Surveying the damage
The people say No
Felicity Dowling was recently elected to Left Unity’s National Co-ordinating Group. Here she sets out her assessment of the political context in which we are working.
In May 2013 we can see real and concrete gains for the very rich. Austerity is working for them. It is transferring wealth from the workers and their communities to the coffers of the very rich. It is not trickledown, it’s siphoning up. We are meeting to plan the next steps in a big project; an attempt to gather together people who are prepared to organise to protect the living standards and even the lives, of those who live in our working class communities
“Profits have recovered even as unprecedented long term unemployment persists; stock indices on both sides of the Atlantic have rebounded to pre-crisis highs even as median income languishes.”
Real incomes have fallen across most of Europe (Paul Krugman) but the drop is not equal, and the gap between rich and poor is widening and in the UK is greater than in other OECD countrieshttp://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/06/how-case-austerity-has-crumbled/)
“The differences were most acute in those countries where household incomes dropped the most. In Spain and Italy, the income of the top 10% was fairly stable even after taxes, while the income of the bottom 10% fell about 14% and 6% respectively. So government policies of austerity fell solely on the poor and not the rich.
As the rich have gotten richer, people across Europe have noticed and they do not like it. A strong majority (a median of 77%) of Europeans surveyed think that the current economic system generally favours the wealthy. This includes an overwhelming 95% of the Greeks, 89% of the Spanish and 86% of the Italians. Even seven-in-ten (72%) Germans, who have fared economically better than other European, think so. The vast majority of all Europeans (85%) surveyed overwhelmingly agree that the gap between the rich and the poor has increased in the past five years. And they are right.”
http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/inequality-theres-no-stopping-it/
The struggle is truly and sharply global. I want to, briefly, mention a few recent factors in some different parts of the world.
The on-going slow growth, almost recession in the western economies continues with increasing inequalities.
Carbon levels in the atmosphere reached unprecedented levels. Climate disruption continues and destructive industries are given access to some of the world’s most beautiful places and continue to exploit places they have already despoiled
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/10/carbon-dioxide-highest-level-greenhouse-gas
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/government-and-greens-battle-over-oil-exploration-5441844 http://www.thewesternstar.com/News/Local/2013-04-08/article-3215336/Fracking-issue-draws-large-crowd-at-public-forum/1
We have seen a right wing victory in elections in Pakistan, but a tiny flame of hope in the near unity of the left and the fact despite all they could field some candidates, run elections getting big public meetings and good personal responses, and enthusing many to join the cause..
http://www.zcommunications.org/pakistans-elections-by-farooq-sulehria
http://www.viewpointonline.net/elections-lessons-for-pak-left.html
The brutal truth of labour conditions in Bangladesh with the horrendous death of more than a thousand mainly young women workers, and injury to many more, in a factory. They were forced to come to work despite fears for the buildings safety. These deaths, which came only shortly after the deaths of workers in a factory fire, which in turn followed soon after a similar fire in Pakistan. The need for global trade union movements has never been clearer.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/09/us-bangladesh-fire-idUSBRE94801T20130509
(People can send solidarity greetings through the following contacts;
Or through http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=1813)
In South Africa, the most unequal country on Earth, the old order is changing and workers are moving into struggle and Trade Unions are winning some of their disputes. Multiple crises rumble on in Sub Saharan Africa and different countries are advancing land grabs for commercial farming rather than the vital subsistence and small farming the continent needs.
In the USA there have been strikes by fast food workers and the Chicago campaign against the privatisation and marketisation of education continues apace, with high school students heading the campaign this week.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/174335/fast-food-strikes-hitting-fifth-city-milwaukee
https://www.facebook.com/#!/ChicagoTeachersSolidarity?fref=ts
The Hong Kong Dockers won a significant victory after a long and in their history unprecedented strike (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1ab35958-b6b8-11e2-93ba-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2TluQghJA).
Even in New Zealand birthplace of the Welfare state and partly protected from the Northern hemisphere down turn struggle on all fronts continues http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/mcstrike-protest-report-and-photos.html
In Europe there is continued and extending Austerity with Slovenia being the latest to join in. http://www.policymic.com/articles/25332/slovenia-joins-euro-zone-anti-austerity-protests
Sixty seven per cent of young Greek women are unemployed. Greek teachers have been mobilised and forced to move jobs with job cuts, changes in the curriculum and worsening of ratios. http://leftunity.org/call-for-international-solidarity-from-greek-teachers-union/
Across Europe the destruction of the welfare state is pushing women into informal and under equipped care work at home. There are no winches to lift old people or people with mobility issues at home. no training in safe handling, no change of shift, just a return to the roles women played before the welfare state. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/spain-austerity-a-thousand-cuts_n_1748766.html
In Ireland there has been little progress in improving Abortion laws, despite the 20,000 people who demonstrated in the aftermath of the death of Savita and the campaigns for Abortion reform headed by Clare Daly TD. That struggle will not go away. However opposition to further Croke Park Agreements to cut living standards is growing. The fall in living standards has hit Ireland hard.
Iceland has seen the greatest drop in living standards of all the European countries, yet their government used Keynesian methods to recover the economy, not Austerity; an interesting lesson for us all
http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/icelands-electors-how-ungrateful/
In France Hollande appears to have been unable or unwilling to turn the tide of Austerity. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/467766/20130515/france-germany-economy-gdp-austerity.htm
In Russia opposition is developing but the ‘Pussy Riot’ group and other protestors continue to be imprisoned.
In the UK we have some possible small economic growth (I acknowledge here that many comrades think growth is not a good aim, but it is an indicator of Capitalism’s crisis). We know the commercial property portfolios held by banks could produce another banking crisis. The multi nationals and their tax management/avoidance continue to scandalise.
Seventy per cent of the impact of the cuts is on women. Women are losing public sector and private sector jobs, yet being increasingly expected to care at home without the required investment to do this well. This is a gender and carer biased crisis. Our local experience is that older women feature largely in the food bank users. To get to a food bank voucher you don’t just have to be hungry you have to convince an agency (CAB or a social worker) that you are hungry.
http://www.womenlobby.org/spip.php?article4240
http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/the-impact-of-austerity-on-women/
Unemployment is growing but the numbers claiming (or getting) job seekers allowance is falling
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22536437
Food banks; 346,992 people received a minimum of three days emergency food from Russell Trust food banks in 2012-13, compared to 128,697 in 2011-12 and 40,898 when Labour left office in 2010. Of those helped in 2012-13, 126,889 (36.6 per cent) were children.
Insecurity at work is at a 20year high according to a survey from Cardiff University. Job related stress has gone up. http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/ses2012/
When the Coalition programme started the TUC identified three key ideas Government and their friends in the media were pushing (and pushing successfully)
- That there is no alternative
- That’s there’s nothing you can do about it anyhow
- And that we are all in it together
Number three is now a dead duck; we need to be working on number two and finding ways people can do something about it and of course that there is an alternative.
Fracking is moving to the UK. 300 UK sites have been given permission by the government, despite scientific and popular opposition
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-22477559
The theoretical basis for Austerity has been blown out of the water but still it continues; it never was anything but a hijack of the wealth accumulated in the welfare state to benefit the rich. Austerity has not failed; it is a success for the rich but for those who are dependent on work or benefits, it’s a disaster. http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/the-two-rrs-and-the-weak-recovery/
Richard Seymour makes a similar point in this; “Still, we have to begin by acknowledging that we are speaking from the waste ground of a world-historic defeat that is, even at this moment, being inflicted on us.” http://www.leninology.com/2013/05/the-rise-of-new-left-speech-at.html
We are now being forced to confront what life will be like if we are fully defeated and the welfare state is stripped away. This a particular point in the struggle against the cuts, we need to gather together every person we can contact to find who opposes the cuts and Austerity or who has any concept of the damage being wrecked and that force move into action . Just the thought of losing the welfare state, let alone the brutal reality, should help stir us into action.
Our front lines in the battle with the very rich in May 2013 are:
- Health and especially the recent legislation to allow the privatisation of the NHS, the state of Accident and Emergency services and the finances of IPF hospitals, planned movement of nurses into the private sector
- The bedroom tax with all its misery and hardship
- Education and the assault on schools; the campaign of opposition is growing with the North West teachers strike due on June 27th and large rallies for education taking place across England and Wales
- The on-going revelations about sexual violence against women, girls and young boys by “celebrities” and gangs of men who went unchallenged for years, with complaints from young women and men and their parents consistently dismissed
- The revelations by the ATOS doctor of the abusive assessments of people with disabilities and serious illnesses. This backs up all the evidence presented by campaigners amongst people with disabilities.
- The growing scandal of poverty in children, with teachers reporting hungry children.126, 889 children have needed at least 3 days help from food banks.
- The new “outdoor workhouse” that is the new benefits system is designed to spread fear in the population but it is not yet fully implemented.
In not one of these key areas has Labour promised to reverse the situation; indeed in betraying the bedroom tax they risk their very existence as their core vote is targeted and serious harm inflicted on families who would only ever have voted Labour. The memory that Labour protected Council Housing and protected working class families stood them in good stead for many years but harsh reality re writes history. How soon it does so, depends in part on how we organise and if the left in the Labour Party can organise their forces at all. .
The trade union response is mixed but there is still some hope from key unions. The battle is still being waged by PCS in conference this week and in the Nut leading up to the 27th June Northwest Strike.
This, then, is the backdrop to our discussions; big drops in living standards, the destruction of the welfare state, worsening working conditions and degradation of the economy, on-going crisis of sexual violence and increasing child poverty
As yet we have not seen mass movements of protest but they will come and we have to prepare for them so that they are not a brief flash of anger but the start of a new growth of the workers’ movement and a new start for the campaign for socialism.
We have these many reasons and more to try to pull together an effective opposition and to begin to roll back some of these defeats. “
8 comments
8 responses to “Surveying the damage”
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Dear Felicity, is there a good reason for you to repeat the same old boring formula used in much left ‘debate’: tell us the stuff we know already, waste our time spent reading it (I should know better, but old habits die hard) and never get to what should be the point – how we overcome our almost complete inability to persuade most people in “our working class communities” to agree with us, join our campaigns, vote for us, etc.?
To write of “our working class communities”, in the way you do, tells us that you divide “the working class” and help “the ruling class” to dominate: philosophically and practically.
The problem with the ‘tradition’ you come from on the left: “betrayal, sell out, uprising just around the corner that we must be prepared for (and ‘lead’ if we are ‘disciplined’ enough to hijack)” has prevented the left from helping to oppose the current austerity and fight the longer growth of inequality.
By blaming others for our current weakness and past defeats, it stops us acknowledging what we – as a left – have done wrong in the past and continue to do, that stops us being effective: winning or at least dominating the battle of ideas in all, or as many, areas of society as possible; so that all people who have to, or have had to, or want to, work to live – and even some of those who don’t (remember Engels?) – agree that war is obscene (not a ‘strategic option’); inequality is bad (not inevitable or ‘human nature’); ‘uncompetitive’ may be an appropriate term for describing Liverpool FC, but not in economics…
Of course “the Labour leadership” can be blamed for a lot of things, but how long have we been doing this? Where does it get us? ‘We’ enabled the cult of Blair by being so bloody useless. It did not, and does not, have to be like that. We don’t have to go on saying and writing the same old crap and doing the same things – and trying to persuade others that they should be doing likewise, but more of it!
“In not one of these key areas has Labour promised to reverse the situation; indeed in betraying the bedroom tax they risk their very existence as their core vote is targeted and serious harm inflicted on families who would only ever have voted Labour.” This one sentence has enough wrong in it to make me feel depressed about LU and its prospects, as you been voted onto the organising group – temporary or not. This is not personal, I don’t know you at all, I am talking about what it represents.
But other contributions to the site fill me with hope and optimism, that LU is worth the effort. I look forward to a time when we have become so creative, so imaginative, so inclusive that we are running rings around the right. This will not happen until we begin to ask ourselves why so many people are terrified, but not up in arms, about the attack on the welfare state and accepting pay cuts; are imploding rather than exploding. This will include a very self-critical look about what we do, how we do it and what we can do very, very differently to be much more effective than we are at present.
Ben,
I totally agree, I had hope for the first time in a long time when I came to this site and read this http://leftunity.org/to-the-future-to-individual-membership-to-the-people-of-left-unity/ but reading Felicity’s piece has changed that hope to concern….
A sobering and only too accurate snapshot of some key aspects of the worldwide Austerity Offensive as it rampages across state after state – meeting very different levels of resistance from its victims. Unfortunately in the UK, so far our resistance has been sporadic and chaotic at best – with very few “wins” to raise moral. Maybe the recent local campaigns against “workfare” free labour supply to key big companies being an example of some good work by activists from a range of political backgrounds actually winning some, very limited, ground.
In general though , in the UK, as in so many other countries,the historic “defensive organisations” of the working class (and hence also for social groups well outside of the traditional working class too) the trades unions and supposed “working-class-oriented” political parties like Labour have gone well beyond their always compromised , schizoid, historic roles both partly promoting in a limited way the interests of their working class base – whilst also “managing” and containing the demands of this majority class within the bounds of the existing capitalist system. Today the trade union bureaucracy have been totally craven in their failure to mount any effective campaigns against any aspect of the Austerity Offensive – even to defend that “jewel in the crown” of the Welfare State, the NHS.
30 years of neoliberal era defeats and legislative and structural changes have obviously massively reduced the membership of trades unions in all sectors, but this era of retreat and signing dodgy “single union-no strike” deals with big business has undoubtedly left most trades unions in the hands of personally comfortable, job-secure, well pensioned, bureaucrats, who in many cases have worked nowhere but within the trades union bureaucracy. These bureaucrats are really just “managers and suppliers of compliant labour supply” – eager to look beyond their tenure as union bosses to lucrative activities in the private sector, on consultative committees, in the House of Lords. Most of them are never going to “rock the national political consensus boat” by supporting militant opposition to the bosses offensive. Building rank & file opposition to the Austerity Offensive is the only way forward – with a very few honourable exceptions the existing trades union leadership, even the supposed “leftish-leaning ” ones are never going to lead the fightback – not without massive pressure from below.
The Labour Party is in an even worse state than the trades unions. Its individual membership is at a historic low – its finances are shot – having become ridiculously dependent upon big “bungs” from dodgy businesspeople. But even more fundamentally, it needs to be said, time and time again, with a few obvious and honourable exceptions, the bulk of the Parliamentary Labour Party have long ago been blatantly bought, body and political soul, by big business interests. The adherence to neoliberal ideology by the Labour Party isn’t some quirk of mistaken policy orientation towards marginal constituency “swing voters” , (though this is a feature of Labour’s transformation into a completely orthodox, completely policy opportunist, capitalist , rather than social democratic, party) – it is directly and overwhelmingly and irreparably connected to the root and branch personal corruption by big business interests of the majority of the Parliamentary Party. Trying to “steer” this bunch of greedy self serving career politician collaborators “Left” has as much chance of success as winning UKIP members to support multiculturalism.
Undoubtedly as the Austerity Offensive starts to really bite in ordinary peoples lives (we are we need to remember only about 20% into the already planned “cuts” programme), there will be a whole range of “poll tax flashpoint moments”. The growing anti “bedroom tax” campaign is one such potential mass mobiliser. One thing’s for sure, the trades union bureaucrats wont volunteer to build the struggle – they’ll only act undr rank and file pressure – and then only to sabotage and misdirect and demobilise, campaigns given half a chance. The Labour Party career politicians will undoubtedly “do a PASOK” if (as seems now quite likely) they win the next General election , ie, they will reverse not a single cut, or stop the privatisation of the NHS, but in fact will try to excede even the current Coalition in furthering the Cuts programme , on behalf of their business backers, and in fear of “the market” internationally.
So if we do successfully create a growing new radical Left Party, it is extremely likely that it is not the Tory/Lib Dem Coalition we will spend our formative years fighting – but a Labour Government imposed new , accelerated, Austerity Offensive – with all the collaborationist “don’t rock the boat for Labour” appeals fropm the trades union leaders that we witnessed in the demobilisation of that earlier rising tide of mass struggle in the mid 70’s, when Wilson/Callaghan’s Labour administration and the trades union bureaucracy cooked up the “Social Contract” con trick to demobilise a huge and growing radicalisation which had grown up in the struggle against the Tory governmnent of Ted Heath.
Those who encourage us to “offer an olive branch to the Labour Left” need to be told the facts – Labour is now the collaborationist enemy of the working class – it can’t be reformed or “steered Left”. If you are really a radical Left winger wanting to fight the Austerity Offensive, leave the corrupt carcase of the Labour Party and help build a new radical fighting and campaigning party of the Left.
Nice, useful overview of the situation, thanks Felicity.
**As yet we have not seen mass movements of protest but they will come and we have to prepare for them so that they are not a brief flash of anger but the start of a new growth of the workers’ movement and a new start for the campaign for socialism.
We have these many reasons and more to try to pull together an effective opposition and to begin to roll back some of these defeats. **
Well Felicity, it is a nice overview, not so sure it is useful since you make no mention of what we will do about these concerns that you highlight. Are we (as the above statement seems to suggest) just going to wait for the “mass movements of protest” and prepare for them, prepare to do what, grab a hold of the shirt tails of revolution and in good old Labour fashion, stifle it at birth, as we roll out a slow lingering decline of whatever crest we may well be riding.
I totally agree with Ben, Andy and John. From you as a co-ordinator, we don’t need school child lessons on issues that we are all already aware of (or we wouldn’t be here at all); we need you and your colleagues on the temp committee to co-ordinate this groundswell into a discussion about if, how and when will we form an organisation that will address all of the problems you have highlighted and take the majority with it. Simply highlighting what is wrong, is well short of what is required to move progressively forward.
Regards
Ally
This is a very short response.i will do a more complete one soon.
Ally This was the introduction to three hours work on the left Unity project; that’s what we do to make sure the next wave of responses from our class are not wasted
Hi Felicity,
The issue is that you’re not really telling us anything we didn’t know, what we want is a party and it has to be a party to get us to the point where we can do something about it.
One of my personal horrors is the use of statistics in these sorts of arguments. We know what we need to do and we know why, as soon as statistics get introduced opponents will twist them to prove why the right things shouldn’t be done. Stats were New Labours obsession that’s why all the things we treasured (NHS, police, teaching) have been pretty much destroyed under the weight of measures and targets. What this also implies is that anything that isn’t measured is OK, people have to get back to using their judgement on right and wrong not looking at stats for the answer.
On top of that we can’t help people in other countries politically until we have a government that isn’t full of career politicians owing fealty to one of the Party machines. I already do what I can to help these people, LU has to focus utterly on fixing our non-democarcy in the UK.
I’m really not meaning to be agressive or have a go here but this is the best chance I’ve seen in a long time to break the political classes hold on everything. It must succeed.
Andy
I am writing to say thank you to those who appreciated, and extended the ideas in this article and to reply to the criticisms that this article received.
This piece was written as the context or background of our first steering committee meeting. It is deliberately internationalist; it looks to the extent of the damage that is being done by the Rich at the present. It deliberately looks at the reality which is that at the moment many people we believe are the natural constituency for socialism are still likely to vote labour, unless we build our alternative.
It also says that the extreme poverty being forced on parts of our communities, the loss of trade union rights at work, and the loss of wealth for the many, whilst the very rich get ever richer, will not be tolerated indefinitely. The study of history and of international social movements in this decade makes me expect mass movements of opposition. Far from “waiting “ or “tail ending Labour” the hope is that Left Unity will be built so as to be a big and effective part of those mass movements. Left Unity can be a voice for the ending of capitalism, not one for controlling and restraining the power of those who do the work in this society
Andy Nevill says “not so sure it is useful since you make no mention of what we will do about these concerns that you highlight… ”
We were meeting to discuss just that. I did not say what we are to do because, if I already had a worked out blue print, why would I drag myself down to London repeatedly to discuss It.? I think we learn from working together.
Andy asks “Are we (as the above statement seems to suggest) just going to wait for the “mass movements of protest” and prepare for them, prepare to do what, grab a hold of the shirt tails of revolution and in good old Labour fashion, stifle it at birth, as we roll out a slow lingering decline of whatever crest we may well be riding.” Not on my watch, Andy! I can see no solution to the many, many problems of the people and the planet under capitalism. I know that it’s not my opinion that will change things but social movements and the working class. I hope to play a small role in putting forward the ideas of socialism and being part of the struggles, wherever I can.
Different traditions within the left will need to come together to build Left Unity. That coming together will be a discussion of different interpretations, discussions of different experiences and discussions of different research. Hopefully, we will together learn to understand the world somewhat better so as to more effectively change it. It will require mutual respect and tolerance or the chance will be lost.
I am more than happy, in the limited time we have, to talk, to discuss, to share ideas for reading
Ben McCall says
“Is there a good reason for you to repeat the same old boring formula used in much left ‘debate’: tell us the stuff we know already, waste our time spent reading it?”
“We don’t have to go on saying and writing the same old crap and doing the same things”
“This one sentence has enough wrong in it to make me feel depressed”
Ben you say “it is not personal” but you hand out insults and don’t explain. I found the tone of these comments unpleasant .It is personal, how can it not be? What is your point Ben? You write as though there is something I should know that I don’t know but you doesn’t tell me what it is. You write as if you and I know each other and we don’t. So why address someone you don’t know in such a hectoring and unpleasant tone?
You criticise my use of the term “working class communities” When I write of working class communities I write of the people I live, work and struggle with. There is no deliberate division there? If there is something you have worked out that makes that formulation unhelpful then please explain.
You say, “It stops us acknowledging what we – as a left – have done wrong in the past and continue to do, that stops us being effective” Please explain. For all I know we might agree on some of the lessons of the past or we might totally disagree. Only by substituting information for rhetoric will you let me know what it is you mean.
Many of us, not just me, but other people too, have spent the last several years reading discussing and trying to understand what I now think of as a very different capitalist offensive from earlier attacks on our class, different and worse, even than Thatcher. The situation in countries of the global south that have suffered restructuring and terrible attacks on their services and on their common wealth and the war on women, all have been part of my learning and those of other people.
Ben, I will reply to your comments on the “Agitate don’t Agonise” article there. If you do wish to discuss further, without the venom, please contact me through Left Unity