On Wednesday 13th July, the Burley Sports Club in Leeds played host to only the second
public meeting hosted by Socialist Appeal supporters in West
Yorkshire. People came from as far away as Scunthorpe to hear Mick
Brooks, editor of Socialist Appeal, speak on the unfolding and
ever-deepening crisis afflicting capitalism on a world scale.
Whilst
the economic crisis internationally was ushered in by the sub-prime
scandal in the US, in Britain the economic
crisis first came on to the scene with the collapse of Northern Rock
– a bank without a single subprime mortgage on its books. Mick
described how these individual incidents are for all intents and
purposes merely accidental but that they triggered a full-blooded
economic recession due to the deeper malaise of the capitalist
system. For the apologists of capitalism of course the old mantra
that the City is full of irreproachable wealth creators has simply
been replaced with a new mantra that a handful of “spivs and
speculators” have wrecked an otherwise healthy system. They were
wrong on both counts: the bankers never produced a single thing of
real value nor did a handful of bad eggs spoil things for everyone
else. Marxists have always understood that capitalism as a whole
tends to produce crises of overproduction and no amount of cheap
credit could solve that fundamental problem.
Now
most workers find themselves in hard times and are increasingly
questioning the legitimacy of the economic system which got us into
this situation. As one audience member pointed out, the reaction of
the working class to the recession has been contradictory. Whilst
there is undoubtedly a simmering anger directed towards the real
architects of this crisis, about half of Britain’s workforce has
accepted wage cuts in the hope that redundancies can be staved off in
the long run. For the same reason strike figures alone fail to reveal
the prevailing mood. The European election results on the other hand
illustrated the deep seated disillusionment which exists among
traditional Labour voters. As Mick pointed out: Labour polled worse
even than the Cornish nationalists in Cornwall, and complete meltdown
at the next general election looks likely. The collapse in Labour’s
support however in no way supposes that there’s much enthusiasm for
the Tories. On the contrary, even the Shadow Chancellor George
Osborne admits that after three months in power they’ll be the most
unpopular government since the war. They intend to put the boot in –
whether they’ll get away with it is another matter.
The
lively discussion which followed carried on until well after closing
time. Despite the lean times everyone dug deep at the end of the
meeting and a sum of £70 was raised in a collection. Another
£30 worth of literature was sold including a number of copies
of the book “What is Marxism?” From the floor a comrade from
Wakefield captured the spirit of the meeting in paraphrasing Oscar
Wilde: “under capitalism everyone is looking into the gutter when
we should be looking to the stars.”
