Lawrence farms about 250 acres of wheat and rapeseed. He told Harris the price of wheat has almost halved and the price of fuel has doubled over the last few years. As a result his debt level has also doubled. "The concept that all farmers in Britain are rich is false," he remarked. "Farmers want the land to farm. Others want it to speculate. You won't find a farmer getting rich off growing crops in the ground." He said he had taken part in recent protests by farmers and truckers against the skyrocketing fuel prices.

Harris replied that these increasingly critical conditions were remarkably similar to the situation small farmers face in the United States and around the world. The only exception, he noted, was Cuba, where because of the agrarian reform won by farmers after the 1959 revolution farmers cannot be driven off the land they work.

Interviewing Harris on a radio program, a talk host on BBC London Live radio expressed puzzlement that a socialist would want to talk to farmers, who are often portrayed in the daily media as pro-capitalist businessmen. Harris explained that, while a minority of farmers are wealthy exploiters of wage labor, "most are working farmers, who are natural allies of the working class." On that basis, he said, "we put forward the need for a workers and farmers government, one made up of those who produce the wealth of the world."

Dismissing the concept that politics is exclusively about elections, he explained that "political change comes through struggles, such as the example of the U.S. civil rights movement. That is why, when farmers get out and press their demands around the fuel crisis, it shakes up all politics. That is where our power really lies. That is why working people should support the fuel price protests."

The U.S. socialist candidate spoke at a lively Militant Labor Forum in London, together with Jim Simpson of the Communist League and James Neil, organizer of the Young Socialists chapter in London. Simpson described the swell of support among workers for the fuel protests by farmers and truckers, especially from the oil tanker drivers inside the picketed oil depots. That support was evident at the car plant where he works, particularly when production was held up due to the failure of a delivery truck to arrive with parts for the line. Neil explained how the Young Socialists had been formed through participating in activities such as the demonstration last June protesting the Labour government's reactionary new asylum laws and the annual gala of the National Union of Miners in Durham.

One question at the forum concerned the length of the economic upturn in the United States. "It has lasted eight or nine years," Harris replied, "not the usual four or five. But it has been one of the shallowest since 1945. The miracle economy is not that big a miracle. The standard of living is on the decline. Workers have jobs that they cannot survive on--real wages have stagnated or declined.

"Some people who have jobs are even homeless. In one shelter in New York," he explained, "you can only get in if you are employed. The value of labor power has been driven down by the U.S. ruling class more than in any other imperialist country, except maybe New Zealand." The U.S. bosses are driven to push against wages and social benefits as they try to stay ahead of their capitalist rivals in Europe and Japan.

At a meeting organized by the Young Socialists chapter in London, three YS members were joined by four other youth for a session with Harris that lasted several hours of back and forth discussion. Two subscribed to the Militant following the discussion.

"Does your campaign have an election manifesto?" one youth asked.

Harris replied, "I could give a list of positions I stand for, and get a good response, but it would have nothing to do with explaining class politics in the world today, and a perspective for working people to make a revolution."

He added, "The campaign is not just about abstract propaganda about a list of issues. It is not like the pro-capitalist candidates who make promises to do this or that. Our campaign is about understanding the system we must change, why workers and farmers are the only forces that can change it, and a revolutionary course that leads to that goal." For that, "join in political struggles by working people as we explain these views. We direct them to the Militant, to books and pamphlets that give those answers, drawing on the lessons of working-class history, such as the pamphlet The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning."

Caroline O'Keefe is a member of the Young Socialists in London.  
 
 
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