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Capitalism has failed utterly

Over the past couple of weeks, Britain,
many other European countries and the US have announced plans to nationalise
large chunks of the financial sector, thereby taking a good proportion of the
commanding heights of the economy into public ownership. The British government
has been forced to effectively part-nationalise three of the country’s biggest
banks, RBS, Lloyds TSB and HBOS. The plan, which includes putting treasury-appointees
on the boards of all three banks, will cost the taxpayer in the region of £37
billion. Many of the major European powers are unveiling similar plans, and
even the US, the ideological bastion of free-market capitalism, has been forced
to invest $250 billion into buying stakes in nine of its banks (though these
‘non-voting preference shares’ mean the US government will have no direct control
over the running of these banks).

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Nationalisation, but not as we know it!

Nationalisation of the banks and financial institutions
is a corner stone of any plan by socialists to implement socialism. This idea
has been ridiculed and has always been hated by big business, capitalists and
economic commentators. 

Yet within the last months, because money
that the banks don’t have has been lent to people, banks and companies which
they cannot pay back, the chickens have been coming home to roost.  Bank after bank has been partly or totally
nationalised. What a turnaround in events! Does this mean that we have won the ideological
argument and socialism is around the corner?

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Winston Churchill: A Modern Myth – part 1

Winston Churchill is one of the most famous figures in
British history and the official approach is that it would be unpatriotic not
to admire him. The purpose of this article is to draw aside the veils of myth
and legend which establishment historians and fawning admirers have spun around
him and look at the real Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. The facts reveal a
different man altogether.

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Say no to nuclear power

New Labour’s nuclear ambitions suffered a setback in August when a
proposed deal to sell British Energy to EDF for £12 billion fell
through. Brown, Hutton, Darling and co. say that new nuclear power
plants are the only way to achieve "energy security" and reduce carbon
dioxide emissions, and they are determined to provide the right
incentives to EDF (or possibly another bidder, Centrica) to build and
operate them. Surely these wise men have impartially analysed all the
options and come up with the best solution to Britain’s energy needs?

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Greedy energy companies – take them over

New Labour has climbed down before big business again, on the issue of a windfall tax on the energy companies. Brown’s pathetic advice, that the elderly should wrap up warm and
switch off lights when prices go up, makes you wonder whether we voted
for Labour or the Big Six gas and electricity companies to run the
country in the last election.

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Brown and ‘light touch’ regulation.

New Labour is the bastard child of
Thatcherism. Blair, Brown and Mandelson inherited from the evil witch the
belief that the market (capitalism) was god and that the rich are the wealth
creators we must all bow down to.

As Marxists know, and as the present crisis
has shown, this is the opposite of the truth. But this has been the foundation
of all the policies carried out by New Labour over the past years.

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On nationalising the banks

For over a century Marxists have argued the need to take the banks and
other financial institutions into public ownership as part of the
socialist transformation of society. The founding document of
scientific socialism, the ‘Communist Manifesto’, in 1848 called for,
"Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a
national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly."

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Now nationalise the banks!

On 8th October the government
and the banks came to an emergency agreement to prevent financial meltdown. The
government agreed to commit:

  • £50bn for bank
    recapitalisation
  • £200bn in
    short-term loans to boost liquidity
  • £250bn debt guarantee for inter-bank lending.

The banks committed themselves to – nothing.

A
few days ago RBS and Lloyds TSB/HBOS alone claimed £31.5bn of public money. The
final bill could come to £75bn

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No return to back street abortions!

Parliament will once again be discussing the Human Fertilization and
Embryology Bill in October. Once again battle is joined between those
who defend the right for women to decide over their own bodies, and
those who want the state to do it for them. This time, however, there
is room for improvements to existing legislation – not just calls to
turn the clock back fifty years.

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Panic in world markets

Panic
has gripped the stock markets of the world. Things are completely out
of control, and there is nothing that governments can say or do that
can stop it. As in 1929, every time people thought that the worst had
come, further falls were just round the corner. Nobody knows how far
share prices have still to go. The world economy now finds itself in
unsheltered waters.

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Recession and class struggle in Europe

The disarray among ruling circles in the
European Union could hardly have been more clearly depicted than at the
‘summit’ over the weekend of October 4th and 5th. In
reality the event was little more than a photo-shoot. The meeting brought
together the Prime Ministers of Britain, Germany, Italy and France. The Prime
Minister of Spain clearly had his nose put out of joint by the lack of an
invitation. The other EU members (currently 27 nation states) also may well
have asked why they weren’t to be asked to take part in decisions that could
profoundly affect their futures.

The only realistic reply could be that the
meeting would have been even more of a shambles. Europe cannot get its act
together. First the participants at the summit swore to unite in action in the
teeth of the crisis. Secondly, when it came to pumping money in to the European
banking system (which must come if the plan is serious) they all got cold feet.
National interests came first. German finance minister Peer Steinbruck blew the
gaff. “We as Germans do not want to pay into a big pot where we do not have
control and do not know where German money might be used,” he complained. Since
the EU nations are not hanging together, they will hang separately.

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David Lammy bumps into real world

Sometimes
little incidents reveal much more fundamental truths.  This article from the Guardian on Tuesday
September 09 which covered some of the fringe meetings at the TUC conference
clearly demonstrates just how out of touch many of the New Labour careerists
really are:

“One telling anecdote to
emerge from the Compass gathering was when David Lammy, the schools minister,
discussed his shock at finding one of his mother’s pay slips, dated 1986.
Lammy’s mother, recently deceased, had worked both in the NHS and for London
Underground. Going through his mum’s things after her death, Lammy learned that
her take-home pay 22 years ago was just £900 a month." 

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