ALB
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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;
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.
