As the 'free' market fundamentalists of the neoliberal right continue their class war mission to drag us all back to nineteenth century conditions its becoming clearer that the 'economic policy' they support is little more than a racket. Before I describe this, its worth considering one of the central problems of capitalism - the falling rate of profit. In the nineteenth century many economists accepted that there was a tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time and Marx explained how that worked in Capital. Of course, Marx's theory has since been disputed, but not disproved. Nevertheless, by the 1970's, after the post WW2 boom profits were beginning to fall. The solution? - neoliberalism. Neoliberalism works by screwing workers, including middle class workers, harder, and reducing their living standards. Quite simply capitalists take a bigger slice of the cake, leaving ever fewer crumbs for the rest of us.
That is why our pensions, wages, and working conditions have been under attack for the past 30 years. The politicians who have been doing this to us have invented a series of plausible 'excuses' for doing so. In the case of pensions the 'excuse' is demographics, people are living longer, and so they are, but decent pensions are still affordable, the real reason they are being removed from us is to increase profits for corporations.
This is also the reason why our current reactionary neoliberal coalition government are so keen on privatising the NHS and public services - guaranteed profits. The corporations know very well that public services are an easy risk-free way of making guaranteed profits and they have long wanted to take control of them. With austerity and the most reactionary government in half a century in power their chance has come. In the UK this privatisation drive began with Thatcherism in the 1980's well before the current government, with the 'excuse' that the private sector was more efficient and would deliver better services. We have seen what has happened with the railways and energy. Large corporations making vast profits out of the taxpayer and customers (who used to be stakeholders) with none of the promised improvements. The economic crisis we are in, created by neoliberal 'economic policy' has now enabled the whole project to be pushed further and harder than it ever has been in the past 30 years.
We have reached the stage whereby public services are being handed over by our politicians to profit makers without any regard for supposed efficiency. This is nothing more than the imposition of 'free' market ideology and has become a racket, with guaranteed profits for the corporate winners. Here are a couple of examples I have recently come across, but there are many more. In the USA corporations are 'offering' to take over publicly run prisons as long as there is a minimum of a 90% occupancy rate. Just think about that. That means that the public bodies are going to have to find more prisoners to fill those jails! I guess they will just have to search harder for lawbreakers, and find sympathetic judges.
Meanwhile, in the UK A4e, a company which is supposed to help people back into work, is now under investigation for fraud, for allegedly fiddling its figures to get taxpayers money. The founder, Emma Harrison, paid herself £8.6 million last year. But this person is the darling of government, held up as an example of entrepreneurship to us all. A4e is built entirely around government contracts, that is taxpayers money, at least £8.6 million of which has been wasted in my view. That money could have been used to create jobs.
As long as our politicians are hand in glove with the corporations, we can expect more corporate welfarism and cosy deals carving up public services to continue. No risk-taking and no efficiencies - except for lower wages and worse conditions for the workers who are expected to deliver. Even Tory MP David Davis has condemned 'crony' capitalism, but In fact, this is barely capitalism, its more akin to a form of neo-feudalism where the political barons and capitalist kings conspire to keep the rest of us in perpetual wage serfdom.
Showing posts with label pensions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pensions. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Saturday, 3 December 2011
N30: the struggle for pensions justice
On 30 November 2011 twenty nine public sector unions took joint strike action over savage cuts to their pensions. Over 2 million workers went on strike, the largest number in the UK since the General Strike in 1926. In Cheshire West Against the Cuts we organised a march and rally in Chester that was attended by over 1000 striking workers and supporters. The march started on Castle drive at 12.30 and as it progressed through the city centre spontaneous applause broke out from many on the onlookers. It was a day of mutual support and solidarity against the attacks of a reactionary class war government, which is making the public sector pay for the crisis we are in. The 3% pensions levy is unnecessary to sustain public sector pensions, and is being used to pay down the deficit.
We had a great day out. There was a lot of happiness in solidarity which is what the bedrock of the trade union movement is about, but there was also some sadness that people were having to do this in the face of a class war attack from their own government. People in the UK have been lead to believe that unions are a thing of the past, irrelevant in a 'modern' age, they are now beginning to realise that they need the support of their fellow workers to survive the onslaught of the capitalist class as the crisis deepens.
There is hope for the future and we can change things but we need to get this government replaced by one which acts in the interest of the people rather than the capitalist elite. That means getting out and voting for alternatives at elections. If you are a public sector worker reading this, consider the fact that the Green Party has a policy for a Citizen's Pension for all at £300 p.w. for a couple and £170 p.w. for single people.
There is hope for the future and we can change things but we need to get this government replaced by one which acts in the interest of the people rather than the capitalist elite. That means getting out and voting for alternatives at elections. If you are a public sector worker reading this, consider the fact that the Green Party has a policy for a Citizen's Pension for all at £300 p.w. for a couple and £170 p.w. for single people.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
March for the alternative at the Tory conference
Last Sunday, along with 35,000 other people I marched in Manchester to protest against the austerity measures being inflicted on the British people by the Coalition government. The march started and finished up at First Street, and was characterised by good humour and a feeling of solidarity on what was a very mild and largely sunny October afternoon.
Most of the marchers were trade unionists, with members from Unison, Unite, The GMB, NUT and PCS, mixing with other protest groups. The Green Party was represented mainly by members from Manchester, Carlisle and the Green Left, and a coach came from Chester from our local campaign, Cheshire West Against the Cuts, which is supported by West Cheshire Trades Council.
One of the biggest issues for the marchers was the attack on public sector pensions. The Tories and their corporate backers, aided by cheerleaders in the right wing press, have managed to drive a wedge between public and private sector workers on the pensions issue. Public sector workers, many of whom are low paid and can expect a pension of only £3,000 per year, have been vilified as 'fat cats', whilst private sector workers have seen their pensions slashed. If the government succeeds in destroying pension provision for the public sector that will make it all the harder to bring back decent pensions for those in the private sector. Public and private sector workers need to support each other on this issue, otherwise millions more will be condemned to poverty in their old age. The Green Party sought to address the pension crisis in its 2010 manifesto by introducing a citizens pension of £300 p.w. for a couple and £170 p.w. for a single person.
The public sector unions are balloting their members for industrial action on pensions to start on November 30th. Its important that all working people support this struggle because it could be the pivotal point where the public really turn against the Coalition government's austerity programme, which is already becoming more unpopular. Cameron is well aware of this and his lacklustre speech at the Tory conference shows that the government is stuck in a hole of its own making with no plan B, rising unemployment, a flatlining economy, and no real idea of how to move the country forward. Never has the alternative I've argued for in this blog been more sorely needed - see here.
Most of the marchers were trade unionists, with members from Unison, Unite, The GMB, NUT and PCS, mixing with other protest groups. The Green Party was represented mainly by members from Manchester, Carlisle and the Green Left, and a coach came from Chester from our local campaign, Cheshire West Against the Cuts, which is supported by West Cheshire Trades Council.
One of the biggest issues for the marchers was the attack on public sector pensions. The Tories and their corporate backers, aided by cheerleaders in the right wing press, have managed to drive a wedge between public and private sector workers on the pensions issue. Public sector workers, many of whom are low paid and can expect a pension of only £3,000 per year, have been vilified as 'fat cats', whilst private sector workers have seen their pensions slashed. If the government succeeds in destroying pension provision for the public sector that will make it all the harder to bring back decent pensions for those in the private sector. Public and private sector workers need to support each other on this issue, otherwise millions more will be condemned to poverty in their old age. The Green Party sought to address the pension crisis in its 2010 manifesto by introducing a citizens pension of £300 p.w. for a couple and £170 p.w. for a single person.
The public sector unions are balloting their members for industrial action on pensions to start on November 30th. Its important that all working people support this struggle because it could be the pivotal point where the public really turn against the Coalition government's austerity programme, which is already becoming more unpopular. Cameron is well aware of this and his lacklustre speech at the Tory conference shows that the government is stuck in a hole of its own making with no plan B, rising unemployment, a flatlining economy, and no real idea of how to move the country forward. Never has the alternative I've argued for in this blog been more sorely needed - see here.
Thursday, 14 July 2011
We can win the economic argument - so lets do it!
"Its the economy stupid!" - it sure is. The economy is just about all we hear about these days, and its no wonder, because we are going through the biggest economic crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression. But the problem we have is that the neoliberal right are in the ascendancy, they have the power. This means that the response to the economic crisis is the same as it was during the Great Depression. Does this mean we have learnt nothing in the past 80 years? To some extent yes, but the real problem is that the same kind of people are in control now as were in control in the late 1920s - capitalist corporations and the politicians who support them. The Great Depression lead to immense hardship and deprivation for people around the world. In America, the slump, despite the uplift given by Roosevelt with the New Deal, lasted over a decade until the end of World War II. It was the massive US spending during the war economy that lifted the whole world out of the Great Depression. Without that lift the world economy would probably have remained stagnant for many more years, possibly decades.
In the mid 1930s the economist John Maynard Keynes explained that in a economic slump governments needed to take counter-cyclical measures to revive the economy. In other words, you don't cut spending in a recession - you increase it. But Keynes's ideas were ignored then - just as they are being ignored now. Then as now, for reasons of class, politicians preferred to cuts jobs and welfare rather than increase spending or increase taxes on the rich - who could have afforded to pay more. Belt tightening was, as usual, forced on the poorest in society.
So where does that leave us? The sovereign debt crisis which is now engulfing Europe and the USA is a direct result of the banking crisis known in the UK as the 'credit crunch'. This crisis would have brought down the world economy, if it had not been for the fact that the state intervention, both here and abroad, propped up the faltering world private banking system. The resulting losses (costs) were nationalised and the gains (profits) remained in private hands. The people who caused the crisis got away free whilst ordinary people picked up the tab, bailing out the banks, and paying by losing their jobs, homes and pensions.
But that was only round one. The debt form the economic crisis didn't just disappear - it became the sovereign debt which is crippling Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, and which now threatens the USA itself with debt default. So, the people are being made to pay for the crisis a second time around. The name of the game now is austerity. Yet more cuts in welfare and more jobs losses - all to protect the same people - the private sector, the banks and bondholders - financial capitalism. But as Keynes showed more cuts and austerity won't fix the problem - it will make it worse. That means the best we can hope for in the UK and Europe is economic stagnation, continuing high unemployment, and increasing hardship and poverty. The result is that your children will inevitably be poorer than you are and your grandchildren will be poorer still, in a society blighted by homelessness and inequality.
In the UK we have our own austerity crisis. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has taken a reckless ideological and political gamble with our economy by instituting savage austerity cuts of £81 billion. His aim is to use the debt crisis as cover to slash the welfare state - which is something the right have always hated. He is hoping that the economy will recover enough so that he can announce tax cuts before the next election. he believes this will win the next election for the Tories. That is why the Tories wanted a fixed term five year parliament - because they need at least 5 years for this ideological economic gamble to have a chance to work.
So, if the economic policies being followed by the EU, in Greek debt crisis for example, and in the UK government aren't working, why are they being followed? The answer is simple - neoliberal ideology. This is class war politics. The lesson of the past thirty years is that the capitalist class and their politicians have allowed a world economic crisis to develop by following neoliberal 'free' market dogma, by deregulating financial capitalism (the banking and shadow banking system). Now they are exploiting the outcome of that crisis, and using it to roll back all the democratic gains made by working people in the last century.
So what does the left do about this? Well, we have to win the economic argument. That is essential. We have to explain to people how the failed 'economic' policies of the neoliberalism got us here. We have to explain how the crisis has been exploited to benefit the people who caused it. We have to debunk the myths about the benefits of the unregulated 'free' market. But most of all, we have to show that we have an alternative which can create jobs and prosperity. That is what the Green Party did in its 2010 election manifesto. We showed that by investing in creating one million green jobs, and by building housing, by improving public transport, by controlling the banks, and by growing our economy in a sustainable way, we could lift the UK out of the economic crisis it is in.
The reality is that Osborne's reckless ideological gamble with our economy won't work, and when it fails, we have to be ready to strike. The next UK quarter figures are due soon. All the indicators are that they will be very poor - either very low growth, or no growth at all. That is the time we must put the boot it - and hard. People in the UK are beginning to waver in their support for cuts. In the past year support for the cuts has fallen from 69% to 55%, with 45% now against Osborne's savage cuts. Once the British people realise that Osborne's economic 'policy' isn't working the Tories economic competency will be finished. It is then that the Coalition will be in real danger. The Coalition government is a weak and divided government which has only survived because the British people have been conned into believing that it was acting in the national interest, to tackle the economic crisis. Cameron has already been severely wounded by the phone hacking scandal. Its hard to see how the government could survive similar damage to Osborne.
The reality is this; pensions and the welfare state aren't unaffordable; low taxes only benefit the rich; the state is not inherently a bad thing - governments can and should intervene to create jobs, build houses and protect the vulnerable; we can only have a better health service if it is provided by the public sector; privatisation means that you pay more for less; banks can be nationalised and brought under democratic control; co-operation is much more important than competition.
These are the messages that all those who oppose this government; UK-uncut, the Coalition of Resistance; trade unionists, and all the other anti-cuts groups need to get across, and get across soon. The only way we can slay this neoliberal system and get rid of this government is by winning the economic argument. Until we get on with the task of doing that we won't have the power to change things for the better and we won't be able to stop the deliberate destruction by this government of all the things which make this a society worth living in.
In the mid 1930s the economist John Maynard Keynes explained that in a economic slump governments needed to take counter-cyclical measures to revive the economy. In other words, you don't cut spending in a recession - you increase it. But Keynes's ideas were ignored then - just as they are being ignored now. Then as now, for reasons of class, politicians preferred to cuts jobs and welfare rather than increase spending or increase taxes on the rich - who could have afforded to pay more. Belt tightening was, as usual, forced on the poorest in society.
So where does that leave us? The sovereign debt crisis which is now engulfing Europe and the USA is a direct result of the banking crisis known in the UK as the 'credit crunch'. This crisis would have brought down the world economy, if it had not been for the fact that the state intervention, both here and abroad, propped up the faltering world private banking system. The resulting losses (costs) were nationalised and the gains (profits) remained in private hands. The people who caused the crisis got away free whilst ordinary people picked up the tab, bailing out the banks, and paying by losing their jobs, homes and pensions.
But that was only round one. The debt form the economic crisis didn't just disappear - it became the sovereign debt which is crippling Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, and which now threatens the USA itself with debt default. So, the people are being made to pay for the crisis a second time around. The name of the game now is austerity. Yet more cuts in welfare and more jobs losses - all to protect the same people - the private sector, the banks and bondholders - financial capitalism. But as Keynes showed more cuts and austerity won't fix the problem - it will make it worse. That means the best we can hope for in the UK and Europe is economic stagnation, continuing high unemployment, and increasing hardship and poverty. The result is that your children will inevitably be poorer than you are and your grandchildren will be poorer still, in a society blighted by homelessness and inequality.
In the UK we have our own austerity crisis. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has taken a reckless ideological and political gamble with our economy by instituting savage austerity cuts of £81 billion. His aim is to use the debt crisis as cover to slash the welfare state - which is something the right have always hated. He is hoping that the economy will recover enough so that he can announce tax cuts before the next election. he believes this will win the next election for the Tories. That is why the Tories wanted a fixed term five year parliament - because they need at least 5 years for this ideological economic gamble to have a chance to work.
So, if the economic policies being followed by the EU, in Greek debt crisis for example, and in the UK government aren't working, why are they being followed? The answer is simple - neoliberal ideology. This is class war politics. The lesson of the past thirty years is that the capitalist class and their politicians have allowed a world economic crisis to develop by following neoliberal 'free' market dogma, by deregulating financial capitalism (the banking and shadow banking system). Now they are exploiting the outcome of that crisis, and using it to roll back all the democratic gains made by working people in the last century.
So what does the left do about this? Well, we have to win the economic argument. That is essential. We have to explain to people how the failed 'economic' policies of the neoliberalism got us here. We have to explain how the crisis has been exploited to benefit the people who caused it. We have to debunk the myths about the benefits of the unregulated 'free' market. But most of all, we have to show that we have an alternative which can create jobs and prosperity. That is what the Green Party did in its 2010 election manifesto. We showed that by investing in creating one million green jobs, and by building housing, by improving public transport, by controlling the banks, and by growing our economy in a sustainable way, we could lift the UK out of the economic crisis it is in.
The reality is that Osborne's reckless ideological gamble with our economy won't work, and when it fails, we have to be ready to strike. The next UK quarter figures are due soon. All the indicators are that they will be very poor - either very low growth, or no growth at all. That is the time we must put the boot it - and hard. People in the UK are beginning to waver in their support for cuts. In the past year support for the cuts has fallen from 69% to 55%, with 45% now against Osborne's savage cuts. Once the British people realise that Osborne's economic 'policy' isn't working the Tories economic competency will be finished. It is then that the Coalition will be in real danger. The Coalition government is a weak and divided government which has only survived because the British people have been conned into believing that it was acting in the national interest, to tackle the economic crisis. Cameron has already been severely wounded by the phone hacking scandal. Its hard to see how the government could survive similar damage to Osborne.
The reality is this; pensions and the welfare state aren't unaffordable; low taxes only benefit the rich; the state is not inherently a bad thing - governments can and should intervene to create jobs, build houses and protect the vulnerable; we can only have a better health service if it is provided by the public sector; privatisation means that you pay more for less; banks can be nationalised and brought under democratic control; co-operation is much more important than competition.
These are the messages that all those who oppose this government; UK-uncut, the Coalition of Resistance; trade unionists, and all the other anti-cuts groups need to get across, and get across soon. The only way we can slay this neoliberal system and get rid of this government is by winning the economic argument. Until we get on with the task of doing that we won't have the power to change things for the better and we won't be able to stop the deliberate destruction by this government of all the things which make this a society worth living in.
Monday, 4 July 2011
What is the Labour Party for?
A lot of people are wondering what the Labour Party is for. Since Ed Milliband became leader its been hard to to tell. But at least we know what the Labour party is not for; its not for the working class, it abandoned them a long time ago, letting the BNP fill the vacuum; its not for decent public sector pensions; its not much interested in housing; or the poor; or trade unions. It is, we know, in the historic words of Peter Mandelson - "intensely relaxed about the filthy rich" and it seems to be pretty keen on the banks; Oh!, and privatisation of the NHS, education, and well, pretty much anything else that moves.
The Labour Party is a party that has lost its way completely. So much so that it doesn't really know what it is for, except perhaps a vehicle for its leaders to get elected and hold political power, a vehicle for career politicians, the political class that I blogged about in this post. That means that it is the job of party members, who presumably think they are part of a project to change things, merely to have a role of furthering the career aspirations of Milliband, Jowell, Balls, Alexander et al.
I'm sure that Ed would be horrified if he read what I'd just written. He'd protest that he believes in a progressive future and that he, and his colleagues, have been traduced by that statement. If he thinks that I'd like to suggest its his own fault, because I think I think those are perfectly reasonable conclusions for onlookers like me to draw, based on the statements, and behaviour of Ed and other leading Labour politicians.
For example, for him to state that the June 30th strike was wrong, on the basis that negotiations about public sector pensions were ongoing, was laughable. It was obvious to all but the most naive that the government wasn't involved in meaningful negotiations and had no intention of compromising on terms remotely acceptable to the striking teachers and civil servants. Not only that, but it was clear that the government had been hiding the fact that the Hutton Report showed that public sector pensions were affordable, and this had been exposed on the Today programme.
The Labour party has become a right-wing reactionary neoliberal party and there is little to distinguish it from the other neoliberal parties; the Liberal Democrats and the Tories. The reason for this transformation is not difficult to discern. This transformation has happened to 'left' parties all over the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Social Democracy has been abandoned in favour of 'free' market globalisation, and the domination of democracies by the multinational corporations and the banks. In fact, this is little different to Fascism. It is only a matter of degree, because Fascism is the subjugation of democracy to capitalist corporations - with some goose-stepping in uniform, and gratuitous violence, thrown in.
This is what is happening in Greece. Democracy has been openly replaced, under a 'Socialist' government, by the control of financial technocrats from the EU and IMF, on behalf of their market masters. Our politicians, including Ed, are complicit in this free market coup d'etat. There is only one way we can stop this. We must stop voting for these people. We need to vote for parties which can stop the rot. In the UK there is only one party of social justice left - the Green Party.
The Labour Party is a party that has lost its way completely. So much so that it doesn't really know what it is for, except perhaps a vehicle for its leaders to get elected and hold political power, a vehicle for career politicians, the political class that I blogged about in this post. That means that it is the job of party members, who presumably think they are part of a project to change things, merely to have a role of furthering the career aspirations of Milliband, Jowell, Balls, Alexander et al.
I'm sure that Ed would be horrified if he read what I'd just written. He'd protest that he believes in a progressive future and that he, and his colleagues, have been traduced by that statement. If he thinks that I'd like to suggest its his own fault, because I think I think those are perfectly reasonable conclusions for onlookers like me to draw, based on the statements, and behaviour of Ed and other leading Labour politicians.
For example, for him to state that the June 30th strike was wrong, on the basis that negotiations about public sector pensions were ongoing, was laughable. It was obvious to all but the most naive that the government wasn't involved in meaningful negotiations and had no intention of compromising on terms remotely acceptable to the striking teachers and civil servants. Not only that, but it was clear that the government had been hiding the fact that the Hutton Report showed that public sector pensions were affordable, and this had been exposed on the Today programme.
The Labour party has become a right-wing reactionary neoliberal party and there is little to distinguish it from the other neoliberal parties; the Liberal Democrats and the Tories. The reason for this transformation is not difficult to discern. This transformation has happened to 'left' parties all over the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Social Democracy has been abandoned in favour of 'free' market globalisation, and the domination of democracies by the multinational corporations and the banks. In fact, this is little different to Fascism. It is only a matter of degree, because Fascism is the subjugation of democracy to capitalist corporations - with some goose-stepping in uniform, and gratuitous violence, thrown in.
This is what is happening in Greece. Democracy has been openly replaced, under a 'Socialist' government, by the control of financial technocrats from the EU and IMF, on behalf of their market masters. Our politicians, including Ed, are complicit in this free market coup d'etat. There is only one way we can stop this. We must stop voting for these people. We need to vote for parties which can stop the rot. In the UK there is only one party of social justice left - the Green Party.
Saturday, 2 July 2011
Cheshire West Against the Cuts: J30
On Thursday June 30th striking public sector workers and their supporters came together for a rally at the Town Hall in Chester. We had a turnout of about 350 people and some very good speeches from trade unionists and CWAC supporters. All in all a very good day for the fightback against Cameron's class war government's attempt to make us pay for the failures of financial capitalism.
There is a lot more work to do but we are building resistance in an area which is hardly renowned for left or trade union activism. Long may it continue.
There is a lot more work to do but we are building resistance in an area which is hardly renowned for left or trade union activism. Long may it continue.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)