Working Class Monthly Published by the revolutionary soCialist organization

revolutionary SOCIALIST

Issue No. 8 June 2012 Price: Donation

he recent elections in Greece, France and Britain saw the social democratic parties increas their votes and were considered winners of the elections. This is an expression of a discomfort many workers have with the crisis in the Eurozone and its consequences. More and more states are suffering from the heavy load of debt resting on their shoulders. The living conditions of most workers in Europe are deteriorating under inflation that is by far outstripping wage increases. This is made worse by heavy austerity packages being pushed through in almost all countries, destroying social security. The capitalists want to shape the argument around lazy Greeks and nationalist interests. At the root of all this lies a deepening crisis of the whole capitalist system. So which political forces can really bring change?
A deepening crisis, a system of absurdity Hardly a day goes by without any new shocking news about the Eurozone crisis. New facts and figures, painting the future in the blackest black are fuelling the capitalists and governments fears. What they fear is that they might lose their money. Latest in line is the new banking and housing crisis in Spain. The announcement of Bankia, a Spanish Banking conglomerate, of being 19bn Euro short of cash caused the markets to tremble and the Euro fell to a 22 month low. Spain is just one of the countries on the brink of crisis. The socalled PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) states have all been in the spotlight over the last 3 years at one moment or another, with Greece definitely being the worst hit. Fuelling the crisis is the massive debt of governments. Greece at the moment holds a deficit of 160bn Euro. The problem being that as states lose trust in each other money becomes harder to borrow for countries already deep in debt and only on higher interest rates. Greece now pays 21% interest on its loans, pure usury that benefits a few financial speculators and banks. This dynamic spirals out of control and works thus. First, nations have debt, they need more money to pay those debts, so take out more loans, getting into even more debt at even higher interest rates deepening the national debt crisis. The governments of those countries often see only one way out- austerity. Austerity, however, cuts the vital infrastructure of a country and the consumer demand of its population, constantly fuelling the crisis again by under investing in national industry. In fact the current crisis is the aftermath of the first wave of crisis 20072009. Back then it was uncovered that many of the financial products, often complicated algebras only understood by specialists, had no basis in reality and were often based on bad loans. This created a massive panic and a credit freeze that could only be done away with by massive rescue packages of the different states to save their banks. Now the debt that was created in the previous phase to save these states is now threatening to crush them. Sadly it is the same banks that took the money so willingly in 2009 that now make money from indebted states. The politicians and the bankers are working hand in hand and in each others pockets to profit off the back of the working class. For those capitalists and politicians the crisis is a mere game of numbers and power. Workers in Greece For the workers in Greece however the crisis is a different one. It is a massive social crisis putting at stake the livelihood of millions of workers. Unemployment in Greece is 21.7%, meaning that more than one in every five is out of work. Youth unemployment is even higher, affecting approximately half of the people under 25! Prices have increased massively, by 40% for electricity and transportation since 2009. Also, food prices have risen to such an amount, that food riots, especially plundering supermarkets, in Athens poor districts have become a common feature of everyday life. 28% of the population is expected to live in poverty with homelessness and suicide rates skyrocketing. The capitalists and their media try their best to denounce Greek workers as being lazy and the cause of the crisis. That is both cynical and disgusting. It is the capitalists who created the crisis by their craving for quick profits and it is the Greek workers who suffer the most!

THIS SYSTEM IS BANKRUPT!

Workers in Britain The picture over here starts to look similarly frightening. In Britain 2.63 million are out of work. Inflation, meaning the average rise in cost of goods, is at 3%. This is less than expected but 5 times the increase in real wages! The figure also has the serious flaw that it does not take into account housing costs, which are on a constant rise. Also certain important products have risen disproportionately, such as food, which costs 5-12% more than last year and fuel as much as 11%. The average consumer has 100 less to spend a month than a year ago. Even worse, in Britain relative poverty, a highly controversial and most likely understated index, is at

Eurozone Crisis threatens peoples livelihoods:

28 %. So even by the generous measurement of the capitalists almost one third of the population lives in poverty. So everywhere in Europe the workers are made to pay for the crisis by direct attacks from the bosses and the politicians under the flag of austerity. The working class in Britain is put in the same situation as the working class in Greece. The rich are getting richer While the workers have to deal with the mess the capitalists have made the rich themselves seem to be weathering the storm largely unscathed. The number of US-Dollar Millionaires has risen by 9.7% in 2010. The same year, the ultra-rich, those having more than $30 million of disposable capital have not only increased in number by 10.2%, their average assets have also increased by 11.5% in 2010, making them as rich as never before in history! With the wallets of the ultra-rich swelling the market for luxury goods, sales of yachts and Rolex watches have shot up. This year the luxury industry is growing by 6-7% and the total amount of revenue of that industry will reach above 200bn. From that point of view, all of the capitalists talk about austerity seems to be utter nonsense. There is enough

money, there are enough goods and there is enough labour to provide everybody on the planet with a decent life right now! Not only are the capitalists spending the profits they extract from the workers on useless luxury, British companies at the moment hoard 700bn because it can not be invested profitably. Well if these people dont have a use for that money, why not give it to the workers? We all know too well what do with a bit of extra cash. For example we could use some of that wealth creating jobs for those 44 million people who are out of work in the OECD states alone. They are out of work not because there wouldnt be useful things for them to do, just because the capitalists have to save labour power. Their crisis, our resistance! It is in front of that background that workers in Britain, France and Greece turned to the left. However, Labour in Britain and the Socialist Party in France are hardly left forces. They have always worked with the capitalists and have said time and time again that they see the need for cuts; all they want is to force them through at a slower pace. And Syriza in Greece is in the same situation, it must necessarily play the game of the capitalists if it does not want to be unable to govern Greece. A coalition between PASOK, the social democratic party of Greece, and Syriza has already proven to be impossible at the current stage. The workers of Europe cannot afford to delegate the assertion of their interests to an elected government. What is important is resistance on the streets, in the workplaces and in the schools. The workers have the strength to put an end to the capitalist madhouse and introduce an economic system based on planning and reason rather than on the mindless rush for profits. What it takes now is for us to gain confidence in our strength and show the capitalists and their politicians that we are better off without them.

www.revolutionarysocialism.blogspot.com

revolutionary SOCIALIST

Issue No. 8 / June 2012

A brief summary of the political positions of the RSO
The Revolutionary Socialist Organization (RSO) is fighting against capitalism and for a new socialist economic and social order. Every day it becomes more evident that the so-called free market has nothing to offer for most of the worlds population. Capitalism means hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, war and misery. Even in the richest countries in the world, millions live at or below the poverty line. In contrast, a small portion of the population owns the majority of the assets; in Britain 1% of the population owns more than a third of all assets. Two classes are facing each other in the capitalist society. On one side are the capitalists who own the means of production. They are faced by the wage earners who are forced to sell their labor power. Many workers today are isolated, discouraged, and full of capitalist political ideas and filled with capitalist prejudices. Nevertheless, only the wage earners through strikes and other collective forms of struggle can bring the capitalist mode of production to a halt and hit the capitalist class at the critical point, their profits. Capitalism in its neoliberal phase after the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91 is politically and militarily on the rise world wide. The working class of the European countries is subject to massive social attacks. Trade unions and social democratic parties are unable to oppose this, but are perfectly integrated into the system. Their representatives participate in cutting public services and creating racist divisions. The Green Parties are not an alternative, they are bourgeois parties, some of which have a progressive rhetoric on human rights issues, but, where they participate in government, show that they are part of the normal capitalist state. The different imperialist blocs are arming themselves. The imperialist global player is still the United States. But the EU is trying to downsize the military gap with the United States and is also more and more acting as a militarily independent bloc. In contrast, we support the resistance against imperialist wars and occupations and combine this with the slogan: The main enemy is at home. To secure its domination, capitalism is (also) using and fostering the division of the working class. We are fighting against the oppression of people because of their ethnicity, gender, age or sexual orientation and we oppose these divisions with the unconditional support of every fight for equal rights. We are for the socialization of large corporations and their transformation into co-operatives under democratic workers management and control. Capitalism can not be eliminated by a few votes or parliamentary reform. All attempts to overcome capitalism through reforms have failed (and have often led to bloody defeats). Only a fundamental upheaval, a revolution based on the active participation of large segments of the population can destroy the state of the ruling class, eliminate the bases of inequality, oppression and exploitation and create a free society. We are Marxists and follow in the tradition of the left opposition against Stalinism by Leon Trotsky. Our alternative is socialism. Our socialism is a free, democratic society built on elected councils. We refer positively to the Russian October Revolution of 1917. This revolution has indeed failed in the Stalinist degeneration in the twenties, but the idea of an alternative to capitalism retains its validity. Our socialism has thus nothing to do with the social democratic parties, or with the Stalinist dictatorships in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba and China. Capitalism is internationally organized and networked. Therefore, our revolutionary alternative has to be international and internationalist. The RSO is not the revolutionary party. None of the currently existing organizations can claim that for themselves. A new revolutionary party will emerge from a process of transformations and mergers. The RSO will try to play a positive role in this process to build such a party and therefore put forward a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. If you are interested in this project, then get in contact with us and support us in building a revolutionary and socialist organization!

The Police: An Institution of Corruption and Racism

That is not to say that every single police officer should be deemed corrupt and untrustworthy. A lot of coppers are in the police force because they honestly want to fight crime. However, they blindly and unquestioningly follow the instructions of the man above them, and that man does the same. At the end of this chain of command is the least trustworthy of all; the capitalists. They dont bring in the police force to protect the public from harm, but to protect the capitalist from the public. If you find yourself questioning any of this, ask yourself why the police were linked to a blacklist of construction workers linked with left wing activity? Why have similar lists been circulating in Britain since (and possibly before) 1919? If we try to improve the situation in our workplaces, we are threatened with joblessness. If we protest to show our discontent, we are threatened with violence. We are not given equality, nor can we ask for it, so what is left but to take it?

etween the rise in allegations of racial abuse and the news that some officers have been taking bribes, more people are starting to realise the police do not protect us. Recently, the thin veil of justice and morality the police force use to hide behind has been ripped away, to reveal a very sinister image of the police force.
Four of the Metropolitan Polices officers were recently found to be taking bribes equalling 20,000, one of the men even served in the anticorruption unit. This is not the only corruption scandal to hit the papers in recent months, with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) also investigating allegations regarding officers accepting payments from journalists as part of the phone-hacking scandal. Alongside allegations of corruption come reports of racism within the police force with the recent case of PC Alex MacFarlane being recorded racially abusing 21-year-old Mauro Demetrio. This caused a string of similar cases to be brought to light, causing a race scandal in early April. Not only do cases emerge of racism, but all kinds of discrimination such as sexuality, religion and gender. What is terrible about these cases is not only their nature, but the fact that they rarely result in any form of discipline beyond a written warning or re-training. The result of a recent investigation by the IPCC shows that these cases are not just a result of a few rogue officers. The IPCCs recent statistics reveal over 8,500 cases of corruption reported over three years, but only thirteen officers were prosecuted and found guilty. Despite this glaringly obvious proof of police corruption, deputy chief constable Bernard Lawson attempts to blame the actions of a few corrupt officers which he says can corrode the great work of so many working hard daily to protect the public.

Working at Pizza Hut: A Workers Story

see the manager together. After being cornered by a significant number of his staff he agreed to give us all a raise and from then on we were paid 5.92 an hour. Things got worse as the recession started to hit and management was tighter on money. Double pay when working bank holidays was quietly revoked in about 2008. The manger also started putting less staff on to work shifts so instead of five people working the kitchen on a Friday night there would be three. The time for breaks was cut from 30 to 20 minutes and the company became stricter about what food we were entitled to. From my work I learned that workers can only achieve something in the company when they stand together. It also occurred to me how easy it would be to efficiently provide decent food cheaply to the thousands of people who came in rather than in the wasteful way it was done for profit, if only we workers would organise the kitchen ourselves.

started working in the kitchen of a Pizza Hut the day before my 16th birthday. It was a trial shift for which I was not paid, where I had to prove my worth-fullness to the company. I had to impress them by efficiently moving frozen pizza discs from the large cardboard boxes in the freezer, where they were kept, into oiled pans. Obviously I was judged to have completed the job to a sufficient standard as I was offered a job as back of house staff for which I would be paid 4.77 per hour.
until wed get out normally at about 11.30pm. This was before the economic crisis began in 2007 and the pizza hut was next door to the main cinema in town so it was doing roaring trade. Gradually I learnt the rest of the jobs in the kitchen and as I was working almost entire weekends and most busy evenings I thought I was entitled to be on the same money as the older members of staff who did the same job. At first I went to the manger to ask for a rise on my own but after being turned down I spoke with two of the other part timers in the same position as me and we went to

I was studying for my A-levels at the time so the job was only supposed to be part time but as the manger was reluctant to hire more full time older staff, who would more likely be on the 5.92 hourly rate, he ended up rotaring on us younger part timers for more hours. So I was regularly working 30 hours at pizza hut whilst also studying full time at sixth form. For the first six months I was mostly assigned to doing pot wash so Id get home from school at about 4pm get changed and have to get to work for 5pm. Id then wash plates and pans for the evening

What goes UP must not come DOWN

henever the rich capitalists defend their system they tell us the fairy tale of social mobility. This is the myth, that with a bit of hard work everybody can move up and become someone themselves. A recent survey has once again brought to light how little this myth corresponds to reality. Britain has the lowest level of social mobility in the developed world, meaning there is a glaring gap between the opportunities presented to the richest and those presented to the poorest parts of our society. This clearly indicates the growing inequality in our society, which serves to further solidify the social structure and decrease the chance of upward mobility.
The statistics on social mobility in Britain are utterly shocking. Highly paid jobs or positions of power and importance are invariably dominated by the rich and privately educated; they make up 32% of MPs, 51% of top Medics, 54% of FTSE100 Chief Executives and top journalists and an incredible 70% of High Court Judges. Bearing in mind they make up only 7% of the population this hegemony over key positions is deplorable. The fact that, while one in five children in Britain is on free school meals, only one in 100 Oxbridge entrants are, shows that those from rich backgrounds have a much better chance of being rich than those coming from poorer backgrounds. The incredible difficulty that those from poorer backgrounds face in improving their conditions and opportunities is not a coincidence. It is the natural consequence of a system that serves to protect the rich and their wealth, as they endeavour to make even larger profits for themselves, the poor will always remain poor. It is no coincidence that running parallel to the problems of social mobility is social inequality. The two social indicators are inexorably tied together, as social mobility becomes worse the gulf between

the rich and the poor is widened. The richest 10% in Britain earn 12 times more than the poorest 10%, making Britain one of the most unequal societies in the developed world. This situation is a result of a sustained effort by the ruling class to ensure their position of privilege as their interests preside over those of the working class. However the situation is going to get worse much more quickly as the full extent of the governments austerity measures come into effect. With massive public sector cuts, welfare cuts and the hike in tuition fees Britains society will undoubtedly become even more unequal. In Britain we have to face the fact that the youth of today are growing up in a world where their opportunities in life are more affected by the home they were born into than their ability, where the poor strive to improve their conditions while the rich race off into the sun set. The interest of the ruling cannot and will not match those of the working class and while they enjoy power over our society we will never be able to end the social struggle.

Contact: If you want to know more about the Revolutionary Socialist Organisation, check out our English website: www.revolutionarysocialism.blogspot.com or e-mail us at: revolutionarysocialist@gmx.com or just simply talk to the person who sold you this paper.