Cost of living crisis
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“Capitalism, like it or not, and for all its perceived imperfections, is the only extant and viable game currently in town.”
————————————————————-Yes and, by your very actions and ideas, you and many millions more like you ensure that capitalism remains the “only extant and viable game currently in town”.
The question you should ask yourself is are you happy with this state of affairs? Are you content to leave intact a rapacious socio-economic system that could quite conceivably drive humanity into extinction?
Because, make no mistake Lizzie, by accommodating yourself to capitalism you are in effect supporting it and prolonging its shelf life. You are actively preventing a realistic alternative to capitalism from emerging.
That alternative has no realistic chance of emerging while it remains the outlook of only a small minority. But this has become precisely your excuse for accommodating yourself to capitalism instead of working with socialists to change that minority into a majority. What exactly have you got to lose by doing this?
Please don’t tell me that it is imperative that we should try instead to humanize and tame capitalism. This has been tried for over two centuries or more. Look around you and ask yourself if such an approach has actually worked. Reformism has long attracted mass movements and secured the majority support of the people, unlike revolutionary socialism, and yet it has failed miserably. That should tell you something about the inherent limitations of what it is you are advocating for …
Perhaps the time has finally arrived for a new game in town. Are you willing to play?
Marx said that a recession has the roots of recovery within it.
Bank of England warned the UK would face a “very challenging” two-year slump with unemployment nearly doubling by 2025.
“World ‘plunging towards societal collapse’ as era of cheap money ends”
Thousands gathered in central London on Saturday to demonstrate against what they called “Tory austerity” and demand an immediate general election.
The protest, called Britain is Broken, was organised by the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, and supported by groups including CND, Unite, Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
We were there. Report from a comrade who was present:
“I thought heavy rain may stop play but luckily it stopped around 2.30pm. Managed to get rid of a box of Socialism or your money back, a good pile of Standards and some of the new leaflet.
It was quite entertaining with Stop Oil blocking the roads, Diane Abbott MP and the usual shouting speech head-bangers for reform.
A lot of Police present but all seem to pass peacefully.
Free food too, had a nice pasta with beans stew.”An unelected multi-millionaire has been installed in 10 Downing Street. The government has already made a u-turn on the ‘Energy Price Guarantee’, and we face another energy bills price hike in April 2023. It’ll be a cold miserable winter for millions – unless we take decisive action together.
So we’re striking on 1 December 2022.
https://dontpay.uk/articles/lets-take-our-power-back-1-december-we-strike/?
Are they really going to go ahead with their “strike” (not paying their energy bills) from 1 December despite not having the million commitments they wanted? I suppose they had to call their own bluff.
It’s a bit Napoleonic though: “on s’engage et puis on voit”, ie you commit yourself and then see what happens.
They could find themselves out in front with no troops behind them.
The campaign originally urged people to cancel their direct debit energy payments on 1st October, but organisers said it would postpone it until it gathered more pace.
The launch of the new energy bill strike follows the government’s U-turn on the duration of the Energy Price Guarantee.
UK households are predicted to see their bills rise to more than £4,300 a year from April next year after the government’s energy bill support ends.
Data from OFGEM shows that 2,347,511 households were behind on their electricity bills and 1,858,585 on their gas bills at the end of June.
So they have about a quarter of a million people signed up. I wonder how many of them would actually be cancelling direct debits, I would have thought a quarter would be a very optimistic estimate.
The only thing that is going to result from this is that those participating will end up paying more on their energy bills, or in worse financial trouble than they were before.
Boycotts (i.e consumers “strikes” which this is) can be effective, but only if the take-up is high enough and the goal is reachable. Doesn’t look like this is the case here.
Would be wiser, and more effective, to get involved with supporting the other trade-union led campaigns that are taking off.
“Would be wiser, and more effective, to get involved with supporting the other trade-union led campaigns that are taking off.”
Alternatively, wait for Socialism! LOL.
There seems to be some ambiguity about what the aim of the 1 December action called a “strike” is. Originally, I think, it was to get energy bills capped at the level they were in April this year. Now it seems to be that it is that they should continue to be capped at their current, higher level after April next year.
In one sense it doesn’t matter, as what the organisers are trying to do is keep popular discontent on the boil and use it to get some mass reform movement off the ground. To do this they obviously feel the need to put some concrete aim before those they are trying to involve. What this aim is doesn’t really matter as long as it is something — it can be, and actually seems to be, a moving target.
This of course is one of the tactics of reformism — billed as “the only game in town”.
The Socialist attitude would be for people to express their discontent by organising for socialism. That is the most effective mass movement to get off the ground. If it did, the government would fall over itself offer concessions in a bid to buy off the movement for socialism. As we have always argued, if reforms (concessions, palliatives) are what you want the best way to get some would be a mass movement for socialism.
But that is not part of the reformist playbook.
“Alternatively, wait for Socialism”
I’m sure all the members of the aunt sally party are doing that.
In reality, revolutionary socialists have always been prominent and active members of the trade union movement – but have always been aware that this is just a rear-guard action and that trade unions can only play a conservative role.
Pre-payment meters
Charities have warned that this practice risks “disconnection by the back door” when households cannot afford to top up their meter. Citizens Advice recently said more people had been unable to top up their prepayment meter in the first nine months of this year than in the whole of the previous three years combined.
In the second 24-hour strike this year, protesters marched on the Athens parliament, where there were brief clashes, as they called for an end to layoffs and pay cuts in a nation still recovering from a near decade-long debt crisis.
“We’re demanding an appropriate increase in salaries as our wages have been hit radically by such high energy prices and living costs,”
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