Vol. 80/No. 48 December 26, 2016
UK: Workers discuss crisis of capital, need for change
British capital is especially vulnerable to the interconnected worldwide crisis of capitalist production, trade and employment for which no capitalist politician or political party has any solution — other than to make the working class pay.
From its dominant position in the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the capitalist rulers in the U.K. have experienced a sharp decline against their leading imperialist rivals. Washington’s rise to top dog, sealed by its victory in the inter-imperialist slaughter of World War II, delivered the coup de grace.
The British ruling families were hit especially hard by the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Industrial production remains 9 percent below what it was in 2006 and manufacturing output has failed to recover.
Labor productivity in the U.K. lags behind its competitors by a large margin — trailing Germany by 36 percent and the U.S. by 30 percent, as investment in plant and production has stalled or declined for decades. Bank lending to U.K. business, key to investment in capacity-expanding plant and equipment, has continued to decline.
The only productivity gains made by the bosses have resulted from forcing longer hours and worsening job conditions on workers’ backs. Real incomes have declined by over 10 percent since 2007. Social provision, from health to welfare, has been eroded.
Part of the attack on the working class has been a stunning increase in the number of workers the bosses designate as “self-employed” or insist on hiring through temporary agencies.
As of Oct. 1, there are 4.8 million “self-employed,” up 1 million since 2008. The median wage of these workers is half that of regularly employed workers, and they don’t have the same legal protections.
An additional 1.7 million workers are employed by temporary agencies. Of these, 900,000 are on “zero hours” contracts, meaning that some 20 percent of workers in the U.K. don’t know if they’ll get a full week’s work each week.
Crisis of capitalist politics
The coming apart of what many pro-capitalist pundits call “globalization” — the international expansion over the last several decades of world trade, capital flows and labor migration — was reflected in the June 23 referendum vote to pull out of the European Union.“Brexit” is part of a broader fracturing of the EU, as the illusion of an “ever greater union” runs up against the reality of the sharpening of conflicting interests among the ruling classes of its member states. Uncertainty hangs over what will be protracted negotiations between London and the U.K.’s rivals across The Channel.
Workers here sense we face a global capitalist crisis like none of us have seen before. The economic contraction and financial crisis is generating grinding depression conditions that arouse anger and bitterness among millions of working people. This has forced a crisis in the rulers’ political parties as workers look for a new way to make change.
The Labour Party no longer has any semblance of being a party of labor, its working-class vote is hemorrhaging. Hundreds of thousands of young professionals, students and middle-class people on the left of capitalist politics have joined, attracted by new leader Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal to “create a country that works for everyone, not just a privileged few.”
New Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister Theresa May has taken up the same banner.
Fearful of the “quiet revolution” underway within the working class, she told the October Conservative Party conference in her keynote speech, “We have a responsibility to step up, represent and govern for the whole nation. That means tackling unfairness and injustice, and shifting the balance of Britain decisively in favor of ordinary working-class people.”
There is a marked closeness in the political terrain occupied by the Labour and Conservative parties today. At the recent Labour Party conference, Corbyn’s criticism of May’s leadership of the Conservatives was that she may “talk the talk” but she can’t “walk the walk.”
In these circumstances, the Communist League gets unprecedented interest from fellow workers.
“Workers need to see our capacity to build a movement to replace capitalism,” Peter Clifford, Communist League candidate for mayor of Greater Manchester, told Mark Fraser, a coffee shop agency worker, when he knocked on his door to introduce the League. “Workers don’t need to look for a lesser evil to manage capitalism.
“In face of the deep-going economic, political and social crisis — and their unending wars abroad,” Clifford said, “workers need our own party to advance a revolutionary struggle to overthrow the capitalist rulers and establish a workers and farmers government.
“That’s what the Communist League aims to be,” Clifford said. Fraser said he wanted to hear more and, like hundreds of others who’ve talked to League members on their doorsteps, bought a copy of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning Under Capitalism by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party.
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home