A Future That Works

A Future That Works
NO2aTory/Liberal coalition - Vote with your feet for an alternative to a neo-liberal economy and neo-conservative state Yes2aLeftFront and a Red/Green Left Alliance

Sunday 7 August 2011

It’s time for the Marxist Left to show both theoretical and concrete leadership

From the USA, European Union and our own national governments, they have been saying that nothing needs to be done by governments it’s all down to the market to solve humanity’s needs. The global economy has a GDP of $150 trillion and a total of $220 trillion in financial assets and yet is on the edge of a financial vortex, facing stagnation and $150tn of debt and an economic depression possibly equal to the great depression of the 1930’s.

The neo-liberal and neo-conservative project which started in 1979 and 1980 with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan has run its course and proved to be a failure for the mass of humanity whilst a few have made a fortune an speculative investment on the global financial markets and from the privatization of state assets such as water, gas, electricity, railways and health care.

In Britain the Tory/Liberal government is set on going further along the road following the same policies that Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown pursued for the last thirty years, of cutting public spending and privatization. In 2008 Gordon Brown averted a total meltdown of the global financial system leading the way with the bank bailouts and quantitative easing to stimulate global economy.

It’s now up to the millions of people in Britain and the other states of the European Union to unite against the capitalist elite and demand an alternative economic and political strategy that acts in the interests of the mass of the people rather than the interests of an elite minority. There is an opportunity now for the political parties of the broad left to turn this crisis of global finance capital into the final stage of the neo-liberal/neo-conservative project and the first stage in the socialist economic and political project of the 21st century.

31 comments:

  1. Millions of ordinary working class and lower middle class people who are at the moment relatively comfortable and see themselves living what can be called a bourgeois lifestyle will become what Marxist term proletarianized by the financial crisis of global capitalism. When this happens many will become politicized in a way that they never would have dreamed of, this can either lead to them becoming influenced by the far-right fascist parties such as the BNP and English Defence League as did many in the 1930’s who followed Sir Oswald Mosley and joined his British Union of Fascists.

    Marxist should therefore apply the theoretical concepts of Historical Materialism to the dialectics of the concrete material realities of the political and economic situation created by the crisis of global finance capital and build a new historic block of the working classes and lower middle classes and other progressive forces against the capitalist political classes and the British and European state apparatus that wishes to implement austerity measures to protect the ruling class at the expense of the peoples of Britain and Europe.

    The Left needs to follow up on the TUC march and rally for an alternative on 26th of March 2011 which attracted between 500,000 and 750,000 people. The austerity measures proposed by the Tory/Liberal coalition government will make the recession/depression deeper and affect not just the sick, disabled, poor and elderly but many of those who at the moment are in reasonably paid employment will be made redundant and join the millions who are already unemployed, This being repeated across the European Union and in the USA.

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  2. Marxist theoreticians such as Foster, Harvey and Kovel can explain what and why the crisis of global finance capital is happening. The role of Marxist parties is to lead the resistance against the capitalist class and state to make ordinary people pay the price of an economic and political system in crisis. There isn’t an easy neo-Keynesian fix that can solve the crisis; it managed in 2008 to defer the crisis by a process of quantitative easing to stimulate global economy after the crash of 2007.

    Like the crash of 1929 there was a recovery but like 1931, it would appear the global economy will now fall from the plateau into the Vortex to use the analysis Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kondratiev’s Long Wave theory. The previous cycle was of expansion from 1896-1907, recession 1907-1920, plateau 1920-1929, depression 1929-1949. The current cycle started with expansion from 1949-1973, recession 1973-1982, plateau 1982-2007 and depression roughly from 2007-2020?

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  3. Today witnessed a record slump for London's FTSE 100 Index as the index of leading shares slumped 178 points, to close at a year-low of 5068.95 after the USA lost its AAA credit rating. The FTSE 100 Index lost £150 billion, 10% of its value last week which is the worst period of trading since the crisis of 2008. Today's fall took a further £46 billion off the value of the FTSE 100 Index which means a total lost over the last seven days of trading of £210 billion which represents 13.7%. It’s doubtful that a package of quantitative easing by the Bank of England alone will be enough this time to save the economy and the Tory/Liberal spending cuts along with similar measures pursued across Europa and the USA will probably guarantee that by October the global economy will officially be in an economic depression rather than recession.

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  4. From the global financial crisis to the unrest on the streets of London, for the neo-liberal economic project to function a neo-conservative state is necessary to control the population.

    This was the case in Chile under General Augusto Pinochet when it implemented the theories of Milton Friedman in the 1970’s and Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan when they put them into practice in the USA and Britain in the 1980’s so there is nothing new about the current crisis of capitalism.

    There is today a real need for a Marxist party to show leadership and show that there is an alternative to the barbarism of free market capitalism in its highest imperialist phase of development.

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  5. The British National Party leader Nick Griffin may not have the charismatic appeal of Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascist had in the 1930’s, but the economic and social conditions that have been produced as a result of neo-liberal economics have created a climate of fear where the mainstream political parties are all further to right than was the case in the 1950’s and 60’s. The Tory party of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Rab Butler had accepted the welfare state, partly out of political expediency but also as a result of living through the depression of the 1930’s and seeing the rise of fascism across Europe. Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne represent the class politics of pre-social-democratic capitalism and the ideology of a neo-liberal market and neo-conservative state are the breeding ground for the politics of hatred that feeds the Oswald Mosley’s and Nick Griffin’s of this world. In the 1930’s Philip Piratin was a leading figure in East End of London involved in the struggle against Mosley’s Blackshirts and became the first Communist councillor in London for Stepney and Communist MP for Mile End in the 1945 general election. We are again living in a world where there is a need for communists of the like of Philip Piratin and Willie Gallacher Communist MP first for Dundee, then West Fife and Shipley and then again for West Fife in Glasgow. It’s time for Marxists to show leadership against the neo-liberal/neo-conservative Tory/Liberal coalition.

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  6. Global markets on the brink

    ‘‘None of the basic causes of the 2008 recession have been addressed. No significant steps have been taken to regulate the speculative movement of capital or to limit its destructive consequences.’’

    ‘‘It was the driving down of wages in the US which prepared the way for the mortgage crisis. It has been the systemic imbalance in trade between the big German and French monopolies and the economies of southern Europe that has resulted in the EU debt crisis.’’

    ‘‘The forced privatisation of public utilities in Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Spain will see them bought up by the big monopolies that lie at the centre of the EU. The drastic cuts in public services, pensions and employment will further reduce purchasing power in the economy.’’

    ‘‘This is the background to the renewed turmoil in the share markets. Financiers know super-profits will not flow from the productive economy. The doctrinaire imposition of neoliberalism, not to mention the sheer greed of the super-rich, is now undermining capitalism itself.’’

    ‘‘The financial and economic crisis that broke out in 2008 has revealed deep structural problems in the capitalist system, nationally and internationally.’’

    ‘‘The concentration of capitalist ownership - monopolisation - has involved the accumulation of enormous economic and political power in very few, but giant, corporate hands.’’

    ‘‘The City of London has been the centre of these developments for powerful US and British monopolies. In the rest of the European Union (EU), notably the Eurozone French and German financial monopolies with their controlling shareholdings in the industrial monopolies, have also grown massively, increasing the already large systemic imbalances in trade and banking credit between the stronger and weaker economies.’’

    ‘‘The financial crisis has had a deeper and more prolonged impact on the economy in Britain than in many other developed capitalist countries because the financial sector occupies a comparatively large share of the British economy.’’

    ‘‘The British state is used by British and US finance capital to promote their joint interests within the European Union, especially to open up the European banking and financial markets.’’

    ‘‘The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) proposes an Alternative Economic and Political Strategy to develop a popular, democratic anti-monopoly alliance led by the working class that can begin to shift the balance of class forces against finance capital.’’

    (John Foster Communist Party of Britain's economic committee)

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  7. European Left

    Kate Hudson points out its clearer than ever that we are facing a global economic crisis and these are not problems that are national in the making but are part of a systemic crisis on a global scale.

    Hudson also points out there is an anti-people/anti-democratic offensive with the objective of deconstructing what remains of the social state and public services, cutting back salaries and social rights not just in Britain led by the Tory/Liberal coalition government but also from the EU through the Euro Pact and the IMF, World Bank and WTO which she calls the ‘‘new economic governance’’.

    ‘‘The crisis is too serious for us to be divided in the face of the challenges confronting the people.’’

    ‘‘The crisis is global and the solution will have to be global. Make sure you're part of it.’’

    (Kate Hudson, General Secretary of CND)

    I would agree with her that the crisis is a global crisis and that ultimately it needs a global solution, which is ultimately socialism. This has to be fought on two fronts as Prabhat Patnaik argued in his article in the spring/summer addition 2011 of the Communist Review, one struggle will be in the developing world and the other which this conference should addresses is the struggle in the advanced bourgeois democracies specifically in the Europe Union.

    Kate Hudson’s call for Europe Left Unity to meet the challenge on neo-liberal economics and the neo-conservative governance from the nation state, European superstate, IMF, World Bank and WTO, which I would argue is correct. Sevim Dağdelen of Die Linke (Left Party) of Germany and Pierre Laurent President of the European Left and member of the Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party) are going to be at this conference.

    Kate Hudson doesn’t mention the ETUC, or trade unions in her article and this is an area where the Communist Party of Britain’s presence should bring a Marxist analysis of how that part of the concrete struggle against what she calls the ‘‘new economic governance’’ should be coordinated.

    If resistance against neo-liberal economics and neo-conservative governance by the nation state, superstate, IMF, World Bank and WTO are to have any chance of success then representatives of the labour movement such as the Unite union and IG Metall will need to be a part of the European fightback as well as the left parties of the European Union.

    http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/108344

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  8. What is need are Marxists who can apply Leninist vanguard revolutionary theory to the concrete reality of global capitalism in the 21st century as did Lenin, Tito, Hồ Chí Min and Castro in the 20th century. The Stalinist, Khrushchevists and Brezhnevites bureaucrats failed to lead the vanguard to victory but allowed Regan and Thatcher to destroy the 20th century socialist/social-democratic revolutionary and reformist project and impose the neo-liberal and neo-conservative theory and practice of globalized capitalism upon humanity.

    We have a choice between the imperialist phase of capitalism collapsing into nationalism and fascism and an increasingly authoritarian neo-conservatives state which will lead to more inequality or socialism. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and the European Central Bank have all imposed directives that demand the nation states of the developed and developing world adhere to the dictates of global finance capital and the capitalist elites. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan through to David Cameron via Tony Blair have ensured that the social-democratic model of welfare capitalism has ceased to be an option.

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  9. It would appear that the current crisis of global finance capital can either be resolved in favour of the capitalist elite or the peoples of the world. The leaders of Europa from Silvio Berlusconi, David Cameron, Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy all adhere to the right-wing neo-liberal/neo-conservative economic and political solution that favours capital over labour. So where is the leadership of the left-wing alternative which favours a solution that benefits the peoples of Europe rather than the capitalist elite?

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  10. There is an alternative and all eyes will be on the Left parties of Britain and Europe in London on Saturday 1st of October 2011.

    http://www.europeagainstausterity.org/

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  11. People of Europe face a common enemy as the crisis of capitalism impacts on our lives. We see our national governments and the European Union make the people pay through public spending cuts, austerity measures, privatization and deregulation of the labour market.

    In every Europe nation state we witness the social gains of the 20th century under threat. The European Central Bank provides loans to countries like Greece on condition that they implement cuts in public services, wages and pensions which mean a drop in social wellbeing and living standards.

    It’s vital that the British Left work with the European Left parties to build a movement that can challenge the power of the financial markets. As the economic crisis deepens it threatening Britain and Europe with a depression on a scale not witnessed since the 1930’s.

    In Britain the Coalition of Resistance has over a thousand trade union activists committed to opposing the cuts and privatisation and defending the welfare state if the Left is to succeed it has to be an international movement and co-ordinated resistance across Europe and globally.

    The European Conference against Austerity in London on Saturday 1st October with brings together labour unions, social movements and progressive organisations across Europe. The aim of the conference is towards co-ordinating resistance and to agree a European day of action against Austerity, Cuts and Privatisation and in Defence of the Welfare State.

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  12. ‘‘I strongly oppose austerity and the ‘German Europe’ in the making. EU economic governance was pushed through by the German government to set neo-liberal policies in stone and curb democratic sovereignty on economic policy. According to this, banks’ bondholders must be protected at all costs, working people and the most vulnerable in society are to take a hit. DIE LINKE stands against imperialistic wars and for disarmament instead of social cuts. DIE LINKE stands for an anti-capitalist strategy: against the neo-liberal policies of ‘dispossession’ attacking our social rights, the welfare state, public goods and wages: Expropriate the expropriators! Capital, move over. Public, move in.’’

    (Sevim Dağdelen MP Die LInke (Left Party) German Bundestag)

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  13. Marxists have shown both theoretical and concrete leadership in the 20th century from Lenin, Tito, Hồ Chí Minh and Castro. There have been leaders that it’s very hard for Marxists to defend such as Stalin and Mao Tse-tung who have caused great harm to the cause of socialism. Britain has had some great communist activists from Sylvia Pankhurst, Willie Gallacher and Philip Piratin all three laid the foundations for the democratic political, economic and social achievements of the 20th century in Britain.

    Those achievements are now under threat from the theoretical and concrete leadership of the neo-liberal/neo-conservative capitalist elite. From Marx, Lenin through to John Bellamy Foster and David Harvey we have the theoretical leadership what is required is concrete leadership in the fightback this is where the Europe Against Austerity Conference on 1st of October 2011 provides an opportunity in which that leadership can be found. Leadership that can build an historic bloc to overturn thirty years of neo-liberal/neo-conservative advance.

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  14. The appeal for the conference is supported by Tony Benn, Len McCluskey (Unite General Secretary), Bob Crow (RMT General Secretary), John McDonnell MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Caroline Lucas MP, Jeremy Dear, NUJ General Secretary, Ken Loach, Kate Hudson, Imran Khan (the People’s Charter), Chris Bambery (CoR), Clare Solomon (Editor Springtime: the new student rebellions) and Lee Jasper (BARAC).

    To contact the Coalition of Resistance about the conference email: coalitionofresistance@mail.com

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  15. Marxist analysis of the historical, economic and political reality of the 21st century requires a suitable dialectical response.

    The Left needs to build what Gramsci described as a ‘‘historic bloc’’ that can fight back against the ideological hegemony of Anglo-American neo-liberal/neo-conservative capitalism.

    Taking advantage of bourgeois democracy and confront the British and European capitalist classes, state and super-state governance as part of a coherent dialectical fightback.

    If British Marxist parties are to play a significant role in the fightback against the Tory, Liberal-Democrat and New-Labour hegemony which has abandoned the post-1945 social-democratic consensus.

    This has also been abandoned by the social-democratic parties of Europe where the Anglo-American model has also been adopted as EU policy through the Lisbon Program, Service Directive 2001 and Lisbon Treaty 2008.

    Since the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 there has been a neo-liberal economic agenda calling for the dismantling of state enterprises and privatization of social provision, the EU Service Directive calls for the privatization of health care and for social provision and for the introduction of the market into all health and social provision.

    The EU Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 allows for the use of a European military force and Article 42 of the Common Foreign and Security Policy allows the EU to implement a common security and defence policy, which has been used in neo-conservative imperialist interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

    This represents an acceleration of the penetration of the Anglo-American neo-liberal/neo-conservative imperialist phase of global capitalism and further retreat of the Keynesian social-democratic phase of welfare capitalism.

    The neo-liberal/neo-conservative started as a theoretical fightback by the capitalist elite in the 1970’s and has advanced materially since the election of Thatcher and Reagan in 1979/80.

    The neo-liberal/neo-conservative ideological project started to advance in Europe in the late 1990’s and now we see its material advance accelerating as a result of the financial crisis of 2007/8.

    If the concrete material gains of the 20th century are not to be lost the time has come for the broad left to unite against the capitalist class agenda, nation state and super-state.

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  16. As Britain is a member state of the European Union analysis would suggest that the historical-material economic and political reality dictates that the Communist Party of Britain is a part of the European Left if it’s to show both theoretical and concrete leadership and to influence the fightback in Britain and Europe. MEP Francis Wurtz is a member of the Parti Communiste Français and President of the European United Left group. This group is to the left of the Social-Democratic group is lead by Danish Social Democrat MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen; this is the group of which the Labour Party belongs.

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  17. The economy and health are issues which matter to people and which the Tory/Liberal Coalition Government should be judged by the people. The standard of living of ordinary people is being squeezed whilst the super rich expect to be let of the 50% rate when they actually pay it which most of them avoid anyway. Economic statistics show an increasing likelihood of a double dip recession which could become a full economic depression similar to the one experienced in the 1930’s.

    And yet GQ magazine has named George Osborne ‘Politician of the Year’ presented by Nick Robinson at its awards ceremony, whilst this magazine may be pleasing to look at, its male readers political wisdom leads a lot to be desired. Maybe they should read something with fewer pictures of women with little clothing and with more articles about economic theory and practice before voting for who is a good politician, you never know they may have voted for John McDonnell if they understood what George Osborne and David Cameron and their Liberal coalition partners are doing to ordinary people.

    ‘‘Osborne is like Atlas carrying the coalition's weight on his shoulders. He remains its most important strategist, the lieutenant to whom the PM listens most closely and the man who must save the country from economic perdition.’’ (Matthew D'Ancona)

    At the same time we have Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Bill which will introduce market forces into the National Health Service which BMA Chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum says ‘‘This legislation will cause irreparable harm to the health service if passed in any form…. The misguided focus on competition, and on service provision by ‘any qualified provider’, will result in a fragmented and unequal service, with a loss of public accountability, and a damaging focus instead on services that are financially profitable’’.

    Thiers is an ideological theory and practice that benefits only the wealthy capitalist classes at the expense of the rest of the people. Let’s hope that when the European Conference Against Austerity meets on the 1st of October there emerges some real leadership that can lead the fightback.

    Robert Griffiths of the Communist Party of Britain says it’s ‘‘time to mobilise the resistance’’ and recognises the role of the Labour Party, Green Party and other left forces. He argues that the Communist Party as a Marxist-Leninist party has an essential role to play in influencing the economic and political struggle against the capitalist classes and state-monopoly capitalism.

    The British and European Left need leadership that leads to concrete action, this is why it’s important that the Communist Party of Britain is represented at the conference by the General Secretary and International Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain.

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  18. Let’s see Pierre Laurent of the French Communist Party and Sevim Dagdelen of Die LInke standing alongside Robert Griffiths and John Foster of the British Communist Party.

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  19. There has to be more than a theoretical response, there needs to be a concrete response to privatization of health care, welfare services, housing shortages and unemployment.

    If not now when will the parties of Marxist-Leninism show the theoretical and concrete leadership required to confront ferial neo-liberal/neo-conservative national, European and global capitalism.

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  20. Economics Professor Walter Baier of the Communist Party of Austria explains why he will be attending the Europe against Austerity conference.

    ‘‘The crisis is not over yet, but is heading towards its next climax. The austerity programmes enforced by the EU, the IMF and the governments have condemned millions of people to a life in poverty without the basic problem being tackled: rich people and big companies earn more and pay less taxes. Therefore the states have to incur debts. For these debts the states pay interest for which the rich people and the big companies do not pay any – or not enough – taxes.

    The forces in power today have failed to find a way out. If the crisis is not to toll the hour of the nationalist right, a European answer by trade unions, social movements and the political Left is required: an answer which is one of solidarity. Our conference in London is to become a further step on the path towards a common European front of defence against austerity.’’

    http://www.europeagainstausterity.org/

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  21. Lee, it’s true that three quarters of a million isn’t a big percentage of 60 million, but I would suggest that it was a strong indication of the mood of the people generally. The conference brings together a broad left from across Europe and as such has a legitimacy which goes beyond that of the much smaller left in Britain, as to whether the media will report on the conference or not I cannot predict.

    Dugsie, the messages may be conflicting and some may also want to have fun, why not enjoy the moment as many will when they march the day after in Manchester before the Tory conference starts. It’s a shame the two events are so close together or maybe that’s a good thing, I’m not sure, but as you say the important thing is to challenge the so-called centre-left as well as the centre-right and hard-right liberal/tory ideology.

    This is why I would argue that the broad left in Britain have to engage in this initiative and that those who find sectarian or ideological excuses to ignore the Europe against Austerity conference have no legitimacy when they claim to represent the British working class against the austerity and privatization programme of the Tory/Liberal coalition government.

    Most left-wing parties call for the withdrawal from the European Union and will use this as an excuse for not engaging with the European Left. If Len McCluskey of Unite; Bob Crow of the RMT and Labour left MP Jeremy Corbyn see it as important enough to attend alongside Sevim Dagdelen from Die LInke, Walter Baier of the Kommunistische Partei Österreichs and Pierre Laurent who is president of the European Left Group as well as a member of the Parti Communiste Français then it has to be worth the while of the left parties of Britain attending.

    Karl Marx wrote ‘‘working men of all countries unite!’’ at the end of the Communist Manifesto (Penguin Classics page 121). I quote directly as there seems to be some controversy as to whether he wrote ‘‘workers of the world unite’’ or ‘‘workers of all lands unite’’ in the Morning Star and as I am using the Penguin version with an introduction by A J P Taylor, I felt that I’d best clarify this. But the essence of his message was unity of the working classes against the capitalist elite. I will leave any arguments about semantics to those who think that’s more important than engaging in unity with the parties that represent the interests of the working classes of other European Union countries (lands).

    http://leftalternatives.myfineforum.org/ftopic188-110.php

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  22. As an activist political and economic theory is a tool just as physics is a tool to a mechanical engineering technician. Without the unity of theory and practice that transforms the material condition historical materialism has no value to humanity it’s just an abstract ideology.

    The capitalist classes have used and are using the political and economic theories of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism to attack and reverse the concrete material gains made by the Marxist and non-Marxist economic and political struggles of the 19th and 20th century.

    Marx always said his theories were about the material reality of the human condition, the job of Marxists is to put those theories into practice. The challenge for the Marxist Left and the European Conference Against Austerity & Privatisation and defence of the Welfare State is how to challenge the neo-liberal economics and the neo-conservative state superstructure on which the capitalist elite depend.

    This is the Marxist Left project to challenge the logic and barbarism of 21st century capitalism and replace it with the logic of socialism where human need comes before profit and a new social superstructure fit for the purpose.

    After the Second World War we had roughly thirty years of welfare capitalism based on the economic and political ideas of John Maynard Keynes, In Britain and the USA we have had thirty years of the neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideas of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.

    Today theorists like David Harvey and John Bellamy Foster are adapting the ideas Karl Marx to understand and challenge 21st century capitalism. But if theory is without organizers and activists there isn’t a movement for change. The Marxist Left parties of Britain and Europe need to fill the political vacuum left by the social-democratic parties such as the Labour Party of Britain which have accepted the neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideology.

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  23. As the global economy teeters on the edge of recession and possibly depression it’s time for a broad left response that confronts the theory and practices of the liberal and conservative right-wing parties of Britain and Europe. A coalition of the British and European Left parties should be leading the fight back and using the arguments of Marxist theoreticians such as David Harvey and John Bellamy Foster to refute the ideology of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and the neo-liberal/neo-conservative project that forms the basis of the Lisbon Program and Service Directive which call for privatization of social provisions and state assets.

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  24. It’s time for a new historic bloc of the broad left to confront the ideology and practices of the liberal economic base and the conservative substructure created by national governments, EU, IMF, WTO and World Bank.

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  25. The European and Scandinavian countries already have blocs known as the Gauche Unitaire Européenne (Group of the European United Left) and the Nordic Green Left Group which form the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL). Parties not represented in the European parliament can form cooperative arrangements with the GUE/NGL such as the Socialist Left Party (SV) of Norway and Dei Lenk in Luxembourg.

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  26. European Left

    http://www.european-left.org/english/home/home/

    Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left

    http://www.guengl.eu/showPage.php?ID=

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  27. Pierre Laurent is President of the European Left Group as well as National Secretary of the Parti Communiste Français and Francis Wurtz of the Parti Communiste Français is President of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left Group of MEP’s

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  28. The latest figures and the analysis put on them must indicate the need for government intervention in the market and an end of the neo-liberal/neo-conservative experiment that has prevailed for the last thirty years. It’s a busted flush, we continue the ‘‘quack medicine’’ cure for the crisis of class power prescribed at the end of the 1970’s will not easing the suffering, but may guarantee the greatest economic depression in the history of capitalism.

    After 1945 western economists have ridiculed and rubbished the theories of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. The Keynesian period often called the ‘‘Golden Years’’ of welfare capitalism from 1945 to 1975 appeared to have solved the contradictions inherent within capitalism and provided a compromise between the class interests of workers and capitalist.

    By the mid 1970’s the capitalist classes were not prepared to concede any more of the surplus-value created by the labour of the working classes in wages or social costs such as health care, education of welfare and pensions. All of which are paid for out of the surplus value created by the labour of the working classes.

    Today we see a crisis of finance capital which like the crisis of the late 1920’s threatens the impoverishment of the majority so that a minority can maintain its wealth and class power. The question for the labour movement and political parties of the left is how to resist the capitalist classes and institutions of the state and global governance implementing the social and economic policies of the capitalist elite.

    After the depression of the 1930’s and a war against fascism the working classes emerged strong enough to extract concessions from the capitalist system. Partly because there was an alternative system and power bloc formed around the Soviet Union, but also because the working classes of Britain, Europe and the USA were not prepared to return to the poverty and unemployment levels of the 1930’s.

    Riccardo Bellofiore professor of monetary economics and history of economic thought at the University of Bergamo, Italy says ‘‘this crisis is not just a financial crisis, but a capitalist crisis: it is part of an attack on labour. From this point of view, a New Deal should be part of a wider programme of the European left, who should push for a socialisation of investment, banks as public utilities, the intervention of the state as direct provider of employment, and capital controls….Unfortunately what's really missing in Europe is not the money to finance debt; it is internationalism. Only European struggles can resist austerity and deliver decent reform.’’

    In 2011 the working classes should not prepared to concede any more of the surplus-value created by their labour to the capitalist classes in the form of profits. This is where the working classes of Britain and across Europe need the leadership of the Marxist parties that Jimmy Jancovich calls ‘‘concerted action in a Europe-wide struggle’’ putting theory into practice in what Vladimir Lenin referred to as concrete actions.

    http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/109713

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  29. President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick warns that the global economy is entering the ‘‘danger zone’’ and Christine Lagarde head of the IMF tells the world’s leaders to do more to prevent another lurch towards the abyss. Today we see the stock markets continue slide with the FTSE 100 index down below the 5000 mark at 4967.4 points as fears of a global recession/depression continue, after poor projections from America's central bank and manufacturing figures for China and the Eurozone increasing the call for a third package of quantitative easing.

    Plan ‘A’ or Plan ‘A+’ isn’t enough to stop the British, European or global economy from going over the edge into the vortex of a global recession/depression. What is needed is for the left parties and labour movement to lead the demand for an alternative, free market capitalism has failed. We either see a return to a neo-Keynesian form of managed welfare capitalism Plan ‘B’ extended beyond the developed nations to the developing nations as the progressive option for capitalism or further regression into the economics of the 1930’s and a rise of the far-right fascist parties.

    If the social-democratic parties fail to revive the Keynesian model of welfare capitalism and extended it to the developing world then we may truly be in the final and highest stage of capitalism as Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg put it one hundred years ago. The future is either socialism or barbarism, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne and the coalition government want to follow the policies followed by the British national government of the 1930’s, these would result in a long depression which it could take ten to twenty years to recover from.

    This has to be socially unacceptable to the people of Britain, Europe and Scandinavia and why the European Conference Against Austerity & Privatisation being held on 1st of October in London called by an initiative from Pierre Laurent, the national secretary of the French Communist Party should be attended by the leadership of all the left parties and major unions. The crisis of global capitalism requires an international response from our political leaders. Anything less is an abdication of their duty and of the dialectic-material reality which we face, this is where we pursue a Plan ‘B+’ which leads to Plan ‘C’ which follows a British and European road to socialism.

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  30. Whilst Ed Miliband and the Labour Party sort themselves out the main job for the broad left outside of the Labour Party is the fightback against David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg and the Tory/Liberal coalition government’s austerity plan as it is for the labour movement and left parties across Europe against their national governments and the directives/governance of the EU and IMF.

    we may have the opportunity of seeing an election sooner rather than later, maybe we need a viable British Left-Unity alliance not just at the Europe Against Austerity Conference, but preparing to fight a snap election on a platform of the European Left and European United Left/Nordic Green Left Group that can stand on an Alternative British and European Economic and Political Strategy with left parties such as Front de Gauche of France and Die LInke of Germany.

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  31. Front de Gauche march Sunday 1st December 2013

    http://le-chiffon-rouge-pcf-morlaix.over-blog.com/article-le-front-de-gauche-appelle-a-une-marche-pour-la-revolution-fiscale-le-1er-decembre-2013-121095304.html

    They came and marched in Hyde Park, will the British Left support them in Paris on the 1st of December?

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