Make 2012 a year to settle accounts

The year ends as it began, with great social movements of people who have taken to the streets because other means of democratic expression are either cut off, denied or wilfully ignored.

It coincides with a world economy teetering on the edge of a depression, overwhelmed by the very debt that it generated to lead an unsustainable, self-destructive expansion.

Italy, now run by an unelected government headed by a Goldman Sachs advisor, yesterday had to pay almost 7% to refinance a small portion of its huge debt. Europe’s banks only function because they have access to cheap money from the central bank. Everyone knows it can’t continue.

In the last few weeks, huge numbers have defied the authorities in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Russia; many have paid with their lives at the hands of authoritarian regimes that deny basic freedoms.

Across the United States, the occupy movement that began on Wall Street has sustained a stubborn foothold despite state repression and exposed the Obama presidency. In Britain, the biggest strike for 30 years was backed by the resilient and imaginative St Paul’s occupation.

No one can dispute that despite the different forms and apparent aims of people in different countries from Bahrain, Libya to Israel, this is a truly global phenomenon that signifies a new period of world history.

On October 15, various actions against the system were held simultaneously in almost 100 countries, initiated by the Democracy Now! movement in Spain. It was an event unique in human history that we must build on in the coming year.

New generations have driven the movement on, giving the lie to those who stupidly claim that modern capitalism has created hopeless individualism and despair in place of social solidarity.

People have rediscovered and enhanced their individuality in social movements that have emphasised inclusiveness, transparency, democracy and collective decision-making. Social media designed to reinforce corporate culture has become a key tool for mobilising against the self same system.

The movement will ebb and flow and new forms of struggle will emerge to enhance the occupation movement simply because the multi-sided crisis of the present social system is not going away any time soon.

In Britain, over a million young people are out of work, while more toil for a pittance or nothing at all. Prisons are full to bursting, partly as a result of the state’s revenge on summer rioters who were led to believe they were “worth it”.

The ConDem government’s cuts are magnifying the recession. Panic in ruling circles is mounting about the impact of a eurozone collapse. Yet the Tory-led regime rides high in polls, buoyed by the fact that Labour and most trade union leaders offer no alternative let alone leadership.

Although millions participated in the March demonstration against spending cuts and the November 30 strikes, TUC leaders are busily trying to end the fight over pensions. They are signing up to deals that mean paying more, working longer and getting less on retirement.

If 2011 witnessed a great social awakening around the world, while ruling political and business elites were befuddled by the global economic and financial crisis, we should make 2012 a year when historical accounts are settled in our favour.

Some argue, however, that A) a coherent strategy is unnecessary, B) that the system will give way under mass pressure, or that C) a package of reforms can rescue capitalism from itself. A and B ignore the realities of how power is wielded through the state while C disregards the system’s inherent contradictions.

Recent breakthroughs in physics about the smallest particles, the speed of light and dark matter show that humans have capacity to discover and learn about themselves and the world.

The point in 2012 is to change it by creating movements in the spirit of scientists, by working collaboratively to find solutions, developing forms of co-leadership that avoid hierarchy yet do not stifle bold decisions or strategy planning.

More 18-year-olds in Britain are on Facebook than are registered to vote. This does not mean we should turn away from politics because of the politicians - that gives the status quo a free hand. We have to make a politics of our own.

A World to Win campaigned throughout 2011 for a strategy based on People’s Assemblies. These could deconstruct the capitalist state and create the framework for a sustainable not-for-profit economy and financial system based on co-ownership and control.

We took the idea into student occupations, strike movements and the occupations at St Paul’s, Glasgow, Newcastle and other cities. We are looking to our members, supporters and friends to develop this strategy and make it happen in 2012.

A World to Win editors

October 15 global voice of the people day

The contrast couldn’t be more stark. Finance ministers in grey suits in Paris trying desperately to save the system while ordinary people in nearly 900 cites in 78 countries take to the streets tomorrow to demand change.

Ministers from the G20 leading capitalist economies, gathered in the forlorn hope of finding solutions to the global debt crisis, represent the vested, narrow class interests of bankers and corporations, the minority that hold a grip on power.

Those driven on to the streets by the economic and political consequences of the crisis represent the potential and possibility of an alternative, different, progressive, democratic future.

Designating tomorrow as a global day of action was inspired by the revolutionary uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries, the democracy struggles in Spain and the mass movement in Greece against draconian budget cuts. As the call-out for tomorrow says:

On October 15th people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares. From America to Asia, from Africa to Europe, people are rising up to claim their rights and demand a true democracy. Now it is time for all of us to join in a global non violent protest. The ruling powers work for the benefit of just a few, ignoring the will of the vast majority and the human and environmental price we all have to pay. This intolerable situation must end.

The movement’s momentum has been boosted by the inspiring Occupy Wall Street movement that has rocked the American political establishment, notably the wimpish Democrats. New York’s trade unions have given practical support and the occupy campaign has spread like wildfire throughout the country.

In Britain, there is visible and growing support for the initiative to occupy the space adjacent to the London stock exchange near St Paul’s at noon tomorrow, along with other protests throughout Britain.

These global actions create the opportunity for an open debate on solutions, about how a minority’s hold on the levers of power has brought us to the edge of a social catastrophe and, more importantly, what are the ways forward.

Many sincerely believe that the power of the people can be harnessed with enough energy to compel government and big business to change and henceforth protect and defend the interests of the majority.

That viewpoint, however, is at odds with the nature of the beast we face. As the M15 democracy movement in Spain has noted, the state, political parties and corporate interests have fused together in new ways to defend the capitalist status quo.

There is a democratic façade to this process – but a façade is all it is. As a result, the present political system is the problem, is a barrier to future human progress. While it remains in place, it intends to go on inflicting grievous bodily harm on young and old, putting them out of work, cutting services and pensions, letting energy prices rip.

The crisis-ridden system will grow more and more authoritarian and warlike, destroying basic rights and liberties and threatening international conflict over resources and trade.

In other words, in A World to Win’s view, the social system is beyond reform and needs rebuilding in new, creative, democratic ways that make the rule of profit and capitalism history.

People’s Assemblies have come to the fore in struggles in many countries and can become a transition to a democratic future. On Saturday, October 22, we are hosting the event People’s Assemblies to People’s Power at the Passing Clouds Collective in east London. There’ll be music, poetry and subversive debate. Put the date in your diary.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Don't let capitalism off the hook

Embarrassed by the vitality and determination of the student movement against higher tuition fees, some trade union leaders are making militant noises about co-ordinated strike action against the government’s spending cuts. Whether words become deeds is debatable.

Len McCluskey, the new general secretary of Unite, Britain’s largest union, has written in The Guardian that trade unions ought to be “preparing for battle” and should not let the anti-union laws paralyse them in the face of the cuts onslaught.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC), says McCluskey, will meet early in 2011 to discuss “co-ordinated industrial action and to analyse the possibilities and opportunities for a broad strike movement.” But before anyone gets too excited, let’s examine what is happening on the ground.

Yesterday, the TUC general secretary Brendan Barber and union leaders met David Cameron for mince pies and tea at Downing Street at their request. Afterwards, Barber would only say that they had warned Cameron of the consequences of the deficit-reduction plan, as if the prime minister didn’t know already. Only Bob Crow, leader of the RMT transport union, voiced support for McCluskey.

McCluskey, whose union’s endorsement was critical in getting Ed Miliband elected as Labour’s new leader, criticised the party’s front bench for meeting the Tory cuts programme halfway. Somehow he managed to excuse Miliband himself, although the Labour leader accepts that the budget deficit should be reduced. He simply wants the Coalition to move more slowly.

While Miliband quickly distanced himself from McCluskey’s support for strike action – showing that he who pays the piper doesn’t necessarily call the tune – in practice they agree in one key area. Labour-controlled local councils are busily preparing to make substantial cuts. Some like Lewisham have started implementing them already.

Instead of demanding that Labour councils refuse to draw up cuts budgets for 2011-12 based on substantial reductions in central government grant, McCluskey only says they should not be blamed “for the problem” because to do so is a “shortcut to splitting our movement”.

No-one is actually blaming them for the crisis. But local trade unionists rightly are demanding that Labour councils refuse to make the cuts as a matter of principle. Work on drawing up the budgets will begin immediately after the holiday season is over, with a view to getting them through the council by early March.

The TUC demonstration against spending cuts scheduled for March 26 will, therefore, be too late to save tens of thousands of jobs and services from the axe. Conflict between workers and Labour councils is inevitable in the next few months and trade unionists will want to know why McCluskey has nothing to say on this issue.

There is also meeting of minds between McCluskey and Barber on the ground of economic illiteracy. Both insist that the cuts are purely “ideologically driven”, being simply an attempt to destroy public services and the welfare state and are, therefore, totally unnecessary. If only it were that simple.

As we show in our downloadable Beyond Resistance booklet, the cuts are “ideological” only in the sense that capitalist governments are motivated to do everything they can to sustain the profit system. Britain’s budget deficit is part of the same global debt crisis that brought down the banks.

Deficits are a clear and present danger in so far as both governments and the financial markets are concerned. More to the point Barber and McCluskey cannot explain, for example, why parties in Greece, Spain and Portugal who call themselves socialist, have implemented massive cuts and faced down a series of general strikes.

Contrary to what McCluskey and Barber think, economic growth and tax justice is not an alternative to the cuts and lets capitalism off the hook. For any strike action to be effective, is will have to be part of a wider movement to bring down the Coalition while working up plans to replace the present madhouse with a not-for-profit economic and financial model. In other words, we need an ideologically-driven struggle against capitalism itself.


Paul Feldman
Communications editor