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When
the process of capitalist restoration in China started, some 30 years
ago, Deng Xiaping issued the slogan “to get rich is glorious” and he
added “let some get rich first”. And some have certainly gotten themselves obscenely rich. The destruction of the planned economy in China has created a
massive and widening gap between rich and poor and at the same time a
deep seated hatred against the new rich.
The crisis of capitalism is creating an unstable social and
political situation in Germany. Tensions are emerging within the
coalition government, elected only last year. Most interestingly, this
is having a radicalising effect inside DIE LINKE, which is being pulled
both left and right, with some of the leaders attracted by coalition
politics while the more radical ranks react against and seek an
alternative to the left.
Why does Britain grind to a halt as soon as we get a few snowflakes? Answer – capitalism. Here are the facts. Road Salt, what the gritting lorries pump out to make our roads safe, is produced for the UK by two private mining companies, the Salt Union in Cheshire, and the Cleveland Potash company.
Last week, Portsmouth FC became the first
top-flight football club in England to go into voluntary administration as a
result of their massive debts, currently estimated at £86 million. Over the
season so far, they have repeatedly failed to pay wages on time, owe the Inland
Revenue millions in unpaid taxes and VAT, have had to sell many of their
players to get quick cash and – as a result – are lying firmly at the bottom of
the Premier league table. According to
the Guardian (3/3/10) they need to find £14 million just to keep going until
the end of April.
The widely quoted figure of 20,000 job cuts in local government over
the next few years is starting to gain a grim credibility as councils
begin to show their hands.
As Birmingham reels after the
discovery of the tenth child – a two year old from Harborne – to die from
neglect in the city in under four years, the Tory/Liberal run City Council has
announced its main target for cutbacks – the council’s Children, Young People
and Families Service. Birmingham, the
largest local authority in the UK, has a £26 million deficit and aims to slash
over 2,000 jobs from Social Services: 1300 jobs from the Children, Young People
and Families Service and 305 jobs from Adult and Community Services.
Six traffic wardens working for the private company running Islington
Council’s parking enforcement service have been summarily dismissed
after being found sheltering from a heavy downpour in a cafe.The company had traced their whereabouts via the workers’ hand-held
electronic devices, which allow the employers to track workers’
movements every minute of the working day.
A storm erupted in policy circles in South Africa after Julius
Malema the leader of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL)
boldly proclaimed the need for the mining industry in South Africa to
be nationalized. The demand was predicated on fulfilling the vision of
the Freedom Charter, which was adopted at Kliptown in 1955 as the
‘manifesto’ of the liberation struggle.
The
crisis of Greek capitalism is clear for all to see. The bosses want
draconian economic policies to be implemented, but the workers have
already given more than they can afford to give. Bosses and workers are
on a collision course as the call for a 24-hour general strike on
February 24 clearly demonstrates.
Greece, like all the other capitalist
countries afflicted by the recession, is running a big deficit on its
government budget. Tax revenues have
collapsed and more benefits are having to be paid out to the unemployed.
Deficits for the European Union countries as a whole tripled from 2.3% to 6.9%
from 2008 to 2009 because of the slump.
‘Ethical consumption’ and other capitalist ‘solutions’ to the climate crisis are a blind alley. We need a socialist alternative.
In the previous few months, we have attempted to show how capitalist ‘solutions’ to climate change, such as market-based methods like carbon trading, are not able to combat the environmental problems facing humanity and our planet. Similarly, international treaties that attempt to operate within the confines of capitalism are also doomed to failure, as was seen in Copenhagen last year. Capitalism cannot solve these problems – capitalism is the problem.