ALB
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We will know the details later on this morning, but whatever they are, it’s so much for “free market” capitalism and for the “small state” (not that Truss stands for that anyway since she wants to increase spending on the state’s core — the armed forces).
We know that the capitalist class is split on this as that’s what the argument between Truss and Sunak was all about. It seems that most don’t think her plan to grow the economy through tax cuts, direct and indirect, on profits will work. Normally this would not have been left to be settled by a grouping of local councillors, small business people, and members of golf and Constitutional clubs. But it was and the result is what it is, ruling out the obvious solution (from the point of view of the capitalist class as a whole) of a windfall tax on those capitalist enterprises that had reaped windfall profits from the situation.
It is not just the gas producers who are reaping windfall profits but also companies producing electricity from non-gas sources (nuclear, renewables) since under present arrangements, for some reason, the price of electricity is tied to the price of gas.
Anyway, it’s their problem.
For the record, here is a classic Trotskyist criticism of Enough is Enough with their perennial demand for a “General Strike Now!” and ending :
“The critical issue facing the working class is the resolution of the crisis of revolutionary leadership.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/30/jsff-a30.html
Mind you, they are right that Enough is Enough is mobilising workers to vote Labour at the next general election.
This result has some relevance for campaigners for citizens assemblies instead of parliament such as Extinction Rebellion in Britain. Whatever the democratic way of making decisions the result will reflect what a majority think. Changing what people think is the problem, not changing the thermometer.
Is that a sufficient concession for Don’t Pay to call off the payment strike against them?
Incidentally, Octopus are our party’s gas and electricity suppliers but I don’t think there is any cap at all for non-domestic customers.
I suppose this fatuous declaration by the replacement clown should be recorded so we can compare it with what actually happens:
“I believe in a better and brighter future for Britain. I have a bold plan that will grow our economy and deliver higher wages, more security for families and world class public services. I’ll do this by cutting taxes, pushing through supply-side reform and slashing red tape that is holding businesses back.”
I think we can safely say that none of what is promised in the second sentence will be achieved.
Now Zelensky has the cheek to tell workers in the West that they must suffer pain to save his regime:
Meanwhile tens of thousands of demonstrators in Prague disagree:
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/wireStory/tens-thousands-protest-czech-government-89271741
I would think we will see more and more of this sort of thing and politicians, being politicians, will eventually take it up.
I know that this is what the Putin regime is banking on but working class interests in protecting their standard of living come first.
Another example of a government opting to make something free rather than going for a ‘fair price’:
“Why are the poorest and most deprived also the most adulatory and reactionary?”
I am not sure that this is true. According to this book, The Pound and the Fury, reviewed in the March Socialist Standard those in the sink estate the author interviewed thought that the economy was a conspiracy of the rich and powerful to keep them poor, admittedly they didn’t think anything could be done about it.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-pound-and-the-fury/jack-mosse/9781526158802
I agree with Robbo that this is not the thread on which to discuss how supposedly demoralised and useless the working class are just as the biggest fightback since the miner’s strike is about to kick off.
I see you have a high opinion of your fellow proles, but if you write them off you write socialism off too.
A former presidential candidate for the French so-called Socialist Party has dared to put her head above the parapet to question some of the exaggerations of the Ukraine lie factory — and has been shot at from all sides.
The two particular atrocity stories that she questions have been exposed as fabrications (the first by the Ukrainian authorities themselves and the second by no babies having been found under the rubble as first claimed by Zelensky).
XR’s latest protest. They want policies to be decided by citizen’s assemblies rather than Parliament. But if people see no alternative to capitalism, how could citizens assemblies come up with policies that were radically different from those proposed by a government with a parliamentary majority?
It would be nice if they would come up with the conclusion that socialism (common ownership, democratic, production solely for use not profit) was the way-out. But if a majority wanted that they could also use parliament.
In other words, the problem is not the decision-making process but the fact that the decision-makers don’t want socialism. Our task as socialists to do all we can to help people come to this conclusion. If and when they do, they can use any decision-making process, as long as it gives control of the executive, to introduce socialism.
A Tory ex-minister, Neil O’Brien, has come up with a more radical idea than “A Fair Price for Power” — allowing households to use energy up to given amount free:
https://www.newsbreakers.co.uk/give-households-a-free-fuel-quota-ex-minister-urges/
Interesting statistic with political implications;
