THERE is not the slightest doubt that capitalism worldwide is in its greatest crisis ever.
The US-UK failed attempt to occupy Iraq and steal its oil and gas resources has led to a gigantic inflation in the price of oil, gas and other basic raw materials, driving down the US dollar.
Now the colossal strain of the up to a trillion dollars expenditure on the war, has been accompanied by a collapse of the US housing market, and with it the US banks and entire sections of industry, including the US motor industry.
This crisis has spread worldwide, exposing the indebtedness of the world’s banks and ending the era of cheap credit for a generation, (if capitalism is allowed to last that long). Crisis ridden capitalism is creating a colossal inflation of food prices worldwide, exacerbated by the rise and rise of oil prices and the continuing fall of the US dollar, plus the drive to augment oil reserves by taking land out of food cultivation in order to cultivate biofuels.
This process is being accompanied by the open drive to war. The British military are demanding a massive increase in the military budget, while the US uses NATO to tighten a noose around the neck of the resource rich Russian federation.
Capitalism is restoring hunger, poverty and super-exploitation in the midst of the unprecedented riches of the bourgeoisie, with a concentrated drive to impose the whole burden of this developing catastrophe onto the backs of the working class and the middle class, while continuing with the attempt to reorder the world with new wars.
All the calls for bourgeois summits to organise new bodies to regulate away the crisis are so much empty talk.
The post 1945 boom was made possible by the massive destruction of the productive forces that took place after the 1929-31 crash, the destruction of the productive forces during the second world war, and the fact that at the end of it, the US stood like a capitalist giant able to offer Marshall Aid, and a currency, the dollar, which was backed by gold.
To stand a chance of ‘righting itself’ modern capitalism will have to undergo an even more destructive cyclical development, that will wipe out even more of the productive forces, including the working class.
For the workers of the world there is only one way out of this crisis, and this is through the victory of the world socialist revolution. it is this revolution that is now rushing forward. This means that the leadership of the Fourth International must be built in all of the major countries.
In every country a programme for the working class to take the power must be formulated and fought for by the sections of the FI.
In Britain this means the working class sacking its reformist leaders in the course of the struggle to defend its living standards.
It must fight inflation by demanding a sliding scale of wages. This will see an increase in wages by the same percentage as the rise in a cost of living index, made up of working class necessities, drawn up by the trade unions. This is the only way to ward off pauperisation and starvation.
Where the bosses seek to impose sackings, the trade unions must call for a sliding scale of hours, and a reduction in the working week with no loss of pay.
If the bosses will not concede, they must be nationalised under workers’ control.
The trade unions must demand the scrapping of NHS privatisation.
The trade unions must also defend workers’ homes. They must ban the privatisation of council housing and take action to stop banks repossessing the homes of workers unable to pay the exorbitant interest rates that are now being exacted by banks.
The trade unions must call for the abolition of mortgage debt and the nationalisation of the banks.
They must also demand a programme of public works to build the millions of council homes that are required, and to provide youth with work, with skilled training at trade union rates of pay.
At the centre of this struggle is the building of the Fourth International and its the British section the WRP, to lead the British and world socialist revolutions to victory.