The Crisis

The capitalist class owns and controls the economic resources of the world. They will strive to perpetuate their power at all costs. Privation in the midst of plenty is the distinguishing mark of the capitalist system of production. The capitalist system cannot ensure the harmonious growth of the economy, cannot ensure work and well being for all the working people, cannot avoid economic crises and the destruction of the productive forces created by the sweat and blood of the working people. Socialists concern themselves with analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. Socialism does not advance necessarily in response to or because of great industrial distress. These crises may point out the fact that something is wrong, but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different problem.

The strategy of employers in the conditions of a recession is aimed at intensifying exploitation, further increasing the concentration of capital and production, carrying out various changes to create the best conditions for the extraction of maximum profits, shifting capital to the areas of maximum capitalist profit whether at home or abroad and stepping up its contention for markets and sources of raw materials with its rivals. The exploitation of the workers at the place of work is being intensified through the cutting of real wages, imposition of redundancies, the intensification of labour through speed-ups and introduction of new technology, the imposition of worse working conditions, and so on, facilitated by the pressure of the vast reserve army of the unemployed. State expenditure is being transferred away from social spending such as on health, education, welfare, to boost the profits of the corporations, and the burden of direct and indirect taxation is being increased to cover the increased state expenditure as a whole.

Business leaders pretend that they have the solution to the crisis and promising recovery as long as it is provided by the workers accepting the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto their backs. The employers demand further sacrifices of the workers in terms of further reduction in real wages, further increases in productivity as the condition of ensuring recovery. The reality, however, is that the capitalists have little control over the course of the crisis; the demand that the workers accept further unemployment and further speed-ups and further reductions in real wages, social services, benefits, etc., is simply a demand that the workers pay the price of the crisis so as to ensure the recovery of profits which is the real concern of the 1%.

The working class should not harbour any illusions about a recovery. The motive of capitalist production is profit and the only recovery for the bourgeoisie is recovery of profits. Such a recovery will not alter at all the condition of the working class as wage slaves, or change the conditions of the exploited in relation to the exploiters. In fact, the recovery of the profits of the ruling class can only take place on the basis of the further intensification of exploitation, the further impoverishment and ruin of the people, with a higher unemployment and an increase in poverty of the working class.

Crises are an inherent feature of capitalism and cannot be eliminated without eliminating the root, the capitalist system. The Left  propose that crises  could be made a thing of the past by means of nationalisation. They argue that the setting up of a nationalised coal industry, a nationalised electricity industry, the nationalisation of steel, industry could be planned and regulated and organised and, as a result, the anarchy of production crises would be eliminated. The course of these industries confirms that state-ownership does not eliminate the anarchy of production but in fact can aggravate it. The anarchy of production and crisis will not be eliminated without putting an end to the capitalist system, thereby removing the contradiction which is at its root, the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist appropriation.

The motive of capitalist production is the securing of maximum profits. Production of goods is in fact an incidental aim of capitalism, as is employment. The capitalist organises production for the purposes of increasing profits. When conditions are such that profits can be increased by increasing production, business does so, and when conditions are such that profits can only be increased by cutting back production to keep up the price, then that is what business does. Thus if it serves to increase profits to increase the numbers of workers in production, then this is done; but if profits can only be increased by intensifying exploitation, getting more or the same amount of work out of fewer workers, then this is done instead. These fundamental features of the capitalist system cannot be eliminated without removing the capitalist system itself.  Workers in every country are being forced to bear the burden of the capitalist crisis and that this crisis proves the necessity to put an end to the capitalist system. All the capitalist parties, all the parties dedicated to the continuation of the capitalist system of wage slavery, are against the interests of the working class. The workers can only wage their struggle in opposition to these forces. In particular the struggle cannot be one simply to remove the Tory government and replace it by a Labour government. They both deny the crisis is the result of the capitalist system but instead merely a result of mistaken policies or maverick traders of this or that individual, manager or government. The Labour Party preach reformism to the workers. The Tories preaches submission, both pretend they will improve the lot of the workers by bringing jobs and prosperity.

Revolution is not only a possibility, it is a necessity. The class struggle must be deepened and strengthened.