety records of the major oil companies operating in the UK. A Sunday Herald investigation showed that in the last six years Shell has been officially reproached for breaking safety rules 25 times.”

and police brutality that many of the rioters will know about first hand.

Gangsta rap is in many ways reactionary, while rebelling against many of the same things as the more political rap like Public Enemy.

NWA were also rebelling against police brutality in the ghettoes. Gangsta rappers like Biggie Smalls talk about the criminal behaviour that people in the ghettoes can get caught up in.

However this is due to the fact that under capitalism, people often have a choice of criminality or going hungry.

This is the same choice that the people we saw looting items such as nappies are faced with.

The ruling class has always hated rap music. When 2pac released his album 2pacalypse Now, the US Vice President called for the album to be banned. This was because the ruling class feared that millions of impoverished black youths might hear the message of this album.

The song Trapped deals with police brutality in the ghettoes. Words Of Wisdom is a vicious attack on the racist es-

tablishment. The song also encourages black youth to read the works of Malcolm X. Rap music terrifies the establishment, as they know that if young people hear the message behind it, they may realise that there is no need to have the class society that we live in.

So while racists like David Starkey may believe that it is rap that glorifies riots, rap has simply spoken the truth about the situation that many young black (and white) people face.

If we are to ever move away from poverty, police brutality, slum housing and drug addiction, we have to overthrow this rotten system of capitalism that leads to riots and misery for millions.

The alternative would be a programme of mass job creation as well building decent quality housing for all.

This is summed up in the Dead Prez song Police State; “Organize the wealth into a socialist economy. A way of life based off the common need. All my comrades are ready we’re just spreading the seed.”

environmental disasters. Private companies have the sole purpose of making (and trying to increase) profit.

They will always put this before the environment and before the lives of their workers. With oil and gas running out rapidly, the need for massive research and development into alternative energy sources is paramount.

This research is not taking place quickly enough as there is no money to be made in the short term, so the private sector will not invest. The production of energy is too important to be left to the current unorganised system based on profit not safety or the needs of society.

All oil, gas and other energy companies should be brought into democratic public ownership and control, and profits used to fund the development of the alternative energy sources our world so desperately needs.

DGS campaign builds support he recent meetings of Defend Glasgow Services have continued to see the participation of major trade unions and community campaigns who are either in struggle or moving into struggle as a result of the cuts implemented by Labour controlled Glasgow City Council.

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Ian Leech Defend Glasgow Services PCS branches, the EIS teachers union, the FBU, a number of Unison branches are actively involved in the campaign.

Those being particularly hard hit are the most vulnerable. The Labour council are targetting a cut of 20% in their budget that provides for people with disabilities. This is plunging these people into hardship and poverty. In addition, cuts are being made to the funding of voluntary sector groups who provide crucial services to the disabled.

One such provider, Quarriers is seeking a 19% to 23% cut in its workforce pay. (see page 11) Since its beginnings at a meeting held in January 2010, DGS has sought to unite workers and communities in an anti cuts campaign that has demanded No to all cuts and privatisation. For elected members to, not only declare their opposition to cuts, but to carry this through by voting against cuts and leading a community based campaign across the city demanding more money for jobs and services.

Despite regular correspondence and invites, to date we have been unable to secure the participation of any elected politician.

The Scottish Government is beginning to pass on the cuts to local authorities, workers and communities. The cuts will begin to come thick and fast. We need a principled opposition with a clear programme and tactics to lead a successful, united fight against ALL cuts. In addition we need to continue to argue that all elected politicians need to fight not hide and make excuses.

thesocialist

news 5

www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk - Sept/Oct 2011

Anti-cuts candidates for May 2012 ne of the most crucial questions facing trade unionists, anti-cuts campaigners and the working class of Scotland is how to build a stronger political voice, particularly in the run-up to the council elections next May.

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Brian Smith Glasgow Unison branch secretary (personal capacity) The industrial fight back by trade unionists has taken its first important steps with the strike action on 30 June, led in Scotland by the PCS Civil Service trade union. Community campaigns like Defend Glasgow Services are now growing in number across Scotland, working to build mass opposition to cuts at the grassroots in our towns and cities.

However, what is clearly lacking so far is a political alternative to the parties of cuts and privatisation, principled anticuts political voices and representatives in Scotland's town halls and city chambers.

Not one of Scotland's councils or MSPs has called for "no cuts" and the setting of needs budgets to protect jobs and services whilst arguing for money from Holyrood or Westminster.

They all sat on their hands, did nothing to protect public spending and voted through the cuts. In the days before the 30 June strikes Ed Milliband, UK Labour leader, sided with the Tories by calling on the trade union leaders to call off the strikes and John Swinney, SNP Finance Minister, told Scotland's low paid civil servants to come to work as there was no point in striking to defend their pensions.

Scotland's two dominant political parties are part of the problem and offer nothing in the way of vision or leadership to the growing number of people who believe that the cuts are not necessary, that the super-rich and bankers who created the mess should pay and that the Con-Dems are out to use the so-called "public debt crisis" to drive through their historical mission of breaking-up the welfare state and attacking the living standards of the rest of us in the drive to protect their bankrupt, capitalist system.

Prioritising profits for the multi-national corporations and the billionaires over the needs of working and middle

class people is the role of Tories and the Labour Party and SNP are doing little to stop them. In fact they are implementing the Con-Dem cuts It is time for those in the anti-cuts movement to step-up our efforts to have "No Cuts - No Privatisation" candidates standing in as many seats at next May's council elections as possible.

Offering trade unionists, young people and the wider community the chance to get involved in an election campaign in support of principled anticuts fighters and socialists would add a great deal to anti-cuts struggles in Scotland.

A coalition against cuts involving anti-cuts campaigners, trade unionists and socialist organisations could stand widely in Scotland. Our candidates would offer a commitment to oppose all cuts, to pledge to fight for needs budgets and to stand shoulder-toshoulder with our communities, trade unionists who are opposing the savage cuts agenda.

To this end a meeting is being organised for organisations and individuals who support these principles to discuss preparing for the May 2012 elections.

The meeting would be held on Saturday 22nd October at 2pm in Glasgow.

Preparing an anti-cuts challenge for May 2011

Saturday 22nd October 2pm Renfield St Stephens Centre, Bath Street, Glasgow Trade Unionists taking strike action against cuts need a political voice

Edinburgh facing cuts, trams fiasco and privatisation dinburgh City Council is set to implement the largest privatisation of Council services in Scottish history.

E The UCS work-in 40 years on T

Jimmy Haddow

he UCS work-in of 1971/2 deserves study by all interested in the role of the working class in changing

society.

Ronnie Stevenson Glasgow Upper Clyde Shipbuilders was created out of the shambles of the shipbuilding industry created by the private owners. They had extracted maximum profit with minimum investment in the boom years after the Second World War. UCS was created by the amalgamation of five shipbuilders, who were brought under semi-public ownership under the Labour government of Harold Wilson in the 1960’s. UCS had a labour force of 13,000 and an order book of £87m. At the end of 1970 the UCS Chairman reported that the company was "gaining in strength and morale as each day passes" and that he felt the company could be profitable by 1972.

However the new Conservative government was determined to return state industries to private ownership and to get rid of "lame duck" firms.

This dogma meant that on the 4th of February 1971 the prime symbol of British engineering, Rolls Royce, was forced into liquidation. Yarrows would be taken out of UCS and no more public money would be made available.

The government solution was to slash the workforce to 2,500. Creditors became nervous and demanded payment and it looked the UCS would close with devastating effects on the populations of Govan, Partick and Clydebank.

Meetings of stewards in the yards were organised and across Scotland.

Public activity generated widespread support. A strategy was devised famously articulated by Jimmy Reid who became chair of the joint coordinating committee for UCS. He summed it up ‘We are not going to

strike...We are taking over the yards because we refuse to accept that faceless men can make these decisions. We are not strikers. We are responsible people and we will conduct ourselves with dignity and discipline'.

Jimmy Reid’s oratorical skills have left famous fragments in the minds of many workers. Another was when he famously stated to workers of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in as they began the work-in on July 29th "there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying". He reminded them the whole world was watching as it was and indeed learning.

workers’ power All the men and materials entering or leaving the yards were under the control of the shop stewards – who were led

by Jimmy Reid, Jimmy Airlie and Sammy Barr who were leading members of the Communist Party at the time and Sammy Gilmore. It was a marvelous example of the power of the working class – with the government and the state powerless to respond.

There was a huge mobilisation of support among the working class of the west of Scotland, across Scotland as a whole as well as England and internationally. Donations to the work in came from shipyard workers in the Soviet Union and even from John Lennon.

The scale of the movement was shown by the huge demonstration that marched from George Square to Glasgow Green on Wednesday August 18th.

Such was the pressure from the working class that the STUC were forced to convene the first Special Congress in its history. The demo on 18th August was the biggest working class demonstration in Scottish history – 80,000 strong.

With it being a Wednesday workers stopped work and an estimated 200,000 took part in what was effectively a partial general strike.

The USC struggle captured the imagination of millions – at a time when the post war boom was ending and the spectre of mass unemployment raised its ugly head. Occupations to save jobs became a popular way of fighting against the bosses cuts.

The work-in continued for 16 months until October 1972. In the end the Tory government was forced into a U-turn and had to come up with £35 million of public money to maintain 5,000 jobs at UCS, in conjunction with a US company. Today, all that is left of shipbuilding on the Clyde is the building of warships in the two privately owned BAE yards of Govan and Yoker.

The Upper Clyde Shipyard work-in was a testimony to the determination of the working class to defend their livelihoods. In 2011 it’s that type of mass struggle that’s needed to defend jobs and public services against another vicious anti-working class government.

In what they call the Alternative Business Models (ABM) private companies will run everything from street cleaning to housing benefit.

The Edinburgh branch of Unison, one of the Local Authority unions, has been conducting a public campaign called ‘Our City is not for Sale’ as a means to explain to the Edinburgh people what the devastating effects of privatisation will mean to them.

If this is allowed to go through it could be the music of the future for other Scottish Local Authorities.

Unison along with other Council trade unions have been organising public stalls, leafleting and public meetings, all which members of Socialist Party Scotland members have been involved in, to publicise their opposition to full scale privatisation of the Council services.

They correctly say that privatisation produces poor quality of service, neglect of the elderly, job losses, extended hours and pay cuts for its workers.

Along with the fact that local residents cannot hold local councillors to account for the failings of Council services.

The present ruling LibDem/SNP coalition on the Council have no mandate for the privatisation of its services and assets. What Unison asks is ‘who is driving the privatisation question’.

Is it the elected Councillors or the unelected Council officers?

According to Unison the final shortlist includes two companies connected to multi-million pound fines for price rigging and contract fixing.

But when the process started the council officials withheld that information from the elected councillors.

It was only when Unison pointed out what the companies did was when the council official agreed with the union.

On top of that two companies were allowed to participate in the privatisation process despite the fact the Council caught them withholding information about convictions arising

from fatal workplace accidents. One company was caught, reprimanded and caught again within a space of a few months. And still they were allowed to stay in the bidding process.

Once again the senior officials made the decision to overlook the significance of these tragic deaths without informing elected members.

All this is running alongside the Trams fiasco in Edinburgh. The tramway has been under construction since 2008.

The new tram system was originally scheduled to enter revenue service in February 2011.

Now it’s supposed to be 2014, and by the end of 2010 only 28% of the infrastructure had been completed.

This Project is a complete mess and Edinburgh City Council have voted to stop the tram at Haymarket - only half of the original planned route - due to the costs. Even then the overall price tag is still going to be £700 million and rising. That’s an eye-watering £100 million per mile. The tram system is expected to lose £4 million a year.

Management of the project has now been passed to a new company, Turner and Townsend, which was brought in by the city council to help it complete the tram line into the city centre.

Staff at TIE, Transport Initiatives Edinburgh, which had been running the project, has been told they face further redundancies.

At the public meetings organised by Unison and other members of the public there has been extreme anger about the lack of consultation, and the money spent, by the Edinburgh Council on privatisation.

The established political parties on the Council, and specifically the SNP/Lib Dem coalition councillors, have not been able answer the concerns posed by their constituents and some have even said that they will not vote for them again.

In a recent Edinburgh Council Byelection an anti-trams candidate gained just over 11% on a low turnout.

There is a need for an anti-cuts and anti-privatisation candidates in Edinburgh to come forward and stand against the current crop of establishment Councillors on a platform of nocuts in local services and no privatisation of Council Services in next year’s Council elections.

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Capitalism is the bro Together, the global imbalances, the manic-depressive behaviour of stock markets, the venality of the financial sector, the growing gulf between rich and poor, the high levels of unemployment, the naked consumerism and the riots are telling us something. This is a system in deep trouble and it is waiting to blow.” Larry Elliot Guardian 19th August 2011. he world economy appears to be sliding into a ‘double-dip’ recession or, more accurately, a continuation of the ‘great recession’ of 2008-09, following a feeble ‘recovery’ in 2010.

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Feature by Lynn Walsh Editor of Socialism Today magazine www.socialismtoday.org The advanced capitalist countries are most severely affected, but the brightly burning furnaces of the semi-developed giants of China, India and Brazil (so-called ‘emerging markets’) are beginning to flicker. Until recently, signs of a slowdown which appeared in the second quarter of 2011 were regarded by many capitalist commentators as merely a ‘soft patch’. But the outlook changed dramatically with the convulsions in global stock exchanges during the first three weeks of August.

Trillions of dollars were wiped off the value of shares, with bank shares being especially hit. This is in spite of the high profits garnered by big business in the last period, and their huge cash reserves. The volatility and sharp decline – not at this stage a crash – reflect fear of an economic downturn and a collapse of profits in the future. Huge amounts of money have been taken out of company shares and transferred to so-called ‘safe havens’. In the first three weeks of August, $42 billion was taken out of equity funds. Financial institutions and big investors have moved from shares to government bonds (notably the

US and Japan), to gold (pushed up to almost $1,900 an ounce), and cash deposits in Switzerland (Swiss banks are now charging fees for deposits, effectively a negative interest rate!).

The stock exchange volatility was triggered by a series of events, all interconnected and symptomatic of an underlying slowdown in the global economy. One financial analyst described the situation as “an imperfect storm of downgrades, rumours, lacklustre macroeconomic data and the ongoing eurozone debt crisis [which] transformed a retreat by investors into something approaching a stampede”.

(Financial Times, 13 August) Investors fled from risk and sought ‘safe havens’.

The confidence of investors internationally was shaken by the struggle between Barack Obama and the US Congress over raising the country’s debt limit and the subsequent downgrading by S&P of the US government’s credit status. The battle over the $14.5 trillion national debt highlighted the dysfunctional character of the US political process. A minority of Tea Party Republicans appeared ready to plunge the country into default rather than accept even very limited tax increases on the wealthy to help reduce the deficit.

While many commentators regarded a US default as ‘inconceivable’, others were not so sure.

In downgrading the US debt status from AAA to AA+, the rating agency S&P referred not only to the absolute level of debt but the dysfunctional process. “The effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policy-making and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges”,

S&P wrote in its downgrade report.

The US is still seen as a safe haven. However, the episode has clearly left its mark: “Once unthinkable things have happened, such as the US losing its AAA rating”, commented an analyst at Barclay’s Capital. “Investors are literally feeling the earth shifting under their feet; you just don’t know what else you thought of as rock solid might turn out to be untrue”.

(Reuters, 15 August)

temporary fixes By early August it was clear that the 21 Markets have been in turmoil over the eurozone crisis and the US slowdown July deal agreed by eurozone leaders had far from resolved the eurozone crisis. Re- guarantee their share of the new loan. This Italy, Spain and later France. This speculanewed fears of defaults in eurozone gov- opens up the possibility of other eurozone tion began to drive up the borrowing costs ernment bonds were also leading to governments demanding similar collat- of these countries. It also brought a sharp doubts about banks believed to be holding eral, which could make the loan finan- fall in the share prices of major banks. Nolarge quantities of sovereign debt. The sit- cially unviable or politically unacceptable tably, there was an especially sharp fall in shares of the French bank, Société uation was intensified by a statement from for cash-strapped Greece.

The summit also agreed to extend the Générale, following rumours (in the Daily José Manuel Barroso, head of the European Commission, who said there was “a powers of intervention of the EFSF (Euro- Mail) that it was in trouble.

A major crisis in eurozone sovereign growing concern among investors about pean Financial Stability Facility), but did the systemic capacity of the area to re- not raise the very modest €440 billion debt/banking was averted by a u-turn in spond to the evolving crisis”. This state- funds available. Again, any real extension ECB policy. Under pressure from Germany ment, in itself, intensified the turmoil on of EFSF powers depends on the approval and France, the ECB agreed to start buying the bonds of Spain, Italy and France to of national parliaments. bond markets.

This situation led to renewed, intensive sustain their price and ward off speculaIt had been agreed that Greece should be given another loan of €109 billion. speculation against the bonds of some eu- tors. This has temporarily stabilised the However, this, as with other sections of the rozone governments and also the shares of position. But it is far from clear how much deal, is subject to approval by the national banks holding euro bonds. This was not so longer the ECB will continue this intergovernments or parliaments of the 17 eu- much directed, at this stage, against the vention. Some members of the ECB board rozone members. There are growing bonds of Greece, Portugal and Ireland be- are openly opposed to this policy, as is the doubts as to whether even the German cause the European Central Bank had Bundesbank. Once again, there is a temparliament, the Bundestag, will ratify the (somewhat reluctantly) already been in- porary fix to the ongoing eurozone crisis, agreement. Moreover, Finland has subse- tervening to buy their bonds, thus sus- not a resolution.

In recent weeks there have also been requently demanded that Greece provides taining their prices.

Speculators, however, began to bet on a newed fears of a new round of banking cricollateral (security) in the form of certain assets (not so far specified publicly) to fall in the prices of the sovereign bonds of sis. Since 2008 some banks have reduced

Deep divisions among the elite about how to fix their mess

US federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke ponders a bleak future for the profit system

he capitalist class internationally faces not only an economic crisis but a political crisis of economic policy. A whole range of policies has been tried – to no avail, giving way to renewed recession.

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Bank bailouts in 2008-09 and stimulus packages prevented a catastrophic collapse of the world economy on the lines of 1929-33. But the solvency of some banks is now threatened by the sovereign debt crisis. Stimulus packages in the US and Europe have run their course. Priority is now being given to severe austerity measures in order to reduce deficits and accumulated debt. This is clearly having

the effect of depressing growth, which is likely to lead to even higher deficits in the future.

Deficit reduction, however, has been the dominant ideology of big business (‘financial markets’) and the policy adopted by most political leaders (including those of former social-democratic parties). But even some bourgeois leaders and heads of financial institutions have begun to change their tune. For instance, the new head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, recently called for some countries (unspecified, but no doubt meaning Germany, Japan, the US and possibly Britain) to introduce shortterm fiscal stimulus while preserving their commitment to medium-term fiscal austerity (a tricky balancing act!).

There is no indication at the moment of any major government adopting such a course, but in the face of an even deeper downturn in the world economy capitalist leaders will undoubtedly be forced to change direction in order to avoid economic collapse. The recent public-sector strikes in Britain are, in their different ways, a foretaste of the social upheavals to come. In this new phase of recession, which is likely to be protracted, the working class will be more prepared to struggle against austerity measures than in 2008-09, when the sharp downturn came as a sudden shock.

bitter debates Bitter debates are also taking place in relation to monetary policy. While political leaders have been restrained by pressure from big business from adopting stimulus measures, the central banks have, to one degree or another, adopted measures to stimulate growth. For instance, both the Federal Reserve in the US and the Bank of England have reduced interest rates to near zero and adopted socalled quantitative easing programmes.

The pumping in of credit into the economy has undoubtedly prevented the collapse of many banks and corporations, though it has had a limited effect in stimulating growth. At the same time, as critics

point out, a large slice of the credit was diverted to speculative investments in ‘emerging markets’.

Quantitative easing, however, has been bitterly attacked by some sections of big business and ultra-free-market politicians.

Recently, Rick Perry, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, denounced Ben Bernanke as a traitor for printing money. Similarly, in the eurozone, there is strong opposition to the ECB’s policy of buying government bonds in order to support their price levels.

Critics of quantitative easing argue that it is inevitably inflationary. However, much of the extra liquidity is actually hoarded by banks and financial institutions and, given the generally deflationary trends in the major economies, is not at this stage inflationary, though it certainly has the potential to cause inflation in the future.

In this period, the main threat to capitalism globally comes from deflation, the stagnation of the economy, the fall in prices, and the increase in the burden of debt. More and more, commentators are referring to the ‘Japanisation’ of the world economy, a reference to the 17-year stagnation of Japanese capitalism.

Keynesian-type stimulus packages, particularly if they involved infrastructure projects which create employment and

boost unemployment benefits, would mitigate the downturn. Sections of big business that previously denounced Keynesianism as unredeemed evil are now beginning to call for such measures. Even the Financial Times, previously a pillar of neo-liberal doctrine, says that “for those with room for fiscal manoeuvre, there is a case for a more relaxed approach to economic belt-tightening”. (Ghost of Keynes Haunts Eurozone, 16 August) Keynesian measures, however, would only be a short-term fix (as even John Maynard Keynes himself recognised).

They would inevitably increase the indebtedness of states, and such debt could only be paid off on the basis of sustained growth.

However, under capitalism sustained growth depends on sustained investment, which will only take place if the big corporations and capitalist investors believe that they will make adequate profits from their investments. In this period, capitalism cannot secure the combination of high investment levels and sustained productivity growth that would be needed to combine rapid growth, good wages, high social spending – and big profits.

Ultimately, that proved to be beyond capitalism even during the ‘golden age’ (1945-73) of the post-war upswing. Today, as recent events show, we are facing the ‘bleak age’ of the crisis-ridden system.

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oken system their debts and increased their capital reserves. Others, however, are still heavily weighed down by bad debts and may not have sufficient reserves to withstand another major downturn. But the position of different banks is far from transparent.

This has resulted in a growing reluctance of banks to lend to one another through interbank money markets.

News that one unnamed European bank had borrowed 500 million US dollars from the ECB sparked rumours that a major bank was in trouble and had been refused funding by US banks.

As a result of this and other incidents, banks have increasingly been depositing their spare cash with central banks, even though this pays lower interest rates than the commercial money-market funds.

While not yet as severe as in 2008, this trend carries the threat of a new credit squeeze like that of 2008, with banks being reluctant to lend to any customers perceived as risky.

slowdown Above all, however, it was the accumulating reports of a slowdown in the major capitalist economies that triggered the stock exchange falls. In the US, GDP growth fell to 0.8% (annualised) compared to 3% last year. Around 24 million workers are looking for full-time jobs. Moreover, a recent survey of manufacturing in Pennsylvania and New Jersey predicts a sharp decline in coming months.

In Japan, growth has declined for the third consecutive quarter, falling 0.3% in the second quarter of 2011. The rising value of the yen against the US dollar, propelled by the influx of cash in search of a safe haven, will make Japan’s exports more expensive, further cutting across growth.

In Britain, the economy is stagnant, depressed by the austerity measures of the Con-Dem government. The economies of the two largest eurozone countries, Ger-

many and France, are also stagnant. Even German growth, previously the most dynamic, has ground to a halt. This is partly the result of weak domestic demand (with a severe squeeze on wage levels in recent years) and, most significantly, a decline in exports to China (down 12%). Overall eurozone industrial output for May and June, moreover, declined by 0.7%. In Greece, as a result of savage austerity measures, the economy is likely to decline by 5% this year. The outlook is bleak and the slide in share prices reinforces the gloom. “Market crashes stoke a negative spiral”. (Financial Times editorial, 20 August)

A new credit squeeze?

The new downturn is a prolongation of the 2008-09 recession, This time an economic slowdown together with the sovereign debt crisis, has precipitated a new phase of banking crisis.

Although the position of most banks does not appear to be as bad as in 2008, there is the distinct possibility of a new credit squeeze as bank lending dries up.

Some banks themselves would be hit by such a squeeze, and further bank failures certainly cannot be ruled out.

From the end of 2009 until early 2011 there was a feeble, uneven recovery. It depended on a number of factors. There was short-term fiscal stimulus, with increased government spending in the US, Britain, Japan, and core European countries.

There was also an extremely loose money policy carried out by the major central banks in the US, Japan and Europe.

This has meant near zero interest rates and, in one form or another, quantitative easing – the pumping of additional credit into the economy on the basis of ‘creating’ (ie printing, in old fashioned terms) money. The world economy was also sustained by the continued high growth rates in major developing economies, notably

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We have the Internet, market research, supermarket loyalty cards that record the shopping habits of every customer.

Big business uses this technology to find out what it can sell. We could use it rationally instead to find out what people need and want.

The general trend of capitalism, with its increasing monopolisation, is towards internal planning. Ford, for example, uses a huge Internet programme to procure the cheapest possible components worldwide. However, under capitalism this process will never be finished.

A blind system based on profit and competition will never be able to be planned beyond a certain limit. But a socialist government would strengthen, and develop the methods of planning currently used to maximise profit and avoid taxes in order to plan society for the benefit of all.

Even on the basis of current production, measures could be taken to meet the needs of the majority. Every year capitalism spends $1 trillion worldwide on

arms spending. This alone could provide $1,000 a year for every family on the planet.

Just 25% of the cost of George Bush's Star Wars programme would provide clean drinking water for the billion -people who are currently without it. A democratic, planned economy could develop production to much greater levels than is possible under capitalism.

There is no contradiction between developing technology and production and safeguarding the planet. What is needed if we are to save the world is long-term planning that would be able to develop alternative technologies that did not harm the environment.

This could only be achieved on the basis of democratic, socialism. A democratically run planned economy would be able to take rational decisions on the basis of aiming to meet the needs of humanity.

It would decide what technology to develop and use, what food to produce and when and where to build, while taking into consideration the need to protect and repair our planet for future generations.

Changing economic relations, the abolition of class divisions and the construction of the society based on democratic involvement and cooperation

Conflict, Hegemony, and the rule of force Essays, interviews and lectures in the ten years since 9/11

by Noam Chomsky

crushing debt

Capitalist anarchy versus socialist planning apitalism today has provided the tools which could enormously aid the genuine, democratic planning of the economy.

POWER AND TERROR:

China, India and Brazil (which benefitted from additional investment derived from quantitative easing and also from the huge stimulus package of the Chinese regime).

However, massive problems remain, particularly the huge burden of state and private debt. State budget deficits and accumulated national debt have soared, partly due to bank bailouts and fiscal stimulus, but mainly due to low or negative growth, which slashed tax revenues and increased spending on unemployment benefits, etc.

Household debt also remains a huge burden, depressing consumer spending, the main component of GDP in most advanced capitalist countries. Some companies, particularly in commercial property, have big debts (and some may well default in the coming months).

On the other hand, many big corporations are sitting on huge piles of cash: they are not interested in investing this capital in new plant and machinery because it would not be profitable given existing levels of money-backed demand. Many have taken advantage of the recent fall in share prices to buy back their own shares, thus boosting their share prices while handing a bonus to their shareholders.

Given generally weak domestic demand, export growth has been seen as an important way out of the recession. However, there is intense competition for limited markets.

In the case of the eurozone countries, they do not have the possibility of devaluing their currency in order to cheapen their exports and gain market share. Germany did manage previously to boost its exports but has recently suffered a fall in exports as a result of the downturn in Japan and a slowing of manufacturing in China and elsewhere.

would also lay the basis for a change in social relations.

Society would move away from hierarchies and the oppression and abuse of one group by another. Human relations would be freed from all the muck of capitalism.

● This is an extract from the book Socialism in the 21st century by Hannah Sell. You can order your copy at www.socialistparty.org.uk/books/

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Reviewed by Matt Dobson This collection of Chomsky’s essays, interviews and lectures shows how much can change in ten years. In the early part of the decade, commentators and intellectuals, raised the question of whether US imperialism could be challenged? n response to 9/11, the reactionary Bush neo-con administration unleashed a military onslaught on Afghanistan and Iraq that seemed to display invincible power.

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Articles and books were churned out predicting the dawn of a “new world order”. Commentators claimed the US ruling elite were building a Roman like empire that would exert hegemony for decades across the world.

What a different world we live in today!

The Obama administration paralysed with domestic economic crisis cannot exert authority internationally.

Dictators such as Mubarak, who policed regions for US imperialism, are overthrown not by the whim of the White House, but by the masses taking power into their own hands.

Chomsky highlights the change in the balance of power in terms of inter imperialist relations. The US Empire is now in decline.

US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are besieged garrisons. Chomsky points to the construction of “city within a city” militarised embassies in Kabul, Baghdad and Islamabad.

Where interests are threatened, Obama is reluctant to commit ground troops. A new strategy of “hot pursuit” is preferred where small bands of elite forces or even unmanned drones are sent to target and “take out” individuals like Osama Bin Laden.

The White House is vexed about its allies being unfaithful. Pakistan recently drew up an energy pipeline deal with Iran. The Pakistani ruling class faced with seething anger of its population against US imperialism is looking other partners.

The US ruling class is divided over which economic strategy is needed to pull back from the precipice of depression. In this situation it loses prestige and authority, its geopolitical rivals and opponents benefit.

The US is still the supreme imperialist power but it is weakened and challenged by rivals. One of the flaws of Chomsky’s analysis is that the changed world situation and the change in the imperialist policy of the US ruling class is highlighted but never fully explained.

The Socialist Party and its Interna-

tional the CWI throughout the last decade consistently pointed out that the US ruling class would not be able to exert sustained hegemony over world relations indefinitely.

We pointed out they would face resistance, highlighting the example of the Vietnam conflict. More crucially we had the perspective that imperialist ambitions of the US ruling elite would come up against the contradictions their policies had created which caused the economic crisis.

Chomsky in this book eloquently exposes the brutal nature of imperialism. For Chomsky, Imperialism is the moral hypocrisy of powerful regimes using “power and terror and the rule of force” to further their political and economic aims. This cannot be disputed but for Socialists there is more to it.

As Lenin explained the capitalist class also turn to imperialist polices under pressure from the contradictions of their own system and as a way out of the limitations of the nation state. They are compelled to seek out new markets and maintain dominance over areas to placate the threat of rivals.

The US ruling class, while loudly proclaiming their unchallenged authority and satisfying their hunger for prestige, were also compelled by unsustainable economic problems, that came above the surface in 2007-8 to embark on imperial adventures.

One of the main thrusts of Chomsky’s arguments in this book is against the hypocrisy of liberal intellectuals who critically supported the neo cons imperialist strategy. For this he is to be commended, as a consequence he has suffered isolation from mainstream debate in the US. Chomsky reacts to US imperialisms brutality and uses “moral authority” to condemn but never provides a solution or a strategy for defeating imperialism. His limitations as a “theorist” are severely exposed by a discussion on “how should we respond?”

The discussion solely focuses on what citizens in the west can do to restrain the imperialist policies of “their” governments. The only idea discussed is individual boycotts of arms companies.

In the context of the recent revolutions in the Arab world, mass movements where the people have decisively entered into struggle and toppled or weakened seemingly all powerful dictatorships propped up by imperialist powers. This appears totally out of tune and out of date.

This is an interesting read but shows that Chomsky’s limited analysis and reliance on individual moral solutions is stuck in the last decade and that those coming into struggle against imperialism and capitalism will require a collective strategy based on mass action.

thesocialist

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Gadaffi defeated but masses not in power After six long months of bloody, protracted struggle the overthrow of the dictatorial Gaddafi regime was greeted with rejoicing by large numbers of, but by no means all, Libyans. Another autocratic ruler, surrounded by his privileged family and cronies, has been overthrown. If this had been purely the result of struggle by the Libyan working masses it would have been widely acclaimed but the direct involvement of imperialism casts a dark shadow over the revolution’s future. The continuing battles in Tripoli indicate the instability of the current situation in Libya and also how the revolution that began there last February has, in many ways, been thrown off course. Robert Bechert reports on the the prospects for the workers and poor in Libya after Gaddafi. Visit www.socialistworld.net for up to date developments on Libya. many hile Libyans are celebrating, socialists have to be clear that, unlike the ousting of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, the way in which Gaddafi has been removed means that a victory for the Libyan people was also a success for imperialism.

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Without NATO acting as the rebels’ air force or the soldiers, weapons, organisation and training that NATO and some other countries like the feudal Qatar autocracy supplied, Tripoli would not have fallen to the rebels in the way that it has. Even the capture of the Bad al-Aziziya compound in central Tripoli was only achieved after a massive NATO aerial bombardment and an assault led by Qatari and other foreign special forces.

Now, despite their fears of exactly which way events in Libya will unfold, the imperialist powers are attempting to present Libya as a success for ‘liberal interventionism’, i.e. their right to intervene in other countries on ‘humanitarian’ or ‘democratic’ grounds.

Unfortunately, this overthrow of a dictator has not had the same character as the revolutions in Tunisia or Egypt, or even of the early days of the uprising in Benghazi when popular committees were established and briefly were the power in that city. Tragically, Gaddafi’s ousting was not simply the result of a popular mass movement, like in Tunisia and Egypt, forcing the dictator out. The momentum of the Libyan revolution’s early days was lost and, unlike Tunis or Cairo, Tripoli did not see one mass protest after another and strikes undermining the regime.

The Transitional National Council Gaddafi, learning from the overthrow of Ben Ali and Mubarak, launched a counter-offensive against Benghazi and other centres of the revolution. These were certainly threatened but could have been defended by mass popular defence alongside a revolutionary appeal to workers, youth and the poor in the rest of Libya. But the self-appointed leadership of the uprising would not do such a thing. Dominated by a combination of defectors from the regime and openly pro-imperialist elements, the Transitional National Council (TNC), pushing aside the initial popular mood against any foreign intervention, looked to the imperialist powers and semi-feudal Arab states for support.

The main imperialist powers seized this opportunity to step in, justifying their intervention on ‘humanitarian’ grounds to save lives. But these same powers adopted a mild approach to the Syrian regime’s repression and maintained a virtual silence on the brutality of their close ally, the Bahraini regime.

This simply confirmed that the Libyan intervention was based on a cynical calculation. Some imperialist leaders, like Sarkozy in France, sought to gain ad-

Tripoli

Gaddafi’s regime lasted for 42 years

vantages for themselves, but their general aims were to establish a more reliable, pro-imperialist regime in Libya, seize a more lucrative share of Libya’s oil and gas wealth and, above all, intervene to seek to control the revolutions sweeping North Africa and the Middle East.

No alternative to Nato’s intervention?

The idea that there was ‘no alternative’ to NATO was already disproved in the magnificent Egyptian movement that led to Mubarak’s ousting. The imperialist powers intervened for their own reasons not in the interests of the Libyan working masses and youth. Any failure to explain this as, for example, the small British AWL grouping did when it initially uncritically supported NATO’s role in the fighting in Tripoli, politically disarms the workers’ movement, leaving it unable to warn of imperialism’s intentions.

But what will happen now is not clear. The current situation indicates that there are elements, whether for political or tribal reasons, who are continuing to fight against the TNC. At the same time, there is no real unity amongst the main elements that fought Gaddafi. The population is also becoming heavily armed. This poses the possibility, even if the current battles end, of further fighting in the future, including tribal, national or religious conflicts.

Partly in view of this, we now see, alongside the start of a scramble for contracts, the main imperialist countries stepping up their intervention, including increasing talk of a ‘stabilisation force’.

Diverted revolution The very fluid situation that has now developed is, to a great extent, a result of the way in which the revolution has been diverted from a developing mass movement, with its own organisations, debates and policies, into a purely military struggle under NATO tutelage.

Currently, the self-appointed TNC is attempting, with NATO help, to impose itself on the situation. But there is no guarantee that it can, in reality, do this.

The TNC is currently largely a fiction.

For a time, it appointed a ‘government’, but that was dissolved after the still unexplained 28 July ‘arrest’ and subsequent killing of Younes, Gaddafi’s former interior minister who became the TNC’s top military commander. Jibril, who is still being presented as the ‘head of government’ has generally been out of the country because “he fears for his own safety in Benghazi” [The Times, London, 23 August, 2011.]

If "prime minister" Jibril does not feel safe in Benghazi, up to now the TNC’s main base, it is understandable that the TNC leaders hesitated over when to move to Tripoli.

The TNC itself, as we commented before, was “simply relying on a combination of NATO air power and the masses’ desire for change to secure victory”.

Whether it can now build its position and, if so, for how long, are open questions.

Libya itself is a relatively new creation, having been initially formed by Italy in the 1930s and again, this time under US pressure, in the late 1940s. A decline in the feeling of being ‘Libyan’ alongside a growth of regional and tribal tensions, or the development of fundamentalist Islamic forces, could pose the possibility of a break-up of Libya.

No trust in NATO, build an independent workers’ movement For the Libyan masses, especially the youth, workers and poor, this revolution was for an end to oppression and the stifling, corrupt regime, and for higher living standards. But despite any immediate oil-funded concessions and rebuilding, these aims will, in the long run, come into conflict with the reality of the crisis-ridden capitalist economy.

A new world recession would hit Libya in the same way as in the 1980s when its gross domestic product collapsed by over 40% as the oil price fell.

But to prevent the danger of a new collapse of the economy and to block the asset stripping of the country, a break with capitalism is required. The TNC is obviously not going to do this; on the contrary it is dominated by procapitalist elements.

From the beginning of the anti-

There have been many killed in Libya

Gaddafi uprising we argued: “What have been missing are independent organisations of Libyan workers and youth that could give a clear direction to the revolution in order to win democratic rights, end corruption and secure for the mass of Libyans democratic control over, and benefit from, the country’s resources.”

A programme for the Libyan revolution that will genuinely benefit the mass of the population would be based on winning and defending real democratic rights, an end to corruption and privilege, the safeguarding and further development of the social gains made since the discovery of oil, opposition to any form of re-colonisation and for a democratically controlled, publiclyowned economy planned to use the country’s resources for the future benefit of the mass of the people.

This is why Libyan workers and youth should have no illusions in NATO or put any trust in the TNC which is, in essence, tied to imperialism. This tie-up was illustrated in the TNC’s draft Libyan constitution, first published by the British foreign ministry, which declares that “the interests and rights of foreign nationals and companies will be protected”.

The creation of an independent movement of Libyan and migrant workers, poor and youth that could rely on its own action and struggles to implement such a real revolutionary transformation of the country is the only way to thwart the imperialists’ plans, end dictatorship and transform the lives of the mass of the people.

To achieve these goals such a movement would need to defend all demo-

cratic rights, be against the privatisation of Libya’s assets, demand the withdrawal of all foreign military forces and oppose all foreign military intervention, demand the democratic election of a Constituent Assembly and, above all, reject participation in any government based on capitalism. Instead it would strive for a government of representatives of the workers and poor based upon democratic structures in the workplaces and communities.

not the end However, as Tunisia and Egypt have shown, the mass overthrow of dictators is not the end of a revolution as the working masses strive to achieve their demands and aspirations. Although developments in Libya have taken a very different course, the demands of the masses have not gone away and in the struggle to win them lies the possibility of building a socialist movement that can truly transform the country.

Unlike with Mubarak, Gaddafi’s overthrow has had a mixed response in the rest of the Middle East. Partly this is because he was seen by many as ‘anti-imperialist’ but mainly because of NATO’s role.

The contrast between NATO intervening in Libya while doing nothing to stop Israeli attacks on Gaza and being allies of the Saudi and other dictatorships is clear to many.

But a workers’ movement in Libya, Tunisia or Egypt that challenged both the old order and imperialism would receive a wide echo, offering the possibility of revolutions that open the way to a socialist future.

thesocialist

youth and students 9

www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk - Sept/Oct 2011

Students counting cost of debt and cuts s schools and universities start back many students will be more worried about their finances than their grades.

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Alice Harrold Dundee University student A survey by NUS Scotland this summer found that more than half of the students surveyed were in commercial debt and two thirds were in debt to friends and family. Over half the students have jobs with 70 per cent of these working more than the recommended 10 hours a week during termtime. This along with cuts to education facilities and staffing is making continuing in education more and more difficult.

The government cuts to education mean cuts to young peoples’ futures and standards of living. Courses that are less profitable for universities and big business, such as languages and arts are the most vulnerable.

Plans to slash funding for youth training and to put capitalist bosses in charge of setting university fees will only make the situation worse. The

body in charge of reviewing university fee levels includes some of the biggest privateers in Britain, such as Lord Browne, former chief executive of BP. The eight person board also includes a former advisor to Tony Blair (the prime minister who abolished free university education) as well as Peter Sands, chief executive of Standard Chartered Bank. What could they know about the needs of students except how to profit from them?

There has been an 89% increase in youth unemployment in Scotland among 18 to 24 years olds in the last two years alone. And 50% of employers are not taking on graduates. Students hoping to find part-time work to subsidise their studies will find this much more difficult than before as they will be competing with 2.5 million unemployed workers in Britain.

Of those young people who are employed thousands have lost their jobs.

Bosses find it cheaper and easier to sack young people as they are entitled to smaller (if any) redundancy payments and workers in the retail sector on temporary contracts and are not protected by trade unions.

Socialist Students are linked to workers, trade unionists and the unemployed in the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign. Youth Fight for Jobs has the

Jarrow march for jobs

5 years ago 200 unemployed workers marched from Jarrow to London in protest at the lack of job opportunities and disgraceful living conditions of workers at the time.

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Ryan Stuart Glasgow Youth Fight For Jobs The 1st of October 2011 will mark the beginning of a new Jarrow march

for jobs. Young people today are facing the same fight to defend their right to decent jobs and living conditions which have been gained by the working class since the first Jarrow march.

The march is to be a rallying point for all people who are under attack from the Con-Dem government and fighting back against the savage austerity measures the working class face.

As a result of the cuts taking place there are 1 million 16-24 year olds out of work. In Scotland 30% of those claiming Job Seekers Allowance are aged between 18 and 24. While the government say this is “regrettable” they are still willing to destroy the

backing of the PCS (civil servants), RMT (transport workers) and the CWU (communications) trade unions. And both young people and workers will march together from Jarrow to London between the 1st of October and the 5th November.

The massive cuts proposed to education have sparked an uprising of school, college and university students fighting for their futures. Scottish students still do not have "free education".

And even though they do not face tuition fees as in other parts of the UK, they still get into an average of £13,000 of debt over the course of their degree to pay for their living costs.

Young people are being condemned to unaffordable education, joblessness and exploitation as slave labour. Youth have no option but to get active and fight for their education, jobs and future!

But there is an alternative! Youth and workers need to work together as part of a united working class struggle against this rotten system. The money to fully fund education is available in the bailouts, the bonuses and the tax breaks of the rich never mind the soaring profits made by private companies out of services like catering, accommodation and research on campuses. Get involved with us and fight for a future.

public sector and turn education into a privilege for the wealthy and not a right for all.

Cuts of £350 million are planned to youth training schemes and out of around 600,000 school leavers, only 8,000 will get real apprenticeships which lead to a job and a qualification.

Cameron and Clegg’s answer to rising unemployment is to offload young people onto the “work for your dole “ schemes which forces people to work for less than the minimum wage or face having their benefits stopped.

The fight back against the cuts has already begun when the biggest trade union demonstration ever in Britain saw over 500,000 march through London, before that saw the mobilisation of students against attacks in their education. The strikes on the 30th of June showed that coordinated action by the unions has a real effect on the government’s plans.

Youth Fight For Jobs in Scotland will be organising events in the lead up to Jarrow to show people that there is a campaign for young people to be a part of and is fighting for their rights.

We will tell the government that we will not pay for a crisis that was caused by big business and bankers who while still making money expect the poorest in society to suffer for their broken system.

Who’s going to police the police ? he summer months have been a difficult period for the Metropolitan Police.

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Jamie Cocozza Youth Fight For Jobs On top of Met chiefs being implicated in the News International hacking scandal, the Police have had to

cope with yet more criticism following the riots which swept across England in August, claims of racial harassment and a “slow” response to the violence and looting.

Closer to home, one hundred students demonstrated outside Strathclyde University in protest against cuts in courses and departments on the 2nd of June.

A peaceful demonstration turned sour very quickly as Police moved firstly against a student for the crime of using a megaphone; this was fol-

lowed by a scuffle in which a young woman was punched in the face and another student was beaten and thrown to the ground. Two students were arrested and charged. This follows on from the heavy-handed (and unsuccessful) eviction of the Free Hetherington occupation at Glasgow University.

Many young people across the country will be becoming used to the uncompromising tactics of the Police, but this goes much further than demonstrations. It was the shooting of

After the riots: Youth Democratic Rights campaign launched he four days of riots sent shockwaves across the country.

For the communities who saw their shops, houses and cars burnt out it was terrifying.

T

Tragically five people lost their lives.

We do not support rioting as a method of protest, but we place the blame for what has taken place firmly on the Con-Dem government.

We do not support the government’s view that the eruption was ‘simply criminal’ – rather we believe that its causes lie in social conditions.

It was sparked by the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan, but more widely, huge unemployment, the axing of EMA and trebling of university fees.

Poverty and alienation were also factors. There is a need for a defence campaign for many of those being charged or being evicted following the recent disturbances.

The knee jerk reaction - to disproportionately punish those arrested and charged and push through eviction notices - is wrong. We do not condone or support acts of violence or

Mark Duggan in Tottenham by Police and then the failure by the Independent Police Complaints Commission to provide the deceased’s family with reliable information surrounding his death which, on top of the harassment many young black people of inner city London complain of, provided the spark for the catastrophic violence and looting which followed.

In response to criticism, the Independent Police Complaints have been forced to create a ‘Community Reference Group’ which will ‘scrutinise’ the investigation into Mark Duggan’s death.

We are in favour of democratic accountability of the police on a nation-

vandalism but sentences such as six months in prison for taking a bottle of water or some chewing gum are being imposed.

Many of those arrested served with notices committed only minor offences, and are unlikely to get a fair hearing as cases are being rushed through the courts at great speed.

The killer of Mark Duggan has not been identified or brought to justice and it is likely that the questionable inquiry being set up may take over a year. Yet the police and government have pulled out all stops to try to find anyone involved in the disturbances.

This all comes after the police employed brutal tactics by the police in response to the student protests last year. In London, Bristol, Brighton and elsewhere the police kettled demonstrations holding young people for hours without food, water and toilet facilities. We also saw student activists harassed for their activities. It is now clear that we need a movement to fight all the governments attempts to clamp down on our rights.

The campaign has been launched

by Youth Fight For jobs. www.youthfightforjobs.com

wide basis, via a genuinely independent bodies involving local trade unions, community groups and elected representatives.

Ironically, the Police are facing big cuts as the government’s decision to slash frontline Police numbers.

They are one of the few groups of public sector workers legally unable to go on strike despite the vast majority of the force in favour of being in favour of a law change on the right to strike.

While campaigning for democratic control over the actions of the police, we also call for this democratic right to be given to the police and a unified public sector campaign against the cuts.

10 news

thesocialist www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk - Sept/Oct 2011

Women fighting back ith unemployment among women soaring by an astonishing 20% in Scotland over the last quarter, attacks on wages and pensions, cut backs in key services like Rape Crisis and Women’s Aid, and growing gender and class equalities, a serious question is posed: How women organise to defend the few gains that have been won?

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Sinead Daly Some within the ‘feminist movement’ argue that the key is getting more women into positions of power....regardless of what you stand for. Angela Cummine’s article in The Guardian on 25th of August “Should feminists back Michele Bachmann?” (potential Republican presidential candidate) supports this approach.

Michele Bachmann comes from the right wing Tea Party movement. She has a fundamentalist Christian view of women’s social role suggesting that women should be submissive to their husbands, is anti-abortion, believes that homosexuality is “part of Satan” and wants the abolition of the minimum wage.

Cummine asserts that despite all of Bachmann faults “women are better represented in politics with Bachmann in the race, no matter how unpalatable her views”. There are other at one time radical feminists, like Naomi Wolf (author of The Beauty Myth) who support this stance. Wolf can see no problem with ‘feminists’ who “prefer what they see as the rugged individualism of free-market forces, a level capitalist playing field, and a weak state that does not impinge on their personal choices.” She goes on, incredibly to argue that women like Margaret Thatcher “are real feminists....even if they themselves would reject the feminist label.”

However, having more women in positions of power in and of itself will do little to address the endemic inequalities that prevail under a capitalist society. Just look at the reality of

life for women under Thatcher - a freeze in Child Benefit, a refusal by Thatcher to invest in child care, the selling off of housing stock, the worst maternity rights in Europe and ferocious attacks on the trade union movement not to mention the complete decimation of communities throughout Scotland, England and Wales following the miners’ strike.

And of course the introduction of the hated Poll Tax. Thatcher famously declared that “the battle for women’s rights has largely been won”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The current attacks on the public sector will set back the few gains that women have made for decades. Women make up the overwhelming majority of the public sector and local government workforce and will face the brunt of the expected 600,000 job losses.

As it stands unemployment among women is now at its highest in more than 20 years – 1.05 million women are now unemployed, the highest figure since May 1988. More than half a million women - 512,700 - are now claiming Job Seekers Allowance - the highest figure since April 1996.

In England we have seen the widespread cuts in funding of Violence Against Women’s services. This will only worsen an already dismal picture of service provision across England and Wales. There is little doubt that services in Scotland will face the same fate over the coming years.

Women have already begun to move into action against the attacks on jobs and public services. You just have to look at the demonstration in London on March 26th which saw 500,000 people take to the streets followed by a Public Sector strike on June 30th on the issue of defending jobs, public services and pensions.

This action needs to be stepped up – with a call for a one day general strike in the autumn.

The trade union and anti cuts movement should link up with the Violence Against Women sector and defend these vital services.

Naomi Wolf concludes her article with a warning shot “we ignore the wide appeal of right-wing feminism at our peril.” On this point I do agree.

What we need is more women who will put forward a programme and a strategy that will fight for the interests of ordinary working class men and women in Scotland. If you agree, then join us in this struggle.

Socialist Party Scotland Why not find out more about us The Socialist Party Scotland is the Scottish section of the worldwide socialist and Marxist organisation, the Committee for a Workers' International. The CWI is active in 45 countries across the world.

Our sister parties include the Socialist Party in England and Wales and the Socialist Party in Ireland. We have a long history of struggle, and experience of leading mass campaigns in Britain and internationally.

We are working to build a mass campaign against the cuts and for the building of new mass parties of the working class armed with a

Marxist programme to defeat the attacks of the capitalists and to build a movement internationally that fights for a socialist future.

email: info@socialistpartyscotland.org.uk

www.socialistworld.net www.marxist.net

Murdochgate erupts

Rupert Murdoch

Former NoW editor Andy Coulson with David Cameron

he “Murdochgate” scandal broke in all its ferocity over the summer. The sheer scale of the illegal activities of The News of the World have been exposed before an audience of millions.

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Philip Stott A public wave of revulsion and disgust engulfed News International when it emerged that the News of the World had hacked the phones of murdered children, families who had lost loved ones in the 7/7 London bombings and parents of soldiers who had died in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Within weeks the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world was shutdown after 168 years of publication. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a man whose patronage and support Tory, Labour and SNP politicians would, and did, sell their souls to receive, was transformed into a toxic pariah.

Top News International executives including Rebekah Brooks were forced to fall on their swords. Murdoch senior and junior were dragged to appear in front of a House of Commons select committee to be grilled about their role in the phone hacking scandal. News Corp’s bid for 100% control of BskyB was dead in the water.

The former editor of NoW, Andy Coulson, is now being investigated by Strathclyde police for perjury during the Tommy Sheridan trial, as are two other Scottish NoW journalists who gave evidence for the prosecution.

The head and his deputy at the Metropolitan police were forced out when it became clear the police had covered up the extent of the phone hacking by News International. Criminal acts that had been carried out on an industrial scale for years.

Thousands of people had their phones hacked by private detectives working for News International. All the revelations about the hacking of the murdered girl Milly Dowler’s phone were in the possession of the police in 2006 and were hidden by the police who claimed there was no evidence of hacking beyond “one rogue reporter” working for the NoW. The Murdochgate scandal also exposed the cynical merry-go-round whereby top police officers charged with investigating phone-hacking ended up working for News International. While News of the World editors and leading journalists secured employment with the Met police. Huge

sums of money, it emerged, was paid out by News International to corrupt police officers for information and influence. At the same time the Crown Prosecution Service in England refused to act for years despite mountains of evidence .

corrupt In “normal” times the embedded links between the media, capitalist politicians and the state machine are hidden from the full view of working and middle class people. However, the Murdochgate scandal has exposed the rotten and corrupt underbelly of the capitalist elite.

The billionaire-owned media organisations are overwhelmingly hostile to the interests of the working class and exist ultimately to defend capitalist interests. In contrast the Socialist Party calls for the major media corporations and their resources to be brought into democratic public ownership. Access to the press, TV, radio etc could then be made available to a range of ideas, including those of socialism, based on their support within society. At the same time these events also underline the need for the workers and the socialist movement to build our own mass circulation papers and other forms of mass media.

police investigation A police investigation is now underway into phone hacking in Scotland.

Socialists have no illusions that such an inquiry – the police investigating the police - will be open, transparent or honest.

That’s why we demand a full public inquiry made up of democratically elected representatives including trade

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SCOTTISH SOCIALIST PARTY

A reply to Downfall The Tommy Sheridan Story

£2 Socialist Party Scotland

CWI CIT

unionists that have full access to all documents and information currently help by the police, the Scottish Crown and the CPS in England.

The Tommy Sheridan case hinged on the unprecedented decision by the Scottish Crown to pursue a perjury inquiry following Tommy’s 2006 defamation victory over the NoW. Andy Coulson and other current and former News International figures gave evidence that subsequently proved to be false and they are now facing a perjury investigation. It remains to be seen if the police carry out this inquiry with the same enthusiasm and vigour as they did when pursuing Tommy Sheridan.

It is clear now that Tommy Sheridan should be released immediately and a full investigation carried out into the political vendetta that he was so clearly a victim off. As the Labour MP Tom Watson, who has led the charge against News International said, the conviction of Tommy Sheridan is now likely “unsafe”.

Murdochgate also places the actions of the leadership of the Scottish Socialist Party in an even worse light. As the new pamphlet on the Rise and Fall of the SSP (see advert below) explains this was a group of people who consciously conspired to secure the conviction of Tommy Sheridan, working hand in hand with the enemies of socialism and the working class. One member of the SSP, with the full knowledge of the party leadership, received £200,000 from News of the World for a “videotape” that was used to help convict Tommy Sheridan of perjury.

The phone hacking scandal, the deepening economic catastrophe, the recent riots and the general onslaught against the working class and young people shows that capitalism is a bankrupt system. It underlines the urgent need to build a political alternative to the literal and moral corruption of the main capitalist parties. That’s what the Socialist Party is striving to achieve.

NEW PAMPHLET

The rise and fall of the Scottish Socialist Party Email info@socialistpartyscotland.org.uk to order your copy Or visit www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk

thesocialist

workplace 11

www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk - Sept/Oct 2011

Cuts threaten children’s services ecent figures show that 1 in 4 children in Scotland are living in poverty. This scandalous statistic means that for those children, living in households struggling to cope with unemployment, poor housing, ill health and all the pressures that go with grinding poverty and deprivation, the odds are stacked against them.

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By a Unison member The SNP Government says it will “provide support for children, families and carers -to ensure that our most vulnerable children have the protection they deserve”. Yet £3.3bn in cuts is planned over the next 3 years. And budget cuts are already being made to providers of essential services to children and young people, and the effects are being felt now.

Social work resources are already under pressure. There are already too few social workers and an increasing number of children needing help. Social workers are stretched to the limit, struggling to provide a meaningful service, with many children not receiving the help and support they desperately need. Further cuts to the social work budget will have a devastating impact on vulnerable children and families, and on the overworked staff who are not being allowed to do their job properly.

Social care charity Quarriers is another organisation imposing cuts.

Youth Justice Charity Includem has been in the news recently for the vital role they played in a pilot project to cut gang violence. Working with teenage gang members in Glasgow, the work of Includem staff resulted in a 50 per cent reduction in offending. These are the same staff who have just had a 9.5% pay cut imposed on them.

he men and women who care for some of Scotland’s most vulnerable adults and distressed children have voted massively for strike action.

T St Philips Residential Secure Unit in Airdrie is threatened with closure. St Philip’s provides secure, residential and education facilities for young persons.

The SNP Government has withdrawn funding for the secure unit and this has left St Philip’s facing closure and all 259 staff facing the axe.

18 vulnerable young men currently live within the secure unit and many others attend the residential and educational facilities on St Philip’s campus.

What will happen to these young people? Who’s going to provide the support and help they need? Staff, supporters and relatives of residents at the unit demonstrated their opposition to the closure at the Scottish Parliament at the end of June, but the Govt. has refused to reverse its decision and the future of the unit is uncertain.

The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) has also had its budget cut by the SNP Government.

The cuts have meant that over the past year, 20% of the workforce has gone through voluntary redundancies and pay cuts are looming for those staff that remain.

SCRA says its “aim is to provide a safety net for vulnerable children “. But the cuts have meant fewer staff with an increased workload, and with staff under such pressure there is a real fear that vulnerable children will slip through that net.

And this is all happening before the

full force of public spending cuts has been felt! If further cuts are implemented, the future is bleak for thousands of the poorest and most vulnerable children.

But they shouldn’t be made to suffer because of the greed of big business and this rotten system that only cares about profit. We should be investing more in those services that protect children and give support to families struggling to cope.

Trade Unions must lead fight back Unison represents a large number of the workers in those workplaces facing savage cuts. Those members are angry and frustrated that they are not being listened to. Members want to take action to oppose these cuts along with their public sector colleagues.

Unison must act now to link up the struggles of those workers and co-ordinate any action with other public sector unions to fight back against the assault on our services.

Vulnerable children are the victims of this savage cuts agenda, but they are also the victims of those Union leaders who would rather drag their heels than defeat the cuts. Trade Unions must take the lead in the fight back against the brutal austerity agenda of the Con-Dem Government.

Hundreds march in Glasgow’s east end to defend Accord services round 300 demonstrators turned out on the 27th August to protest against the closure of the Accord Centre located in the East End of Glasgow.

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Ian Leech Glasgow Unison (personal capacity The demonstration involved a march around the East End taking in some of the sites being developed for the Commonwealth Games due to be held in Glasgow in 2014.

The Centre is owned and run by Glasgow City Council and provides services to people with learning disabilities.

The campaign to defend the centre was initiated by a group of carers and users of the centre following the failure of GCC to keep to a promise of building a replacement centre made several years ago as part of the “modernisation” of day care services across the city.

This betrayal has been compounded by fact that the current Accord Centre

Quarriers workers vote to strike over pay cuts

will demolished in order to build a car park for the 2014 Games. The carers and service users campaign has attracted the support of anti-cuts groups around the city.

Among the successes of the campaign has been it’s pressing of GCC to offer to deliver many of the current services from another community facility in another part of the East End, although differing views do exist as to the appropriateness of the proposed site.

Although the campaign is called ‘Save the Accord Centre’ in reality it is the services that were provided from the centre that need to be defended, rather than the building, a position accepted by the carers and users. Services overall for people with learning disabilities in the East End need to be improved.

At the rally at the end of the march the campaign’s carers and service users stood alongside speakers from the trade union movement and anti-cuts groups.

Anger was directed particularly towards the Labour controlled GCC and the Scottish National Party. Grace Hannigan, a carer, thanked people for their support and said that the campaign

was growing in strength. Dave Moxam offered support on behalf of the STUC along with speakers from the PCS and UNISON. Brian Smith, a member of Socialist Party Scotland and Branch Secretary of the Glasgow UNISON Local Government Branch and speaking on behalf of the ‘Defend Glasgow Services’ Campaign explained the inequality in provision that will exist across the city if the Accord’s dedicated services are not maintained.

He demanded that elected politicians should set budgets that were based on the needs of communities and not make cuts.

He also extended a welcome to any politician to join the Defend Glasgow Services campaign, but clarified “only on the proviso that they made a public commitment to not only speak against cuts but also, importantly vote and campaign against all cuts”.

www.socialispartyscotland.org.uk for up to date reports of trade union, workplace and anti-cuts news

UNISON members at Quarriers are determined to resist brutal pay cuts on staff which will see over 560 staff take a pay cut of 10% while others will lose as much as 23%.

The postal ballot for strike action returned a 76% yes vote for strike action and an even higher 85% result for action short of a strike. When the ballot result was announced UNISON repeated their offer to take the ongoing dispute to ACAS for arbitration, but Quarriers management have spurned the offer.

In addition to pay cuts, which will see some members lose £400 a month. There are also proposed cuts to sick pay, increased pension contributions and other protections re-

moved.

Stephen Brown, UNISON Quarriers branch Secretary said today, “The attacks Quarriers are making on our members are unprecedented.

No one can cope with a 23% pay cut and for Quarriers to suggest that they will set up a Hardship Fund for their own staff funded out of their own pay cuts shows how much the organisation has lost touch with its values.

Speaking today Simon Macfarlane UNISON Regional Organiser said “Our members want to be doing their jobs caring for people - not arguing with Quarriers management.

But the proposed pay cuts will force people out of the job and impact on the work that they do with the people they care for.

“A 3 to 1vote for strike action must surely send a message to Quarriers that their proposals are unacceptable. We call on Quarriers to get back round the table and to remove their threat to dismiss and reengage all their staff – let’s take this to ACAS and see if it can be resolved

TUC lobby to demand a 24 hour general strike If these attacks on our jobs, services and livelihoods go through there will be riots on the streets". Anti-cuts campaigners will have lost count of how many times they have warned politicians of all parties of this since last year's general election.

"

Rob Williams National Shop Stewards Network For working class people, while the anger and frustration is understandable, the riots are a blind alley.

Now is the time for the organised trade union movement to act as a powerful alternative force.

TUC leader Brendan Barber warned of riots in 2009 but has not so far thrown the full weight of the TUC behind coordinating mass working class resistance.

If the union movement of still over six million takes decisive action against the attacks of this government of millionaires, it could inspire all those who are both angry and frightened at the moment.

Anyone who has watched the incredible movements of workers and young people throughout the world this year from Egypt to Greece and to

Israel/Palestine can see the positive effect of a mass movement of strikes and demonstrations.

The mass demonstration on 26 March of well over half a million in London shook the Con-Dems and resulted in their wobble on their NHS privatisation plans.

The strikes on 30 June against the attacks on public sector pensions mobilised 750,000 workers and has posed the prospect of millions joining the strike action in the autumn.

A 24-hour public sector general strike would not only heap pressure on the government on pensions, it would show everyone that there is a powerful alternative force that can fight for ordinary people.

But a failure to act, particularly by the TUC and the biggest unions could let this creaking coalition off the hook.

On Sunday 11 September, the NSSN is organising a lobby of this year's TUC conference in London to increase the pressure for all unions across the public sector to coordinate strike action.

The rally will hear from Mark Serwotka and Bob Crow - general secretaries of the civil service union PCS and the transport union RMT respectively as well as rank and file workers and young people facing the worst of the cuts.

It's time to give a positive fighting lead to defeat this government.

see www.shopstewards.net

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If you have a report for us please send it in email info@socialistpartyscotland.org.uk The Socialist Party Scotland website is: www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk The CWI website is at: www.socialistworld.net

theSocialist

FIGHT FOR O YOUR FUTURE paper of the socialist party scotland committee for a worker’s international (scotland)

www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk

solidarity price: £2.00

ISSUE No 18 SEPT/OCT 2011

Join the fight for Socialism

ur generation is being written off! Everywhere you look for a future, they slam a door in your face.

Where are the jobs? Will I get a place at college or university?

How can I afford to pay the bills, for food and rent?

Matt Dobson Dundee

Apparently this situation is our fault. The politicians say we must pay. They bailed out the bankers. Now the debt is too high. The financial markets need reassuring. We need cuts to services. For the economy to recover we need the bosses to have larger profits and bankers to have bigger bonuses.

So they make their cuts. Private companies hoard £60 billion in their accounts. The RBS bankers we bailed out get £950 million in bonuses. But the markets still fall. Unemployment rises. The cost of our basic needs goes up and up. They say we must pay more!

People can’t take anymore and have nothing to lose. Cities are in flames engulfed by riots, looting and destruction – which as socialists we are opposed to. But the politicians call young people “mindless criminals” and say they must pay. They use the right wing press to hide the fact that 66% of those accused of looting come from the poverty stricken areas that suffered the most during the rioting.

whatwe standfor work and income ● For the unions to take immediate action to increase the minimum wage to £8 an hour without exemptions as an immediate step towards £10 an hour. For an annual increase in the minimum wage, linked to average earnings. ● Reject Welfare to Work; for the right to decent benefits, training or a job without compulsion. ● A maximum 35-hour week without loss of pay. ● All workers, including part-timers, temps, casual and migrant workers to have trade union rates of pay, employment protection, sickness and holiday rights from

the first day of employment. ● Scrap the anti-union laws. Build fighting trade unions, democratically controlled by their members. Full-time officials should be regularly elected and receive no more than a worker’s wage. ● An immediate 50% increase in the state retirement pension, as a step towards a living pension.

Reinstate the link with average earnings now. environment ● Major research and investment into replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. End the problems of early obsolescence and unrecycled waste. ● Public ownership of the energy generating industry. No to nuclear power. No to Trident ● A democratically planned, low fare, publicly owner transport system.

public services ● No to privatisation and the Private Finance programmes.

Renationalise all privatised utilities and services. ● Free, high quality education for all from nursery to university; with a living grant. No to the return of tuition fees in Scotland. Cancel the student debt and end the cuts in education funding. ● A socialist NHS to provide for everyone’s health - free at the point of use and under democratic control. Kick out the private contractors from all parts of the NHS. ● Keep council housing public. For a massive programme of publicly owned housing to provide good quality homes at low rents. ● Fully fund all services and run them under accountable, democratic committees that include workers and service users.

But who are the real the criminals? The MP’s who looted us with their expense claims.

The police, the politicians and the right wing gutter press who have been exposed by the phone hacking scandal. They are all in this together!

SNP government ministers gloatingly tweet that there were no riots in Scotland, their policies had created a “different society”.

A society where this year there are the highest number of young people who cannot find work for twenty years and where one in ten young people find life meaningless.

People can’t take anymore and have nothing to lose. Young people together with millions of workers and poor people have been to the forefront in revolutionary uprisings sweep across North Africa and the Middle East.

People come out onto the streets facing repression and death. Tyrants, who had been in power for decades, fall. Youth in Greece and Spain facing cuts, unemployment and criminal politicians fill the squares and workers’ organise mass general strikes.

A mass struggle against the policies of austerity and cuts – the policies of those who defend the capitalist system is developing. Why should we defend a system that allows famine in the horn of Africa, oil companies to pollute seas without being challenged and wars on every continent?

Join the Socialist Party to fight for an alternative. A society where wealth and resources are in public ownership and the economy is democratically planned to meet the needs of millions rather than the billionaires.

rights ● Oppose discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, disability, sexuality, age and all other forms of prejudice. ● Repeal laws that trample of civil liberties. For the right to protest.

End police harassment. ● Defend abortion rights. For a women’s right to choose when and whether to have children. ● For the right of asylum. No to racist immigration laws.

A mass working class party ● For a mass workers party that draws together workers, young people and activists from other movements to build a political alternative to the big business parties. ● Trade unions should disaffiliate from the Labour Party now and play a central role in helping to build a new workers’ party.

socialism and internationalism ● No to imperialist wars and occupations. Withdraw the troops now from Iraq and Afghanistan. ● Tax the super rich. For a socialist government that takes into public ownership the top 150 companies and banks that dominate the British economy, and run them under democratic working class control and management.

Compensation only on the basis of proven need. ● For a socialist Scotland and a free and voluntary socialist federation of Scotland with England Wales and Ireland. ● A democratic socialist, environmentally secure plan of production based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people. ● No to the bosses neo-liberal European Union. For a socialist Europe and a socialist world.