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Frontpage: Capitalism is bankrupt

2125

1.11.08

Content

Capitalism is bankrupt – and they want you to pay

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1.11.08

Until A few weeks ago, supporters of free market capitalism were confident enough to proclaim that their system was the only way that the world could be organised. Now their certainties have vanished.

Stock market fall wipes £157 billion off pensions

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1.11.08

The plummeting stock markets are having a devastating effect on the pensions of working people. Some £157 billion has been wiped off the value of “defined contribution” pension schemes, a drop of nearly a third in the year to October.

Questions and answers on the developing crisis

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1.11.08

As the economic crisis deepens, Socialist Worker answers a number of the key questions on the turmoil.

People Before Profit Charter gets strong backing

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1.11.08

People Before Profit Charter supporters in Southend held a successful “freeze-in” last Saturday highlighting the plight of pensioners and calling for a windfall tax on energy companies.

Success in Hackney

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1.11.08

Following the recent successful London-wide rally hosted by the People Before Profit Charter, supporters in Hackney, east London, along with Turkish and Kurdish activists, called an organising meeting for the charter.

Meeting discusses trade union unity in face of recession

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1.11.08

The London region of the UCU education union initiated a meeting last week to discuss organising a joint trade union response to the recession.

Leandros Bolaris + Donal Mac Fhearraigh + Paul Michael Garrett + Chris Bambery: A storm of protest is sweeping Europe

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1.11.08

Socialist Worker reports on how anger at the economic turmoil has filled the streets.
Suddenly Europe is aflame. There are mass demonstrations of workers on the streets, students in revolt in the colleges and schools, and pensioners are joining a movement to defend the welfare state they created.
In Italy, Greece and Ireland signs that working people are refusing to pay for the economic crisis and are fighting back are starting to show.

Activism: Time’s right to give bankers a fright

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1.11.08

This Friday is Halloween—and student and trade union groups will be protesting in cities across the country against the horror that capitalism has brought upon the world.

Socialists offer an alternative vision

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1.11.08

One effect of the economic crisis is that many people are becoming interested in alternatives to capitalism—and are engaging with socialist ideas about how to transform the system.

Alex Callinicos: Thinking through the current crisis

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1.11.08

There have been a flood of pieces in the international press recently about how the financial crash has meant Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes – reduced to intellectual pariahs in the heyday of neoliberalism – are back in fashion.

Labour is still cosying up to the ultra-rich

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1.11.08

Gordon Brown’s latest answer to the recession is to spend his way out of it. Having defended the dogma of the free market for the past ten years, he has now shifted to talk of state intervention and Keynesian economics. This has led some to celebrate Labour’s “shift to the left”. But in reality there are massive limitations to the government’s position, alongside a nasty agenda of attacks on working class people.

Sadie Robinson: Anger as government blocks pro-choice amendments

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1.11.08

Women in Britain had a chance to win improved abortion rights for the first time in 18 years last week. But the plans were disgracefully scuppered by a diktat from New Labour that blocked MPs from even debating the measures.

Yuri Prasad: Fights, not deals can save workers' jobs

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1.11.08

There’s a right way and a wrong way for unions to confront job losses—and this was highlighted last week by the crisis in the manufacturing industry.

Divide and rule: Resist attempt to whip up racism

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1.11.08

One danger that trade unionists can face in a time of recession is the argument that migrant workers are to blame.

Huge vote for strikes over pay at Appledore Shipyard

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1.11.08

Workers at the Appledore Shipyard in north Devon have voted to take strike action over pay. The workers, members of the GMB union, voted by 97 percent in favour of striking.

Standing up to the 'blame culture' at Castrol

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1.11.08

Some 46 Castrol tanker drivers in the Unite union struck on Thursday of last week in defence of a dismissed worker.

Simon Assaf: 'War on terror': US raid into Syria shows tension

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5

1.11.08

A US military attack on the Syrian border town of Abu Kamal has exposed growing divisions among the “coalition of the willing” behind the invasion of Iraq.

Anindya Bhattacharyya: History of economics: Discovering the source of wealth

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1.11.08

In the first part of our new series on the history of economics, Anindya Bhattacharyya examines the theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo

Kurdish protest in Sheffield

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1.11.08

Kurdish human rights campaigners gathered at Sheffield Town Hall last Saturday to protest about the treatment of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is being held in solitary confinement in Turkey.

Siân Ruddick: Asylum seekers speak out about persecution and a life on the edge

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1.11.08

Sian Ruddick reports from Swansea on the harsh reality of existence for asylum seekers fleeing poverty and war in Gordon Brown’s Britain

Asylum worker: ‘The government treats vulnerable people like criminals’

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1.11.08

Emily Robertson is a community activist in Swansea who works with asylum seekers. She spoke to Socialist Worker

Letters

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1.11.08

Energy policies to benefit workers? | No profit in caring | Market doesn’t make sense | Campaigning can drive back BNP | Babar Ahmad | Police intimidation in Brussels | Inspired by 1968 protest | Market fails the poorest | Sats are the new 11-plus | More schools handed to rich

The workers of the world

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1.11.08

The global working class has grown over the past decade, says a new report from the International Labour Organisation.

Jacob Middleton: The state is the strong arm of capitalism

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1.11.08

Despite the rhetoric about free markets, capitalism has always relied on state intervention to survive.

Christian Hogsbjerg: Orwell’s Animal Farm takes the stage

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1.11.08

A theatrical production of George Orwell’s fable leaves Christian Hogsbjerg feeling hopeful.

Yuri Prasad: Take Me To The River: US South’s soul sounds that knew no bounds

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1.11.08

At a time when some racist Southern US states went so far as to ban inter-racial chess games in public spaces, something subversive was happening down in Tennessee.

Editorial: Why is there no cash to bail out the planet?

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1.11.08

Our rulers are using the global recession as an excuse to cut back on measures to tackle climate change. So Franco Frattini, Italy’s foreign minister, demanded “flexibility” on the European Union’s target to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020 last week, arguing that it is not affordable.

Editorial: Can Gordon Brown bounce?

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1.11.08

There is talk of a renewed “Brown bounce” ahead of next week’s Glenrothes by-election as polls show increasing support for Gordon Brown’s handling of the economic crisis.

Editorial: Appalling injustice for Chagos islanders

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1.11.08

British justice last week delivered another blow against the Chagos Islanders when the law lords voted by three to two against their right to return home.

Simon Basketter: The police protect the state

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1.11.08

The investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes shines a spotlight on the police and anti-terror laws.

Martin Smith: Workers in struggle: the other America

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1.11.08

As the US presidential election reaches its final stage, Martin Smith looks at trade unions, Barack Obama and workers’ struggle.

Sue Bond + Andy Reid + Paul Williams: Civil service pay strikes to hit Gordon Brown hard

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16

1.11.08

Monday 10 November will see a national strike by around 270,000 civil service workers in the PCS union. This will be the latest stage in the battle of public sector workers against Gordon Brown’s pay curbs.

Last few days of NUT ballot

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1.11.08

There are just a few days of voting left in the NUT teachers’ union’s ballot for strike action over pay. Over 250,000 teachers are being balloted for action to reject a below-inflation three year pay deal. The ballot ends on Monday of next week.

Labour victimises disabled claimants with attack on incapacity benefit

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1.11.08

The New Labour government has brought in changes to disability benefits this week that will make it even harder for sick and disabled people to claim benefits.

Simon Assaf: Halloween protesters ‘bury capitalism’ by Canary Wharf (online only)

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1.11.08

Protesters staged a mock funeral of capitalism outside the headquarters of the failed Lehman Brothers bank in Canary Wharf on a bitterly cold Halloween night.

Chris Bambery: Mass strikes and protests across Italy (online only)

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1.11.08

Up to a million students, teachers, lecturers, school students and their supporters demonstrated through Rome on Thursday 30 October, as parliament approved laws introduced by Silvio Berlusconi’s government to slash education funding and to axe thousands of teaching posts. Over 90 percent of the country’s schools were shut.