ALB
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I know this is from RT but that doesn’t necessarily mean there is no substance to it. It’s the sort of “aid” the present government here might indeed have given to the Zelensky regime ;
The slave owners in the southern states of the USA also fed their slaves for free.
If it catches on, the employers will surely use it in wage negotiations to say that you don’t need so much of an increase as you’re getting free meals from us. As bourgeois economists themselves like to emphasise, there is no such thing as a free meal.
Interesting article here about UK government policy in Ukraine being out of step with US policy. I know this magazine is accused of being “pro-Kremlin” but it would be:
Yes, something should be done about it !
The trouble is that, when you analyse what he is saying, it’s that they are organising a campaign to bring pressure to bear on the government to do something.
Of the 5 demands, only the first — a real pay rise — could be delivered by the unions. Two of them — end food poverty and a decent home for all — can’t be achieved this side of socialism. That leaves Slash Energy Prices and Tax the Rich, which a government could in theory do. In theory, as it is highly unlikely that any government would tax the rich to subsidise energy prices for ordinary people.
The other thing is that we know that at the next general election the unions behind this campaign are going to be calling on workers to vote in a Labour government, even if they don’t think much (in fact don’t expect much) from Starmer and those around him. Starmer is probably not worried by their campaign. It will mobilise people to vote Labour without him having to take responsibility for any of the demands made.
We know that a Labour government is not the answer or even a beginning of an answer. In the end it will be no different from a Tory government, as capitalism can only be run a profit-driven system in the interest of the profit-takers.
The unions would be better to stick to getting a real pay rise for the members if they can — and, ideally, denounce capitalism for being unable to solve the provide it causes for workers and their families.
Looks like Enough is Enough is going to be the organisation that succeeds in mobilising working class discontent on this issue:
It seems that there are quite a few groups that have sprung up recently to campaign on this sort of issue. We met a disillusioned Labourite at our stall at Carshalton ecofair yesterday (yes, we were out this weekend campaigning too — for socialism} who was a supporter of this group:
https://mobile.twitter.com/RescueBritain/status/1554051060792233984
He was expecting to be expelled from the Labour Party.
Incidentally, he was not the only disillusioned Labourite we met. There must have been at least half a dozen.
In the circumstances (no majority desire or organisation for socialism) the only action that workers can take with any chance of some success is to press for higher wages to compensate for the rise in their cost of living.
Refusing to pay the increased gas bill is a gesture that won’t do any harm even if it won’t get anywhere, but to campaign for a “fair price of energy” is a misdirection of effort, even a red herring. It is a proposition worthy of King Canute’s advisers.
Nobody is dispaaging workers protesting against a reduction in their standard of living by having to spend more than usual on energy costs. That is wholely understandable and there wouldn’t be much hope of wider social change if workers were just to accept this sort of thing lying down.
What we are a dispataging is a reformist who is dispaaging socialism as a pointless pipe dream (which an earlier generation of reformists would not have done). We have to defend socialism when it is attacked. It’s not something we can accept lying down either.
True, not enough workers have accepted socialism over the whole period of 150 years since it first became a practical proposition for it to come into bring. That’s why we have still got capitalism where even the most militant workers are still demanding a “fair” wage and a “fair” price for this or that and denouncing “profiteering” but not profit-making.
As long as this is the case capitalism will continue and with it problems like the one both career politicians and militant reformists (and vanguardists?) like Don’t Pay promise to permanently fix.
It’s reformists, not Socialists, who are the dreamers, imagining that the problems wage workers and their dependents face can be solved within capitalism.
Good question, probably due to a new subscriber finding their way about.
There is also this thread:
Interesting how the unions have found ways round the Thatcher anti-union laws (maintained by the last Labour government). Strike ballots have been turned into a weapon to strengthen the negotiators’ hands and, now, coordinated same day strikes is being proposed to get round the ban on sympathetic strike action.
Not too keen, though, on the CWU demand for a “dignified” wage. That’s even worse than a “fair” wage since having to sell your ability to work for money to live is an indignity in itself.
Talking about pipe dreams, how about this?
“What we’re striking for
Don’t Pay is a grassroots movement demanding a fair price for energy for everyone. This is what we’re striking for….
How do we achieve a permanent solution to the energy crisis? A ‘Fair Price for Power’
These demands are to respond to the emergency we are in. However, we need a permanent solution.
The previous price cap was already unaffordable for many, for example, so we need to transform the energy sector to permanently make energy affordable.
To address this, a process within the Don’t Pay movement called ‘Fair price for power’ will begin this autumn, during which the movement will decide together in local groups what a fair price to pay for our energy is and how we can achieve and enforce that price by transforming the energy sector.”
(https://dontpay.uk/about/what-were-striking-for/)So, as a “permanent solution”, it’s capitalism and a “fair price for energy” or socialism and “no price for energy”.
Socialism being a classless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources, with distribution on the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”.
Don’t Pay might have had some sort of a case if they said their demands were for some immediate relief within capitalism but that the permanent solution was socialism, but instead they are offering a supposed permanent solution within capitalism.
So, it’s Fair Price versus No Price. Which is the pipe dream? You decide.
Many of them probably don’t care and wouldn’t even pretend to if we didn’t have the vote. Some may care but that won’t make any difference as there is not much the politicians can do beyond giving a few handouts to ease people’s plight a little bit.
And they know this as the international price of oil and gas is not something they can control, at least not something they can reduce. In fact they caused it to rise by imposing sanctions on Russian oil and gas, knowing that this would increase the price. Politicians like the present and likely future prime minister have both openly admitted that this would inflict “pain” (their word)(*) on people and justified this as a price worth paying to back the NATO proxy war in Ukraine.
The most effective thing they could do to bring the cost of gas down would be to end the sanctions against Russia. But there’s a fat chance of that happening, showing that their priority is not people.
(*) see this for instance from a couple of days ago;
And this from February:
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/economic-cost-living-uk-ukraine-russia-invasion-liz-truss-1486881
I can’t find any information about where these actions will be taking place if you have more details.
Did find this news item:
Looks as if it is beginning to dawn on the media that people won’t be prepared to suffer pain for Ukraine. According to this article, people will become more concerned about their own immediate personal economic problem than about what’s going on in some far away place like Ukraine, and if politicians think otherwise they are seriously misjudging the situation.
Here’s the article:
https://amp.spectator.co.uk/article/is-the-west-s-ukraine-response-about-to-fracture-/amp
