Cost of living crisis
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It is only proper that the new King pays no inheritance tax – says the state that makes citizens choose between heating or eating.
By coincidence, looking for something for the 50 Years Ago column for the December Socialist Standard, there was an article (a reply to a letter) in December 1972 about a similar situation in the past when workers were faced with a huge increase in their cost of living that they could not pay — in this case sky rocketing rents during WW1.
Here what happened:
“On the question of what happened in Glasgow in 1915 having “nothing to do with house building having ceased”, we quote from Housing Finance and Development by A. J. Merrett and Allen Sykes (Longmans, 1965). In the opening chapter they say:
“House building virtually ceased with the advent of war and rents began to rise, particularly in munitions-producing areas. This provoked an outcry such that in 1915 the government passed the first rent restriction Act — the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act, 1915. It froze the rents of all unfurnished tenancies (approximately 85 per cent of the total) below certain limits at the August 1914 level, and landlords were virtually forbidden to evict protected tenants save for obvious defaults such as non-payment of rent.”
This passage also makes clear that Braddock’s assertion in his second paragraph is untrue. It is correct only in the technical sense that — of course — tenants could not be forced to pay rent raised above the level permitted by their wages, i.e. to produce money they had not got. The alternative to the 1915 Act would have been for the government to let wages go up to meet increasing rents; instead, the Act restrained wage demands by keeping rents low — and provided also that workers, in Glasgow or anywhere else, were forced to pay them. Braddock appears not to realize that this “blow against landlords”, as he called it in his previous letter, was struck not by the workers but by the government in the wider interests of capitalism.“ (emphasis added).
The parallel with today is that, if nothing was done, workers would have been forced to cut back on food and thus would affect their working efficiency. To maintain this, employers would have to pay them higher wages.
There will be an element of this in the government lowering the cap on energy price rises — this will reduce the pressure on employers to pay higher wages. And it is by no means a blow against either the utility companies (their profit margins are maintained) or the energy producing companies (with no windfall tax they lose nothing).
I see that Don’t Pay is now calling itself “a grassroots movement demanding a fair price for energy for everyone”.
So no longer just a protest against the current increase in the price of gas and electricity bills but a fully-fledged reformist movement.
https://dontpay.uk/articles/day-of-action-1-october/
Not paying the increase because you can’t afford to is one thing but campaigning for a “fair price for energy” is another.
I’m not sure whether that’s a red herring or a wild goose chase. Maybe it’s both.
“I’m not sure whether that’s a red herring or a wild goose chase. Maybe it’s both.”
Maybe it’s neither, considering that reformism, to coin a phrase, is (demonstrably) the only game in town.
Remember, what we are talking about here is not a refusal to pay an unaffordable price increase but a campaign for a “fair” price for some commodity. The first is understandable, and unavoidable for some. The second is reformist and could only be implemented by a government; it certainly couldn’t be by some “grass roots movement”.
(I am assuming here that the demand and campaign is genuine and that it is not a Trotskyist-like “transitional demand”, ie a demand that those promoting it know can’t be achieved and are aiming that, when those they have got to support to the demand realise this, they will turn to something more radical. I could be wrong but we don’t know who or which group is behind it, so we can’t be certain.)
The other point is, if you are into reformist demands, why campaign just for a “fair” price for energy? Why not also for a “fair” price for bread or shoes or or a “fair” rent or even a “fair” mortgage repayment?
Reformism is just perpetually campaigning to try to get a “fair deal” for workers under capitalism but this is impossible because capitalism is based on the exploitation of wage-labour for surplus value.
Far more useful is to campaign for socialism, as a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of society’s productive resources with production and distribution directly to satisfy people’s needs.
“Far more useful is to campaign for socialism, as a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of society’s productive resources with production and distribution directly to satisfy people’s needs.”
Which is what your Party has been doing for over a hundred years with no signs of any progress. You’ve only a few more members than when you were first formed with organisational activity arguably now at its lowest level ever. Those members that do remain are slowly but surely ‘throwing in the towel’ with only 80 (yes, eighty) even bothering to vote in a recent Party ballot.
Perhaps, Lizzie45, with your insight, you can suggest a strategy for our organisation to remedy its admitted shortcomings and avoid the pitfalls of ALB’s point on the nebulous demands for fairness.
To add to his post, the decades-old campaign for fair trade has failed to deliver its promised benefits to the developing and undeveloped world and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work has also been an unsuccessful aim for employees.
I, for one, would be very interested in hearing how our activities should proceed to defend the interest of our fellow citizens but too also advance the cause of socialism.
We are not the only people campaigning for socialism (as defined). See next month’s Socialist Standard (out next week but not on our website till 1 October). More people are coming to the conclusion that socialism is the way out.
Fortunately the spread of socialist ideas does not depend on our (or their) meagre efforts. Even if we or they disappeared the idea of socialism would still survive. Capitalism spontaneously generates the idea that socialism is the way out because objectively it is. The task of socialists (as those who have already come to recognise this) is to play their part in helping this understanding spread. It is not to convert people to the idea of some ideal society, but to encourage an objective tendency so that it progresses more quickly.
Reformists just muddy the waters. They might have a bit of a case if they combined reformism with propagating socialism (though this has been shown not to work) but they don’t even do this any more; they just accept — and even argue — that capitalism is the only game in town.
Truss, in her speech to the UN yesterday, again openly stated that the the current payment-for-energy crisis for workers is due to the West’s siding with Ukraine in the Ukraino-Russian War:
“It’s a price worth paying because our long-term security is paramount. We cannot jeopardise our security for cheap energy.”
There you have it. It’s Guns before Cheap Energy.
Another Big Business Bail-Out according to some
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/21/energy-bailout-benefit-corporate-giants-mps-warn
TUC pushes for nationalisation
All smoke and mirrors
The heads of the Climate Change Committee and the National Infrastructure Commission warned in a letter to the prime minister “…our gas reserves – offshore or from shale – are too small to impact meaningfully the prices faced by UK consumers.”
UK energy companies buy gas – including from the North Sea – on the international market where prices are set by global supply and demand. The amount extra that could be extracted from the North Sea – or from fracking – is unlikely to be enough to bring down bills significantly
https://www.bbc.com/news/62878120
Prof Jonathan Stern from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies says: “The main issue is that if you started drilling tomorrow, had success the day after and everything else went to plan, it would still be two to four years before you could produce enough gas to make a difference to UK output.”
There is still a significant amount of oil and gas under the North Sea, Prof Stern says that most of that is now in deep water, far from shore, which means it takes even longer to bring it online.
New onshore wind energy could come online faster than gas. The European Wind Energy Association says that a small wind farm can be built in as little as two months, once planning permission has been granted.
Details of some events on Saturday 1st October.
Don’t Pay day of action
https://dontpay.uk/articles/1-october-day-of-action-find-your-nearest-event/Enough Is Enough day of action
Just Stop Oil events in London
https://weallwanttojuststopoil.com/Guidance on getting an extra payment to help with the cost of living if you’re entitled to certain benefits or tax credits.
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