Issue 48 Summer 2023
CONTENTS: The West is taking the world to war, John Moore: Western disinformation and Ukraine, Alex Davidson: Banks in turmoil again! Paul Sutton: Time for a wealth tax, David Wickham: Scottish independence off the agenda, Frieda Park: The housing crisis, Pat Turnbull: Right-wing indoctrination in US education, Clare Bailey: Academy schools, Milly Cunningham: Ireland - the Windsor Framework and the Good Friday Agreement, Ernest Walker: Yemen's fight for independence, Simon Korner: South America - the realities of power, Dan Morgan: Chile after the referendum, Dan Morgan
COMMENTARY
The global financial system has so far narrowly escaped another meltdown as urgent measures by the US and Swiss authorities contained the recent crisis to specific banks. In Banks in turmoil again! Paul Sutton sets out the origins of the current problems and the how wider contagion was prevented, staving off a worldwide crisis for another day. However, Sutton makes clear the inherent problems in trying to regulate the banks and the contradictions in trying to manage capitalist economies that led to this situation. It is only, he says, a matter of time before the system implodes under the weight of its contradictions.
The drive to war
But will we survive long enough to witness that implosion or will the imperialist drive to war lead to devastating consequences for humanity? The dangers are very real as John Moore sets out in The West is taking the world to war. Not satisfied with the death and destruction it has visited most recently on the Middle East, the United States and its allies in the West and NATO are pursuing the war in Ukraine, primarily to weaken Russia, and without regard to whether or not continuing the war is in Ukraine’s interests. More and more weapons and other forms of military support are being poured in with scant signs of progress. Though welcomed by other countries the US has rejected out of hand Chinese proposals to achieve peace in Ukraine.
Not only that, but the US is ramping up rhetoric and war preparations against China itself. Though Germany seems to have been happy enough to undermine its economy to serve US interests over Ukraine, Macron in France seems less keen to commit to a war with China. So far the divisions within imperialism have not broken the core of the US alliance, but countries of the global south seem ever stronger in their pursuit of a place in world affairs and to have economic, financial and trading systems that are not subservient to the US. Their strengthening alliances, refusal to join the war drive and advocacy for peace in Ukraine provides some hope in a grim situation.
Nevertheless, the logic of capitalism is driving us towards a 3rd World War. As Moore points out the movement here needs to play its part in opposing the war drive, yet pro-peace voices have been marginalised and messages ambivalent, and in the worst cases there are some in the unions and on the left who have joined the campaign for more arms. Voices for peace have a big task and confront a substantial state-sponsored media machine. Alex Davidson debunks the persistent untruths peddled by the mainstream media in Western disinformation and Ukraine. However, by their constant repetition, these mantras have a powerful effect on the public consciousness. They are certainly not the result of unbiased journalism and Davidson exposes the links between the state, military/security personnel and funding for this propaganda.
Attack on the working-class
The wave of strikes currently still sweeping Britain has exposed not only the declining living standards of workers, especially in the public sector, but has also shone a light on the dire state of the NHS and other services. In this issue, Pat Turnbull examines different aspects of the housing crisis, which has grown since the sell-off of council housing under the so-called right-to-buy and the failure to build more social housing. Housing stock has gone to the private sector and been removed from local authority control - hived off to housing associations. The result has too often been poor quality and expensive accommodation, which is affecting the health and wellbeing of children and adults.
Turnbull points out that just as cash wages have been decreasing so the social wage in terms of services like housing has also been under attack.
This underlines the importance of the working-class mobilising to fight not just on immediate issues of wages and conditions, but also engaging in a wider political struggle.
In Scottish independence off the agenda, Frieda Park argues that the crisis engulfing the Scottish National Party could provide the opportunity to up the level of class struggle in Scotland by focusing on a working-class agenda independent of attitudes to the constitution - whether people are for or against independence or some other option. The all-consuming debate round the future constitutional status of Scotland has not advanced working-class interests. The meltdown in the SNP means that there is no immediate prospect of another independence referendum, so space has opened up for unambiguous class politics to take centre stage in Scotland if that opportunity is taken.
The strike movement across the country has been a welcome indicator that the class struggle is far from dead. Union members have had to battle hard for what are turning out to be fairly modest gains in wages. But if they hadn’t fought then the gains would have been even more modest and this represents a retreat by the government which had resolutely refused to negotiate. However, this only underlines the need for more strategic, unified and political action by workers in every part of the UK if the working-class is to make more substantial progress.
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