This piece by Nick Wrack if from the current issue of Respect’s paper.
Just two years ago Gordon
Brown said he could not find the money to plug the £1 billion deficit in the NHS. Now he’s bailed out the banks to the tune of £500 billion. Nothing could be clearer. When it comes to the needs of ordinary people Brown and New Labour couldn’t care tuppence. When it comes to big business, the bankers, city financiers and other rodents, they will hock their grandmother to get them out of a fix.
Unfortunately, it’s not just grandma who will have to pay. It’s estimated that the bailout is costing every taxpayer up to £13,000. This is on top of the £200 billion Private Finance Initiative debt that taxpayers will have to pay out to the corporate fat cats for generations to come.
Ordinary people will not benefit from this bailout. While the bankers and the shareholders will continue to be paid massive amounts (reduced a little for a short while to prevent a public outcry) we will be forced to pick up the tab.
On top of the credit crunch and the financial crisis is economic recession. Unemployment is rising to levels not seen for almost twenty years and is set to rise further. Despite being nationalised at a cost of £100 billion Northern Rock is now trying to recoup its money by forcing families onto the street. Repossessions rocketed from 491 to 4,201 in the last three months. In total there will be 45,000 mortgage repossessions this year. There’s money for the bankers who have cost the taxpayer billions but nothing for hard-up working families who struggle with rising fuel and food costs.
Gordon Brown famously (and ridiculously) claimed to have done away with boom and bust. Just in case he hasn’t learned anything from recent events here’s what the Economist magazine, the in-house journal for neo-liberalism, says: “Capitalism has always engendered crises, and always will.” (18/10/2008)
In boom, the rich get richer. And in bust, millions of workers, the unemployed, pensioners and their families are made to pay. That is what capitalism is all about.
And while the bosses and the politicians rail against public ownership most of the time, they’re not averse to taking a hand-out when the going gets a little tough. Just so long as they don’t have to pay for the crisis created by their system. Here’s the Economist again: “In the short term defending capitalism means, paradoxically, state intervention.” And that means worldwide state bail-outs to the sum of £2.5 trillion. An unimaginable amount but one that could be used to eradicate poverty, disease, deaths in childbirth; provide water, shelter and food for half the world’s population (over three billion people) who live on less than $2.50 a day.
If they can bail out the bankers, they can sort out the NHS, child poverty and public transport. But they won’t. This New Labour government, just like the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, have praised the bankers and the financial markets for years, extolling the benefits of unregulated markets and praising their contribution to society.
Instead of handing massive sums to the very people responsible for the mess, the banks, financial institutions and pension funds should be nationalised, along with the railways and the fuel companies and all the other industries and services privatised over the last thirty years. But instead of them being run in the interests of business, they should be run democratically by and in the interests of ordinary people who work in and use them. We want state intervention in our interests, not for the benefit of the super-rich.
Only in this way can we make sure that bumper bonuses and dividends are not paid out to the undeserving parasites who have sucked out profits at our expense. There’s no other way to ensure that interest rates are reduced and kept low. Instead of taxpayers subsidising the rich, the profits of the banks, fuel companies and other services can be used to fund improvements in our daily lives, such as free school meals for all children, free public transport and free prescriptions, dental treatment and eye tests.
There must be a guarantee that there will be no repossessions due to mortgage defaults. We need a massive programme of council house building, providing affordable homes and creating work for tens of thousands.
In this recession, the government must be forced to intervene to protect those threatened with unemployment. Any company laying off workers should be taken over and the jobs saved until suitable alternatives at trade union rates of pay can be provided.
The replacement of Trident nuclear missiles must be scrapped, saving £76 billion. The ID card scheme should be binned, saving another £4.7 billion. Corporation tax should be restored to 1979 levels, generating more than £12 billion every year. Income tax for the richest 10% should be increased, whilst those on £14,000 or less should pay no Income tax and VAT should be abolished.
Why should it always be the poorest who pay the most?
In the face of growing unemployment and mounting financial difficulties there needs to be united practical action across the left; to protect those at the sharp end. That’s why Respect is supporting the newly-formed Campaign against Fuel Poverty.
Anyone facing repossession should be defended and the bailiffs kept out.
The government continues to say there’s no money to pay low paid civil servants any more than a 2% pay increase. Wages must keep pace with inflation and action taken to prevent job losses. Respect will support all groups of workers who take action to defend their job, conditions and pay.
Capitalism is a system that causes chaos and misery for the majority in society. Some people say it’s ‘unbridled’ capitalism that is the problem. But you can’t put a bridle on a system so unruly. It’s a beast that can only be tamed by being put down.
We need a society in which the needs of everyone are put before the privileged lifestyles of the few.
Liam redux 
Leave a comment