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“Reformism or Revolution” launched in London

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On Wednesday, (October 1st,
2008) around one hundred people gathered in Bolívar Hall in
London to attend the launching of the English language edition of
Alan Woods’ latest book, Reformism or Revolution – A Reply to
Heinz Dieterich. The event was organised by Hands Off Venezuela
and Wellred,
the Marxist Publishing House. Comrade Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist
Appeal, chaired the meeting and introduced the two speakers,
Samuel Moncada, Venezuelan Ambassador and Alan Woods himself.

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Neoliberalism – dead or only sleeping?

Neoliberalism, the dominant ideology of modern capitalism, is under
sustained challenge. For the past quarter of a century neoliberalism, sometimes
called market fundamentalism, the policy of non-intervention in the economy, has
been the ideology, and the set of policies that go with it, which has adamantly
opposed the rights and attempted to drive down the living standards of the
working class all over the world. Now the economic crisis is forcing the authorities
to intervene, regulate, and even nationalise firms because they have no choice.
Is neoliberalism dead?

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The working class must not be left to pay for Wall Street mess

‘Modern history’s greatest regulatory failure’; ‘The end of American
capitalism as we know it’; these are just two of the headlines thrown up by the
credit crunch, both appearing in the Financial
Times, the organ of British finance capital. In the course of a single
week, we have seen the collapse of three of America’s biggest financial
institutions: on Sunday 13th September, Bank of America announced it
was buying out Merrill Lynch, one of the world’s most famous investment banks; on
the following Monday, Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest securities firm in
the US, filed for bankruptcy; and, as if that were not enough, on Tuesday, the
US Federal Reserve invested $85 billion in a takeover of AIG, America’s largest
insurance company. More recently, on Thursday 25th, the huge US bank
Washington Mutual, in a state of collapse, was taken over by JP Morgan Chase,
in a move described as ‘the biggest bank failure in American history” (Saskia Scholtes, Joanna Chung and Deborah
Brewster, JPMorgan swoops in again, FT, September 26 2008).

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Editorial: 1929 again?

The Banks are going down like ninepins. It’s just over a year ago that
Northern Rock went bust. That was the first time we heard of the
‘credit crunch’ – the fact that banks were nervous of lending to each
other. Why? Because they realised the whole financial system was stood
on an unstable house of cards of credit. The pyramid had been built up
over years of mad speculation. They had got to the stage where they did
not know which bits of coloured paper in their vaults were sound and
which were non-performing toxins.

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New Pamphlet available: World Capitalism in Crisis

In this new document Alan Woods outlines the real reasons for the
world financial crisis, what it means for us – and them – and what can
be done about it. He shows how Marxism both predicted the chaos which
has hit the money market and revealed the processes which caused it. He
warns that Capitalism will seek to find a way out at our expense – as
one talk show host put it; "When we mess up, we pay. When they mess up,
we pay!"

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Hands Off Venezuela at Leeds Freshers’ Fair

Supporters of Hands off Venezuela at Leeds
University intervened during the week long freshers’ fair at Leeds University
Union to promote solidarity between students here in Leeds and the workers and
youth in Venezuela who are struggling to create a new society based on
socialist principles. There was a great deal of interest in the university’s
HOV society and the programme of events that the comrades have lined up. The
society managed to sign up 13 members and collected more than 50 contact details
as well as selling books, pamphlets and HOV magazines.

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Boris and the bankers

Boris Johnson defends capitalism. 
“Go on.
Admit it. You don’t feel altogether sorry for those bankers, do you? When you
read about the collapsing pillars of the temples of mammon, you don’t feel the
tears beginning to prick the corner of your eyes. 

“When you
read that the masters and mistresses of the Universe are being expelled from
their glass palaces, ferrying their possessions in cardboard boxes, you can’t
quite find it in you, somehow, to mourn…”

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Paulson plan – a kick in the face for capital

What a kick in the face for America’s
capitalist elite!  The US House of
Representatives voted to reject the Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act put
forward by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, President
Bush, Vice-President Cheney, the majority Democrat leader of the House, the
Republican minority leader of the House, both candidates in the upcoming
presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain and all the American media. 

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Tube – Stop bullying and victimisation

AROUND 2,500 Tube infrastructure workers at
Metronet are to be balloted for industrial action over breakdowns in industrial
relations following the victimisation of an RMT safety rep, dangerous plans to
reduce signals maintenance and attempts to impose rosters.

The
safety rep is Andy Littlechild. “Andy Littlechild has been fitted up on a bogus charge
that would embarrass the Spanish Inquisition, and to add insult to injury he
was thrown out of his depot at 3am with no means of getting home,” RMT general
secretary Bob Crow commented.

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At the sharp end of the crisis – homelessness and poverty in the US

Our
lives, those of our children, our health and living are subjected to the whims
of the gambling table, otherwise known as the ‘world financial system’. In what
way can betting on the prices of stock and shares benefit humankind? Rather, it
inevitably leads, at some stage, to crisis, as the blind bets get called in.

Now,
with the crisis of the capitalist system unfolding, the poverty, hunger and
homelessness experienced by some sections of working class people is spreading
to wider and wider layers. This is initially being expressed in foreclosures on
home loans and an increase in homelessness.

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World capitalism in crisis

We live in exceptional times. The financial panic in the USA is
creating waves that are threatening to engulf the whole world. This is rapidly
transforming the consciousness of millions. Alan Woods
looks at how the world economy reached the stage it has, where it is on the
brink of a serious downward, so serious that it could be as worse if not worse
than 1929.

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