LEADERS of the major capitalist states, and the leaders of Russia and China, who have linked their fate to the future of the crisis ridden capitalist system met this week, in the only possible way that they could meet, with mass unemployment and war erupting all over the world.
They met surrounded by tens of thousands of young protesters who have been radicalised by the crisis of capitalism, and who held banners stating that ‘capitalism isn’t working’, condemned the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and called for the replacement of capitalism with socialism.
These protesters were themselves held at bay by 10,000 riot police. They were surrounded, beaten by riot police and harassed, held for six hours or more in the City of London, being photographed and generally intimidated, and then dispersed violently in the evening, with protesters alleging that one of their number was killed while being chased by policemen with dogs, when he tripped and hit his head.
The next day the police began rounding up dissidents, raiding squats in the central London area, breaking down doors, terrifying the young inhabitants and dragging away young girls in handcuffs.
Meanwhile, the G20 did not agree on anything except a lying communique that they were all together.
As is well known, the US and UK want a return to ‘light touch regulation’ and the rule of plutocratic bankers as soon as this is possible, the Germans and the French capitalists want a strongly regulated capitalism, since they cannot compete with the no holds barred US-UK version, and the Russian and Chinese Stalinists want an alternative international currency established to replace the dollar. They hold billions of dollars and are major purchasers of US debt. They fear that the Obama programme will mean that they will be left with worthless paper, toxic through and through.
There is not and cannot be agreement between the two different imperialist blocs and Japan, all that they can do is fight it out – first of all at home to try to drive the working class back, and then amongst themselves to seek to redivide the world, during which time they will turn their fire onto Russia and China.
Their thumbs-up optimism at the end of the G20 conference is just sheer deception. They are terrified of the reaction of workers once they grasp that the capitalist crisis is set to worsen and that it is they who will have to pay the full price in jobs, wages, loss of homes and the end of basic rights.
The real world’s intrusion into the G20 conference was not just the sound of the thuds when police truncheons collided with the heads of young people.
In Britain the growth of mass unemployment did not stop for the G20 meeting.
Bombardier has sacked 1,000 workers, the Visteon factories are occupied in response to liquidators giving the workforce notice of instant dismissal, and the whole of the motor car and motor parts industries are approaching their Armageddon – closure, according to the Unite leader Tony Woodley.
In this situation there is only one way forward for the working class and the youth.
The Bombardier workers must occupy their plant to defend their jobs, as must the GM Vauxhall workers. In fact all the factories and plants that are threatened with closure must be occupied.
Councils of Action must be formed to organise the maximum support for such occupations, to defend them against state attacks and organise general strike action by the trade unions.
All these plants must be nationalised and put under workers control. The only way to do this is for the workers to bring down the Brown bankers government and to bring in a workers government that will carry out socialist policies and bring in socialism. This is the best answer to the attacks that the G20 summit is preparing on the working class.
