THE world capitalist crisis is turning the UK into a country composed of a relative handful of the very, very rich, a middle and working class that are struggling desperately to try to keep their heads above the waterline, and millions of the poor who have already sunk deep into debt, and every day have to make a choice between heating or eating, and a weekly or monthly choice over whether to pay their rents or even their mortgages or clothe themselves and their families – or simply to get deeper and deeper into debt, beyond the point from which there is no return under capitalism.
For the youth – a million of whom are jobless – there is zero future under capitalism. They cannot afford to go to university, and if they do, they graduate to join the ranks of the unemployed. They have no alternative but to live with their parents since they can get no housing benefit, while their parents have to pay a bedroom tax.
They are a reserve army of labour to be used in the near future to try to batter down the trade unions, or to become the basic cannon fodder for the great imperialist wars that are now being ignited in Syria and other places.
Yesterday the StepChange ‘debt charity’ produced a report that showed that twice as many people who sought help with debts in 2012 had payday loans compared with 2011.
This charity helped 36,413 people last year who had payday loan debts, some 20,000 more than the previous year, with no prospect of paying them back plus their enormous interest charges.
The average debt was £1,657. The increase showed the rapid rise of payday lending, although credit cards and unpaid bills are also huge concerns for those seeking the help of the charity.
StepChange states that ‘Typically, payday lenders make loans of several hundred pounds for a matter of weeks, at interest rates that can work out at well over 1,000% on an annual basis.’
Previously, the charity said that the low-paid and young were most likely to be caught up by payday loan debts.
The average payday loan debt of people it helped is now higher than their average monthly income. The charity released data that included a 29-year-old teacher from Leeds who estimated that £6,000 of her £10,000 debt was owed to payday lenders.
She said that one payday loan of £350 escalated to £1,100 as a result of the interest and charges that were added.
Delroy Cornaldi of StepChange said: ‘These findings are yet more evidence of the scourge of payday loans. With household finances increasingly under extreme pressure and access credit far less available, many face the unenviable choice of using payday loans simply to make ends meet.’
In March the Office of Fair Trading described evidence of ‘widespread irresponsible lending’ among payday lenders, to people who were desperate for a little money to pay for their basic necessities.
The regulator gave the biggest 50 firms 12 weeks to change their practices, or risk losing their licences.
It also plans to refer the market to the Competition Commission, after it found ‘deep-rooted’ problems in how payday loan companies compete.
However, regulation is not the answer to the capitalist crisis and the gigantic debt crisis that it has created.
Regulation of the capitalist crisis is clearly unworkable, while charities today are trying to bale out the ‘oceans of capitalist anarchy with a teaspoon’ – both are attempting the impossible.
The only answer to this crisis is revolution.
The only right and freedom that the masses of the working class, the middle class and the youth possess is the right to revolution, to rise up and overthrow their oppressors, the ruling class, and the capitalist system, replacing both with a worldwide socialist republic and an economy that produces to satisfy people’s needs and not to satisfy the requirements of a handful of bosses and bankers.
This is the only way out of the capitalist crisis. This is the only way to take society forward.
