Can't tell left from right

Some people can't tell left from right. This can be a real danger when driving. I wonder if James Purnell drives a lot, if so he should be careful because he clearly suffers from this problem. He thinks he's on the left of politics but he isn't. He's been a member of a New Labour centre-right government for long enough that he ought to know that his Party espouses reactionary causes. Like uncritical worship of the 'free' market. Lets take as an example his very own recent so-called welfare reforms which I posted about here. They represent the 21st century version of the workhouse. Rabid right-wingers like the American Rush Limbaugh would have been proud of what Purnell has done. I used Limbaugh as an example because New Labour love to copy the policies of the American right. That is where they get most of their ideas from. Progressive governments protect workers and the unemployed against the malign effects of 'free' market capitalism, they don't batter them as Purnell has done.

If you want to know how how 'left-winger' James Purnell voted on key issues since 2001 you can get this information from theyworkforyou.com:

* Voted moderately for a transparent Parliament
* Voted moderately for introducing a smoking ban
* Voted very strongly for introducing ID cards
* Voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals
* Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees
* Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws
* Voted very strongly for the Iraq war
* Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war
* Voted very strongly for replacing Trident
* Voted moderately for the hunting ban
* Voted very strongly for equal gay rights
* Voted moderately for laws to stop climate change

So I was interested to read Purnell's latest contribution to the 'progressive' debate in the Guardian with interest. He says that "We learned the lesson that we should use markets or the private sector where they achieved the relevant outcome". He doesn't say "right outcome" just "relevant". But the only outcome of New Labour's privatisation programme has been greater poverty for for workers, a more unequal society and a lessening of opportunity for the poor, working class, and middle class. You cannot pursue policies of privatisation and call yourself 'left' or 'progressive' because the outcome is neither left nor progressive. This is the paradox of New Labour - talk about creating a better and more equal society then follow policies which lead to exactly the opposite. Create greater inequality then find a sticking plaster to put on it- like SureStart. The New Labour acolytes are being either dishonest or stupid.

Rebuilding the collective

On the 13th July I was at the Ways With Words festival at Dartington Hall. I went to see Rob Hopkins, Shaun Chamberlin and Tamzin Pinkerton speak at the Transition Morning event. I enjoyed the talks even though there was little that I hadn't heard before, but there were some good arguments as to why nuclear power won't solve our energy needs. The audience, as it usually is, was distinctly middle aged and middle class - so Rob et al. were largely preaching to the converted. There are now many Transition towns across the world and more are being set up every day. As someone who is trying to set up a local climate change group and has been involved in such groups I was hoping to hear some more from them about how to reach out to the 'difficult' parts of the community - the ones who 'don't want to know'.

At the last Green Party conference there was a talk by a woman from Totnes who is active in the GP and Transition. She said, as I had guessed, that they had reached all those in Totnes who were 'interested' but they were still in a minority. The real challenge for such groups is reaching those who are 'indifferent' - and I'm not talking about climate change deniers here. When I asked Rob and Tamzin about this their answer was (and I'm paraphrasing) - to keep plugging away, show the benefits of local food, community action etc and more people will come on board. I'm not so sure it is going to be that easy.

The whole point about Transition is its inclusive, it has to embrace all the community, hence you won't find any mention of politics or (divisive) economics in the Transition Handbook. This is fair enough but Transition is about building a collective in a world of selfish individualism. By that I don't mean that we are all selfish but that we have been 'taught' to think of ourselves as 'selfish individuals' - to put our own wants first . If you want to know more I suggest you watch Adam Curtis's excellent documentary - The Century of the Self - which charts the development of public relations, advertising and the growth of consumer capitalism in the 20th century, based on the ideas of Sigmund Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays - it is essential viewing if you want to know how we got here. Selfish individualism is now deeply ingrained in our society, that is why we find it so difficult to build communities and that is what Transition is all about - collective action.

There is another word for collective action - socialism. Putting the interests of the collective above the interests of the selfish individual is what socialism is all about. It does not mean, as is popularly supposed, oppression of the individual - that is what the capitalist media want you to think. Individual rights must be protected. But the interests of a community (collective) have to come first. At one time no one would have disputed this idea. If we go back a relatively short way in history no one even thought of themselves as an selfish individual in the way we do now. People were part of a community. In order for Transition to become a reality we have to rebuild the collective - that is the task in hand. Just don't mention the 'S' word though!

New Labour, New Cronies

Interesting story in the Independent on Wednesday about Lord Mandelson. Apparently this very important person has no less than ten people working for him in his new empire. His Lordship's newly formed Department for Business, Information and Skills gives him control of trade, consumer affairs, science and innovation, higher education, communications etc etc etc. Of course, Gordon Brown brought his erstwhile enemy Mandelson into government out of desperation, and since he saved Gordon's skin in the recent attempted coup after the Euro-election debacle, its no surprise that he has become more powerful.

When you look at Mandelson's departmental heads what do you see? Well no less than four of them are unelected Lords, and there is also a Lady. Was it really that difficult to find MPs to fill these posts? Or does New Labour actually prefer bankers and Tony's cronies to their own party members? We know that Gordon likes bankers and financiers. Look at his response to the credit crunch. Any curb on bonuses? Any break up of banks too big to fail?

The truth is that the leaders of New Labour - Blair, Brown and Mandelson - have all but eviscerated the Labour Party. It is now an empty shell. Merely a vehicle for the careerist politicians who lead it. Peter Oborne in his book the Triumph of the Political Class describes this process and how the people who rule us do it largely for their own purposes, they have become an elite, answerable only to themselves.

At one time the Labour party stood for something and people in politics paid their dues. They worked themselves up from the bottom, starting out as local councillors, and active trade unionists before moving on to parliament. The Labour Party used to have a democratic structure. The Labour Party conference wasn't mere PR window dressing - it meant something. If you want to find out more about the history of Labour Party democracy read the excellent book Parliamentary Socialism by Ralph Milliband.

Nowadays if you run the country you don't bother to debate in your own party, you don't bother to give any kind of space to people who may have different opinions to yourself, you simply parachute in people who share your views and will do your bidding. This is what New Labour did with the likes of Lord Adonis and Baroness Vadera. This is not only profoundly undemocratic but its also bad for our country. All those people who used to pay their dues to get into government learnt something valuable in the process. Now we get people coming into government with their potty ideas fully formed and untested in the crucible of democracy. This is just another example of why government in our country has become so rotten.

Unemployment is a free market failure

As unemployment rises inexorably towards three million in the UK the government has no answer. That is hardly surprising because this government is so intent in worshiping at the altar of the market that it believes that governments can't and shouldn't' do anything - that is the job of the market. So we can't expect much from this government except the harassment and impoverishment of the unemployed and those on welfare as I described in this post on the government's latest so-called 'welfare' reform.

The unemployed are the ones who are paying the most for the banker's recession. By being shut out of paid work they will suffer hardship, low esteem and health problems, often brought on by malnutrition. Malnutrition is estimated to affect three million people in the UK and cost £7.3 billion. Yet another cost dumped onto society by capitalists.

Capitalism has always lead to unemployment. In fact there was no unemployment before capitalism. It is a feature of the capitalist economic system described by Marx over a century ago:-

"....it is capitalistic accumulation itself that constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of labourers, i.e. a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the self-expansion of capital, and therefore a surplus population" [Marx: Capital].

Further to being an intrinsic feature of a capitalist economy unemployment is actually useful to capitalists. It creates the 'reserve army of labour' which is so beneficial to capitalists because it helps to lower wages and reduces militancy amongst workers, helping to keep them in line. No wonder capitalist governments like New Labour have very little intention of doing anything about unemployment.

Any economic system which cannot provide full employment is a failure. It needs to be replaced by an economic system that can provide full employment. Even in a capitalist society where the free market is failing governments must step in to do what the market cannot and create jobs for those without work. That is the hallmark of a civilised society. Its a pity that doesn't apply in the UK.

A Radical Programme for the Left

There has been a lot of talk about where the left goes next. In spite of the credit crunch left wing and progressive groups appear to have no coherent alternative programme to free market capitalism.

I've posted about these issues before and suggested some alternatives but here I want to explore what an alternative programme might look like. Firstly its essential to understand that the core of any alternative programme must be an economic strategy. It is essential because the economy is at the heart of our society. The economy is embedded in our society as Polanyi observed. This is historically where the left have failed to deliver. The focus thus far has been on nationalisation and delivery by the state. Thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union this approach has lost much of its credibility. And its not just in the Soviet Union that state control of the economy has run into trouble. In the UK the Labour Party used to believe in a 'mixed economy' (in the 1960s and 70s) with utilities and public services owned and run by the state with the rest in the private sector. That also failed for reasons which are too complex to debate fully here but a large part was played by the fact that the Labour government's commitment to state control was weak and lacking in any kind of dynamism or innovation. However, when we talk of these failures we must never lose sight of the effective propaganda and financial war waged by the free-market right to undermine alternatives to capitalism.

Its important to understand why the alternative economy is crucial. As long as we rely on the 'free' market - i.e. capitalism - to deliver our economic needs we will continue to have great inequalities and mass poverty globally. That can never change because that is how capitalism works. It was Marx who first explained this process. By acquiring the surplus value of worker's labour capitalists are able to cream off the wealth from society for themselves - leaving the rest of us with the crumbs from the cake. This can't change unless we create wealth for ourselves instead of wealth for capitalists. They need us but we don't need them. You can't have capitalism and social and economic justice - they don't go together. Its essential to at least understand this basic bit of Marxism. You don't have to be a Marxist but you need to understand how capitalism works and Marx has the answers.

It is important to also understand that by capitalists I don't mean the person who runs your local corner shop, restaurant, farm, or small business. these people are not capitalists. Capitalists are the people who own the means of production i.e. Olag Deripaksa, Lakshmi Mittal, Rupert Murdoch et al. It is the multinational corporations which are the root of the problem - not your local newsagent.

So how can an alternative economy work? How can we deliver all the goods and services which we need without the 'free' market? The answer is a mixture of nationalisation and mutualism. There are some obvious things which the market cannot deliver - the railways and universal post are examples. So we nationalise the railways and keep Royal Mail in public ownership. We also need to nationalise the banks and utilities. The banks have far too much power as we have seen and essential services such as energy and water need to be available to all - not on the basis of what people can afford to pay. Also included would be healthcare, education, social services and welfare.

By nationalisation I do not necessarily mean straightforward ownership and control by the state. These nationalised industries could be not for profit companies or social enterprises where the employees are the stakeholders. We need to look for more dynamic models in order to make sure that the nationalised services do not stagnate. They must be able to pay their way, and to develop and innovate. The workers in them must be moivated to make them successful. In any case there must be no shareholders - unless that is, all UK adults are made 'shareholders' with 'shares' that cannot be sold or otherwise traded. There is no reason why public services such as health, for example, could not be delivered by mutual organisations supported by the state. We need to come up with new models because we do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

What about goods? there is no reason why goods can't be delivered by co-operatives as I've ready proposed in 'How to Beat Capitalism'. There are plenty of successful examples. What we need is a government which is committed to actively promoting and supporting mutualism as a viable alternative to capitalism. There are organisations such as Co-operatives UK which promote the setting up of co-operatives and these need to be encouraged and supported by the government. The Mondragonco-operatives provide a good example of how co-operatives can successfully deliver a range of goods. In the short to medium term we also need the kind of Green New Deal which is being supported by the Green Party to provide thousands of jobs and investment to help to combat climate change.

If an alternative economy is the first priority, the second priority must be democratic reform. We need a written constitution - with a removal of all royal perogatives from the government, an elected second chamber to provide checks and balances, electoral reform with proportional representation and the revival of local government. Local councils must be able to deliver services in-house, be able to provide social housing and have democratic control of local services including health and education. People, local and democratically, must be able to determine whether they want a new store in the heart of their town - not the corporations.

A programme for the left needs to begin urgent steps to move to a low carbon economy. I've already mentioned the Green New Deal But we need to much more particularly in the area of public transport. Climate change is the biggest threat to our society.

There are many other issues but these are the key ones. The left will have to work hard to persuade voters that these changes are necessary given the evident pro-market bias in the media, and left groups will have to learn to work together instead of the eternal infighting which has cursed socialist politics for the past century or so. A left government will have many obstacles to contend with. Capitalists are likely to stage an investment strike, starving the UK of capital and creating unemployment. European legislation, which enshrines neoliberal values, will have to be reformed. But all this can be done. Franklin D Roosevelt did much of this in the USA - the world heartland of capitalism - and we can do it here.

And finally a word about trade unions. There is a crying need to free up trade unions from the repressive Thatcherite legislation designed to hobble them, This must also be part of a radical left wing programme. But trade unions need to change also. In the UK they have always had very limited horizons - recruit, negotiate, collective bargaining... and er .. that's it. Trade unions did set up the Labour Party but now it has turned against them they must grab the opportunity for change by refusing to support New Labour financially and if necessary setting up a new party of the left. Their role in bringing about an alternative economy will be crucial.

None of this can be done overnight - its a long hard road. But it must and can be done. Capitalists changed the rules to suit their purposes. We must democratically change the rules to suit ours.

Parliamentary reform? - don't hold your breath

I haven't said much in this blog about the MP's expenses scandal. Why not? Firstly I've been busy with the Euro elections and then away for two weeks, secondly there has been wall to wall coverage everywhere and finally it has proved to be a great distraction from what really matters at the moment - the economic crisis. In fact my last post on the issue was in January well before the Daily Telegraph spilt the beans.

But all this talk of Parliamentary reform brought on by the expenses scandal is old news to many of us. If you read the Guardian you would think that the nation had only just noticed that we had a rotten parliamentary system. Not long ago the likes of Polly Toynbee and Jonathon Freeland were writing as if all was well with the world - all it needed was a few tweaks from Gordon and everything would be hunky dory. But some of us have known that Parliament and the electoral system drastically needed reform - well, for most of our lives. And some of us have known that Gordon would continue exactly where Blair left off er.. ever since he became Prime Minister - as I made clear in April 2008.

For example, there has been talk of introducing electoral reform for decades. When I was a teenager in the early 1970s I couldn't understand why we had an unelected House of Lords. Our system has clearly been rotten and bankrupt for a very long time, and, despite the overwhelming case for change, nothing has happened.

Nor is very much likely to happen because we live in an elected dictatorship. All power is in the hands of the government (increasingly the Prime Minister) with no checks or balances. We have no written constitution, and in the past 400 years or so politicians have gradually taken over powers which used to belong to the monarch. Combine that with a first past the post system which virtually guarantees a monopoly of power for the two main parties and what politician would want to change it? An honest one perhaps? One who believed in social justice? Now when was the last time we had one of those in Number 10?

Why we should support the Lindsey strikers

After the sacking of 647 workers at the Lindsey oil refinery the industrial action continues. Many workers showed their defiance by burning their dismissal notices. It is estimated that another 4000 workers have gone out on strike around the country in support, including workers at Sellafield. There is absolutely no way that Total and its contractors could have got away with treating workers like this in France, or Germany. This is good old fashioned union busting.

The fact that the strike is 'illegal' means nothing. These workers voted with their feet - they walked out. Who needs a ballot to do that? The Thatcherite labour laws were brought in to hobble trade unions and weaken workers power. That is class war - pure and simple. Of course there will be people who will say you must have a ballot and I agree that there should be a ballot - if workers want one. The whole purpose of the ballot in Thatcherite trade union legislation is not to make things fairer but to tie up the union in bureaucracy and expense and prevent them from taking spontaneous action like that at Lindsey.

In the Lindsey case it remains to be seen if wildcat action was the right tactic. Much will depend upon support from other sectors, and there is still the possibility of a national strike ballot. All workers should support the Lindsey strikers. The Visteon workers showed that it is still possible to win disputes even in the most difficult of circumstances. We will need workers to show more strength and solidarity in the months to come because they are are going to be made to pay for the bailout of the fat cat bankers with their wages, conditions and jobs.

Update: Well. It looks like wildcat strike action proved to be the right tactic for the Lindsey workers. They have secured jobs for the original 51 workers who were laid off and the 647 who were sacked.

Unison Conference - Brighton 2009

Off once again to the Unison Conference in Brighton. Great venue, the town that is, but there is talk of not going there again - pity. The conference was much the same as last time I went two years ago but some things have changed. The most important difference was that the penny has now dropped with just about all the delegates - New Labour is a boss's party and has completely betrayed its working class supporters - so that is a step forward.

There was a rousing speech by Dave Prentis in which he threatened to withhold funds from Labour. Many have taken this with a pinch of salt but I wonder. Prentis mentioned twice that we have reached a "crossroads" and mocked senior Labour politicians. If the Labour Party can only deliver 16% of the vote why should trade unions support it any longer? I think we are just begining to see the start of a fundamental shift in politics.

As for the rest of the week it was farly dull. As usual the most passionate debate was about Palestine. This time the 'friends of Israel' used a low key devious approach which went - "We support a two state solution but a boycott will hurt the Palestinians" - Yeah of course it will - then why are they asking for it? The usual disingenuous guff we hear from pro-Israelis. Needless to say they rightly lost again and the boycott continues.

I just had to finish by mentioning the Socialist Worker/Socialist Party crew who bombarded the deleagtes with literature, as usual, every time they entered and left the hall. How many years have they been stood outside doing this and where has it got them? - even though there is a crisis in capitalism. When are they going to wake up and realise that dogmatic socialism just doesn't wash with the British people. Social justice yes - Marxism (sadly) no. Why do you think I joined the Green Party?

The Euro debacle - 9th June 2009

Well, it couldn't have been much worse for the Green Party could it? We increased our vote by more than 25% nationally and scored as high as 12% in the South East. We came agonisingly close to getting several more MEPs and the main beneficiaries of the night were the BNP and UKIP, two parties who deserve the votes of nobody at all.

Much has been made of the BNP getting elected but their vote went down. The BNP got in because the Labour vote collapsed. In the NW it was particularly painful because our candidate Pater Cranie missed out to the BNP by 5,000 votes. We deserved a lot better.

The question that has to be asked is why on earth do people vote for a bunch of Tory rejects like UKIP? Their leader Nigel Farage (who?) was heard boasting before the election of the millions he has made from Euro allowances, and then there is the UKIP MEP Ashley Mote who was convicted of fraud ....oh and er there is the other UKIP MEP Tom Wise who has been accused of false accounting and money laundering! Why would anyone want to vote for this shower? Well unfortunately they do.

All this shows a more desperate need than ever for a party of the left that can re-assert the values of social justice. I believe the Green Party is just that party but I'm realistic enough to appreciate that there are many in the labour movement who will never support or join the Greens. They just don't get it on the environment and are still stuck in a post-war time warp as far as their political thinking goes.

Great Gable 6th June 2009

The Scafells from Green Gable

I had been planning to walk up Great Gable in my shorts and T-shirt on 6th of June in support of Water Aid. Seven of us from work made the climb but it turned out not at all how I expected. We stayed the night before at Buttermere Youth Hostel and that was quite an experience after 30 years - but more of that later. The early morning was overcast and showery, so at Seathwaite we donned our waterproofs and girded up our loins for the ascent via Green Gable. This is a popular route and the first part of the climb, by Sourmilk Gill, is pretty steep. By the time we reached the top most of us were feeling the strain. The next part of the walk is a relatively easy stroll up the Gillercomb and then onto the shoulder of Green Gable. Though it rained through most of the walk it wasn't until we reached the shoulder that the full force of the weather hit us. It was very cold, with a strong wind, and we could see snow on top of the Helvellyn range!

Although we wanted some lunch there was no shelter so after a drink and a snack we pressed on to the summit of Green Gable. These weren't the conditions to hang around in so after a few photos we went down to Windy Gap - which certainly lived up to its name. From the Gap there were great views of Ennerdale but we had no time to waste - weather conditions were worsening so we carried on straight up Great Gable. The climb was much steeper than I remembered it. I was beginning to get tired and cold - luckily I had brought two fleeces and after the second one went on I felt much better. After that it was a struggle to the summit fuelled by a half frozen Mars Bar.

Great Gable from Green Gable

It was a relief to be on top but just as I approached the summit the mist descended and we were in cloud. There were patches of snow on the summit and it began to sleet. This was no place to hang around with tired and hungry bodies so after a few photos we headed straight for the descent to Sty Head. And what a descent it was! Fifteen hundred feet of unrelenting steepness on wet and slippery rocks. My knees were like jelly by the time we reached Sty Head. But there was no time to relax even here - there was a bitter wind and driving rain so we headed straight down to Seathwate and a welcome cup of tea. In the end we raised just over £2500 for Water Aid so thanks to all that helped and contributed.

I just ought to add something about 21st Century Youth Hosteling. Buttermere Youth Hostel is a very pleasant place which is obviously popular with families. Much has changed since I used to go in the 1960s and 70s. You can get alcohol and decent coffee and the food has much improved. However there are still some odd anomalies; Buttermere shuts, yes shuts, at 11pm, get back any later and you are locked out!; the bunk beds are still the same ones I slept on 40 years ago and just as uncomfortable; there is an eerie quietness in the common room - as if you are in church - people speak in hushed tones. Later in the week I moved to Elterwater (stays open until 11.30pm!) with a friend and did some self catering. The kitchen was nice and clean but the pots and pans were still post-war vintage. Not a non-stick in sight! Would I go Youth Hostelling again? Possibly, but despite the modernisation it its still all a bit hair shirt'. I know the YHA is strapped for cash but please get some new bunks!

Think Again - Vote Green



Stop the BNP!

In the forthcoming Euro Election on 4 June Peter Cranie is the Green Party's candidate. He is in a straight fight for 4th place with Nick Griffin leader of the British National Party (BNP). The BNP represents the politics of hate and it would be a disaster if Griffin got elected

Here Peter Cranie talks about his campaign:



USE YOUR VOTE IN THE EUROPEAN ELECTION - VOTE GREEN TO STOP THE BNP

Public good, private bad

People who have followed the posts on this blog will know that I have been explaining how privatisation benefits the rich at the expense of the poor but it is probably worth pulling it all together in one post so here goes.

Privatisation of public services has been a key part of the neoliberal Thatcherite project of the past thirty years. Privatisation of public services makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. This neoliberal project is all about dumping costs onto the poor whilst creaming off more of society's wealth for the rich.
So how does it work? Quite simple really but it has to be bolstered by one big crucial lie. The lie is that the private sector is always, but always, more efficient than the public sector alternative. No evidence is ever produced for this but it has been repeated so often over the last few decades that most people accept it as a fact. There is evidence though to show that the private sector is not more efficient than the public sector. Here is an example that comes from the International Monetary Fund! (IMF) - see this paper. Here is a quote you might find interesting:

“….the empirical evidence and the theoretical debates do not support this assumption. There is a consistent stream of empirical evidence consistently and repeatedly showing that there is no systematic significant difference between public and private operators in terms of efficiency or other performance measures. The theory behind the assumption of private sector superiority is also being shown to have serious flaws”.

But we do need to consider what is meant by 'efficiency'. Normally it is taken to mean that the private sector can deliver public services at a lower cost - as if that was all that mattered anyway. The fact that the private sector can deliver services at a lower cost is questionable to say the least. But let’s consider what happens when a public service is privatised. A private company moves in and takes over the service and the workforce that delivers it. The company needs to make a profit so the first thing it does is to cut the workforce and lower the terms and conditions of the remaining workers. Workers have their pay, holidays and pensions slashed. The cost of resulting unemployment and low pay is pushed onto the taxpayer and the cost of the profit is pushed onto the remaining workforce. In fact the employer is literally taking money out of the pockets of its new employees and giving it to shareholders - hence a direct transfer of money from the poor to the rich. This is not lower cost delivery it is dumping the costs onto workers and the wider society. Its not efficiency - it is legalised robbery.

But it’s much worse than just this. Because we don't have competing public services (i.e. you only have one waste collector in your local council area) - what you end up with is a private monopoly. Once the public sector alternative has gone what happens if the company providing the service goes bust? Well it has to be bailed out. Why? Because even if you wanted to you couldn't just bring in another company to take over at short notice – wheelie bins have to be emptied. We are also sold a lot of guff about competitive tendering as if hundreds of companies were competing for every public service contract. This simply isn't the case and contracts are awarded to one of a few usual suspects.

What we end up with is a very cosy private monopoly replacing the public service and easy money for the people who own the company. In time, costs can be hiked up to increase profits and all this is at the taxpayer’s expense. No private company could ever compete with an efficient public sector alternative. Why? Because the public sector alternative does not have to make a profit therefore it will always offer better value for money. In addition, the public sector can always borrow money for investment at a lower rate of interest then the private sector which again saves the taxpayer money. The reality is that the most cost effective way to deliver public services is the public sector option. That is the way services should be delivered, paid for collectively by all of us and delivered without the profit motive.

Of course, it is an essential part of the privatisation project that the public sector is excluded from competing with the private sector because it is unacceptable to the privatisers for the public sector to be seen to provide better value for money and competing successfully. That is why everything has to be privatised. And that is why the public sector is now being privatised by stealth - slowly but surely. Once the Tories get into power they will have the confidence to accelerate this process because they will claim that they are eliminating 'public sector waste' and delivering ‘better value’ in a time of budgetary restraint.

Privatisation of public services is basically a racket. Its hard for people to understand that their government would want to institute a system which costs them more, reduces their employment opportunities, dumps costs onto local communities and only benefits capitalists but that is the kind of government we have. That is what New Labour stands for. In the long run we will all have to pay more for less and those who benefit will be the better off.

How to beat capitalism

Historically socialists have followed the' Marxist' model. By that I mean capture the power of the state and use it to control the means of production. By doing this you can put power into the hands of the people and liberate them from exploitation by the capitalist class. There are basically two ways of doing this: Communism, and democratic socialism. Both have so far failed. Communism, in the Soviet Union, liberated workers and greatly improved the condition of women, but failed to find a successful alternative economic model and degenerated into a dictatorship rather than a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Democratic socialism, whereby socialist parties have come to power through elections, has simply failed to control capitalism, again largely because the parties failed to pursue an alternative economic model and were content to 'manage' capitalism through social democracy. I know some people will argue those parties weren't socialist but that's another argument too complex to go into in this post.

There is a pattern here. The key thing is the economy and the creation of money. Having a capitalist economy and a socialist - or social democratic - government doesn't do much for most of the population apart from ameliorating the worst excesses of capitalism. It is certainly preferable to right-wing 'free' market alternatives but it doesn't solve the underlying problem. For a long time, capitalist entities like the big corporations have been more powerful than governments. Many corporations have turnovers which are larger than the GDPs of well-developed nations. Now, through global entities like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) - in which secretive panels of 'experts' are able to overturn national legislation, they have formally elevated commercial interests - the right to make money - above democracy, above all our democratic rights.

What the credit crunch has shown us is the true power of these capitalist entities. The mask has slipped. The 'free' market model has come unstuck through de-regulation, and selfishness and greed - the twin engines of capitalism. We, the poor, the unemployed, the disabled, the low paid, and the working and middle classes, have been forced to bail out capitalism. The losses have been nationalised and the gains are still in the pockets of the people who brought the system down. That is socialism for the rich and the market for the rest of us.

In his book, The Great Transformation, written in 1944, the socialist economic historian Karl Polanyi explained how economies work. He said that they are 'embedded' in society. By this, he meant that they are inseparable from the way we live. They are what we do. This may sound obvious but classical economists, such as Ricardo, have tried to separate the economy from society as if it exists separately in its own right. This is crucial because it allows conventional economists to ignore social and environmental concerns. They just don't figure on the balance sheet. Economists routinely ignore human suffering and environmental degradation caused by capitalism. This helps to give capitalism economic validity because it becomes simply about making money - forget about people and the environment. This is why economists are able to make ludicrous statements like - "It benefits all of us if production is moved to countries where labour costs are lower" - really? Does it? Who does it benefit? Not the people who have lost their jobs and the communities that are devastated. Of course, there have been dissident economists like Marx and E F Schumacher who wrote 'Small is Beautiful - a study of economics as if people mattered'. But Schumacher and Marx have been completely ignored by capitalist academia and media.

Karl Polayni: realised that society and economy are indivisible

Democratic socialists have made a similar error to the economists because they have assumed that politics is also separate from the economy. If you have political power you can change things. But as we have seen that is not true, not unless you change the fundamental basis of the economy. What socialists and progressives need if they are really going to change society is economic power. Capitalism can only be beaten economically. Therefore we need an alternative economic model and we need to start to build that model now. But what is an alternative economy? It is one where the means of production are owned and controlled by the people, and the creation of money is under democratic control.

For the means of production, there are basically two options: Nationalise industries or put them directly into the hands of workers to run and control themselves. Total nationalisation and state control, as in the Soviet Union hasn't worked well because people are not empowered and often they have little incentive to produce anything. They end up still as workers controlled by bosses. The real alternative is economic democracy. This is something that can be achieved through co-operatives. By co-operatives, I mean businesses owned and controlled by the people who work in them. Not possible? Think again. There are already many such successful businesses around. One example is the Unicorn Grocery, a worker-owned co-operative in Chorlton, which is thriving. There are many other examples.

Some cynics will no doubt say that this can only happen on a small scale but I don't believe it. There is nothing to stop larger scale businesses from being run in this way. The co-operatives in Mondragon in Spain provide us with an example of large-scale worker-owned and controlled businesses. Even models like John Lewis and Gore-Tex, which are not wholly worker-owned co-operatives in the sense that the Unicorn Grocery is, offer us a better alternative than voracious capitalists such as Tesco.

The beauty of the co-operative model is that we don't need a revolution or a socialist government to get started. There is nothing to stop people from starting co-operatives now. I have given examples in other posts such as the workers in Argentina who took over factories and started running them as going concerns during the economic crisis there.

In addition to this, we have to put the creation of money, and the control of its supply under democratic control. We need to ensure that only the state, through state-owned banks, rather than private sector banks, can create money. Alongside this, we also need to ensure that there are smaller local and regional banks. We also need a decentralised energy production system where locally owned companies generate energy from renewables and a centrally controlled energy distribution system.

None of this means that we shouldn't bother with socialist or political parties or be trying to get progressive governments elected. Changing our economic model isn't going to happen overnight. We need the support of governments who are friendly and can help with investment. In the shorter term nationalisation of the banks, railways, water, power generators, education, and health is essential for moving us away from a capitalist economy. It's a long haul but this is the only way forward. You cannot beat capitalism politically - it has to be done economically. Socialists and progressives need to start thinking seriously about building a new economy and making it happen - now.

Mark Thomas supports the Green Party - here's why

Mark Thomas has been an active campaigner against the kind of selfish 'free' market capitalism which lead to the credit crunch and the current recession. Here he speaks for himself about why he supports the Green Party: