A year after the "fair tips" law, restaurant workers are still being robbed

In December last year, I commented on how changes in the law on tips paid to service sector workers hadn't prevented abuse by employers. This remains an ongoing issue, and has recently sparked protests from members of Unite the Union a year after the ineffectual change in the law.

The Brighton Solidarity Federation offers a fuller report and analysis;

The beginning of October saw the first anniversary of a change in the law designed to give waiters 100% of their tips. It was brought in because many café and restaurant owners were routinely taking advantage of a loophole in the law which allowed them to use their workers’ tips towards the wage bill. Despite being rewarded by customers with extra money for their hard graft, waiters were being paid only the minimum wage by unscrupulous managers.

The then Labour government, prompted by campaigns by Unite the Union, passed the law on 1st October 2009. But one year on, there are still problems front of house. According to Dave Turnbull of Unite, “There are still too many employers who regard tips as a subsidy for low pay and who see the tips and service charge money left by customers as a pot of cash to which they are free to help themselves.

“Unite members working in restaurants, hotels and bars across the country have seen establishments increase the percentage of service charge they deduct from their pay packets.”

Unite’s response to this is to propose further campaigns to get the government to act to put pressure on employers. Some of their members protested outside the Business Department last week, supported by no less than John Prescott, famous ex-shop steward and waiter in the merchant navy – now Lord Prescott.

However, what this demonstrates is the fact that the law is a paper tiger. For a year now the law has demanded that waiters get all of their tips – but employers know that they can find ways to get around it. The law also says that workers must be paid in full for work done – but as the Solidarity Federation has learnt recently rogue employers in Brighton are ignoring this and using the recession as an excuse not to pay up.

No amount of pleading to the government will change this situation. The only sure way of getting what we are legally entitled to is to demand it directly from our bosses in our own workplaces. Workers facing this kind of threat to their livelihoods need to stand together to demand their full wages and tips. This should be backed up with the threat of industrial action appropriate to the situation.

Brighton SolFed offer support to workers in their area looking to enact such threats, and they are not the only group willing to give a hand to workers trying to organise for the first time. The Industrial Workers of the World are also worth contacting, offering a wealth of knowledge, and experience to fellow workers in struggle.

Now, more than ever, we need to build a culture of solidarity across the working class, so that when the ruling class mess with one of us, they’re messing with all of us.

Why unemployment is not caused by worker organisation

In a 2003 paper (PDF) for the London School of Economics, Christopher A Pissarides argued that "the decline of trade union power" is one of the reasons for falling unemployment in Britain. Seven years later, this has been dredged up with much glee by the "Libertarian" blogosphere.

The Devil's Knife sums up the basic reasoning behind this;

Unions, in this day and age, exist to do only two things: inflate wages and protect their members' jobs (regardless of ability or need).

High wages reduce the number of jobs that are created—especially as technology becomes cheaper—and making it difficult to sack people not only means that jobs can be occupied by those who are not best suited to them, but also reduces the willingness of employers to take people on in the first place (thus reducing the available jobs).

This isn't exactly rocket science, is it?

It's not rocket science, indeed. But then it's not a science at all - it's economics, which is the business of blinding people to the obvious to suit the interests of certain classes.

I have already, previously, torn down the Devil's argument that worker organisation has no place or purpose in the present day. It is, quite simply, an absurdity and I feel no need to labour the point here. Suffice to say that workers, without organisation, face only a race to the bottom.

In fact, you will find this by going back to the writings of Adam Smith. Whilst workers "are disposed to combine in order to raise" wages, bosses are equally disposed to combine "in order to lower the wages of labour." More than that, "the masters can hold out much longer" than the workers if employment ceases. They can exist "upon the stocks which they have already acquired" from the labour of others.

The difference is that, in Smith's time, there was "a certain rate below which it seems impossible to reduce, for any considerable time, the ordinary wages even of the lowest species of labour." The "wages must at least be sufficient to maintain" the workforce.

With the advent of cheap credit, that is no longer the case. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (PDF), "a couple with two children needs [to earn] £29,200" in order "to afford a basic but acceptable standard of living." But many don't earn that. And many more have to work multiple jobs and live hand-to-mouth in order to barely scrape that figure.

Add to that the casualisation and ever cheaper labour that comes from un-organised workers, and the idea of a level below which employers cannot reduce wages quickly vanishes. Compared to previous generations, we are working for less - and harder.

Returning to the argument that strong unions increase unemployment, this may be true to a certain extent. But if lower wages mean more jobs, at what cost does that come? Talk to those stuck in precisely the casual work that such a market creates, such as Chugging, and you will see that trapped is exactly the right descriptor to use.

They have no base wages. They have no statutory entitlements. Attempts to assert their rights or to combine will see a target on their back and their arses out the door. They endure appalling conditions, for pitiful return, and often can find nothing better because of the declining standards of work.

Is this really an acceptable alternative to unemployment? Is this really the alleged prosperity created by the free market and the employers enjoying an unopposed monopoly of force?

The idea that high wages and job security leave those not employd out in the cold is an argument put forward in the past by Milton Friedman. In Free to Choose, he argued that unionisation frequently produces higher wages at the expense of fewer jobs, and that, if some industries are unionised while others are not, wages will decline in non-unionised industries.

But, from the left, this is a point that the Industrial Workers of the World (amongst others) make - in favour of more universal organisation!

One of the major left-libertarian criticisms of craft or trade unionism is that by organising along the lines of specific crafts or trades rather than across entire industries it creates a two-tier workforce and improves conditions for one group of workers only at the expense of another.

The alternative to this is not to get rid of organisation and equalise everything with a race to the bottom. That only benefits the bosses and makes the problem more acute.

Rather, the answer is to organise workers as a class, to unite everyone in any given industry under the same banner, and to challenge the broader injustices of the wage labour system. Rather than defending one insider group to the detriment of everybody else.

Part of which would involve pushing for greater investment and employment, both inside the workplace and outside through the organisation of the unemployed, to challenge exactly that issue.

But none of this increases the power and privilege of the ruling and propertied class, and so you won't here the right-wing (least of all self-styled "Libertarians") arguing for it. As Adam Smith noted so long ago, the combinations of the masters go unremarked upon, viewed as entirely natural, whilst the combination of workers is derided and scorned as the physical manifestation of evil or madness.

Unemployment is the product of an economic system built on theft and artificial scarcity. Those who would have us believe that combining to challenge that system is the real fault do so only because of ideological dogma. And, to be frank, they can fuck right off.

Putting a new spin on "bank robbery"

Via Ann Arky, who tips her own hat to Politics in the Zeros, I today came across this truly astounding story from the States;

In yet another sign that the foreclosure crisis in the US may be getting out of hand, a Florida woman has gone to the press about having her home broken into -- by an agent of her mortgage bank.

Nancy Jacobini of Orange County, Florida, says she was three months behind on her mortgage payments, but not in foreclosure, when she heard an intruder breaking into her home. 

Panicked, she called 911 and spent 10 nervous minutes on the phone with a dispatcher only to discover that the intruder was an agent of her mortgage company, JPMorganChase, who had come to change the locks on her home.

"Someone is breaking ... somebody broke into my house!" a frightened Jacobini can be heard saying on a 911 tape obtained by WTFV channel 9 in Jacksonville.

Now, I'm hardly a legal expert, but I know for a fact that this was an illegal act not only on the part of the burglar, but also the bank that hired them.

In Britain, even with a repossession order, bailiffs cannot force entry into your home. They must be invited or go through an open door or window. In America, I don't know if that same protection applies. But certainly, when a home is not in foreclosure and there is no possession order, they have no right to be there.

As Politics in the Zeros comments, "it’s getting so hard to tell the difference between organized crime and bankers now."

The solution recommended by Tickerguy is to "buy guns." He points out that in such a situation, many Americans "have every right under the law to stop him, up to and including the use of deadly force." I'm not sure I'd go that far, but there certainly is a case for greater community self-defence.

To cite a point I've made previously;

Groups such as Neighbourhood Watch are nothing more than gatherings of curtain twitchers, thinking they can make a community safer by putting stickers on lamp posts or acting as killjoys towards local kids. But there is no reason that people couldn't organise their neighbourhood along more radical lines, resisting thugs and repelling burglars without treating all kids as villains or getting embroiled in "keeping up with the Joneses" nonsense. Likewise, we need to advocate a defence of posession rather than or private property, recognising that defending your home and attacking private property are not oppositional acts but both a part of working class self-defence.

If we've reached the point where banks are willing to hire people to break into your home before they can lawfully repossess it, then this argument only becomes more urgent.

Graduate tax off, but students still about to be screwed

Back in July, business secretary Vince Cable proposed to solve the problem of tuition fees with a graduate tax. Needless to say many, including my other half, thought this another way of pricing the poor out of higher education. Now, it seems that the government has responded to this feeling.

However, as so often in politics, the good news is just sugar-coating for the bad;

Vince Cable has admitted the government will not make any move towards a graduate tax to fund universities.

Tory and Lib Dem members are to receive an e-mail explaining the decision in a move that will be seen as preparing the ground for a hike in tuition fees.

Lord Browne's review of fees in England is expected to recommend more than doubling fees to about £7,000 a year.

Yes, because lord knows that students don't come out of university in enough debt as it is. The figure is currently set to reach an average of £25,000 per student, and will only grow exponentially as fees are hiked up.

We should add to that the fact that it is especially low-paying and casual jobs, i.e. those frequented by students to make extra cash, are seeing pay freezes or below-inflation rises, both of which amount to a cut in pay. Thus, whilst the money they will owe out is rising, the money they can rake in is steadily falling, which will further mount up the debts.

All of which is compounded by the fact that after university graduates are no longer able to make up for that by entering lucrative careers. Many are among the one in five workers who are trapped in low-paying employment, even long after they leave university.

This is a slap in the face to all those students who (naively) supported the Liberal Democrats for their tuition fees pledge. But it is also another example of what is really happening in the economy - with universities dragging more money out of students whilst cutting what they can get in return. The only beneficiaries of this will be those raking in the cash, as ever.

When the graduate tax was announced, the National Union of Students urged a "critical mass" to mobilise against the fees as "the arrogance of vice chancellors and the supine response of spineless politicians in the Labour and Tory parties must not go unchallenged."

But this is not just about students, as employees of the universities are affected by the same cuts. This is, in fact, a microcosm of the wider class struggle, wherein the interests of the workers and of the broader community don't simply overlap: they are virtually identical. It could also provide a model for how workplace and community resistance could work in tandem.

University staff need to get behind the students and support their actions, especially more radical ones such as occupations. At the same time, students must refuse point blank to cross a single staff picket line. It is only with solidarity, and coordinated militancy, that any victory can be won.

"National interest" - the salad dressing for class warfare

In his speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham today, David Cameron invoked a chestnut much beloved of governments and political leaders. "The national interest." Meant to rally the people in the spirit of nationalism, it becomes the totem behin which injustices lie.

The injustice in the present, of course, being the cuts agenda and the ramping up of the class war. But as so many face increased hardship, we need to bear it with "broad shoulders."

Or as the slogan-ridden rhetoric would have it;

So come on – let's pull together. Let's come together.

Let's work, together, in the national interest.

Which is rich, coming from a smug bastard whose wife can afford to ponce around in a £750 Paul Smith dress. If "those with broader shoulders should bear a greater load," why are people on benefits affected at all? And where is Cameron's pay cut?

This is yet more inane, infuriating drivel from the man who coated concessions to private tyranny in the language of the libertarian left with his "Big Society."

On which subject, Cameron patronises us with "the spirit that will take us through" to that Society;

It's the spirit of activism, dynamism, people taking the initiative, working together to get things done.

Sometimes that spirit gets taken a little too far. I got a letter from a six-year-old girl called Niamh with a pound coin stuck to it. And there was a note from her mum, which said: "Dear Mr Cameron ... after hearing about the budget, Niamh wanted to send you her tooth fairy money to help."

There we are, George – nearly there. Niamh: thank you.

Niamh Riley is, alas, very real. And she - or rather, her parents on her behalf - really did send David Cameron £1 in a card to "make the country better and pay for jobs."

Aside from being cringeworthy to the nth degree, this demonstrates exactly the kind of misinformation the public are receiving about what's going on. Cameron had to send back the pound because of strict rules on accepting donations to Number 10. But if he hadn't, it wouldn't have been spent to save jobs.

Indeed, part of the problem we face is that - after spending billions to prop up institutions to prop up institutions which created the present crisis by gambling with a bubble non-existent money - the government are unwilling to spend any money to keep the real economy afloat. The consequences of which can be seen in the utter fiasco now faced by HM Revenue & Customs.

Our pay will freeze, our jobs will go, our benefits will be cut, and our services will crumble. Meanwhile, the amount we pay in tax will increase with the VAT rise. And the profits and bonuses for those at the top will continue to grow.

The problem isn't that there isn't enough money to invest in jobs and "make the country better." It's that, with socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor, those in power don't want that.

When David Cameron tells us that "your country needs you," the next three words (unspoken) are "to bend over." The "national interest" is nothing but short-hand for the interests of the ruling class, which are served at the expense of everyone else. It's time we came together against that.

Industrial action and the law

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has added his voice to that of the CBI's calling for tougher laws governing strike ballots. This comes as a second 24-hour strike grips the London Underground, and it is a perfect demonstration of everything that is wrong with class struggle in this country.

Of course, it is only natural that employers and politicians want to reduce the power of the working class to resist them. Indeed, those that didn't quite simply wouldn't last very long in their positions.

As such, it's a lost cause pointing out the hypocrisy of the proposals. Applying Boris's wish that "unless at least 50% of union members in a workplace take part in a ballot" there can be no strike to political ballots would see us without a parliament or a mayor for London. But even if there a way to do so, reaching him with this point would not see him change his mind.

Likewise, the CBI "wants a minimum of 40% of union members balloted to be in favour of a strike." Applied consistently, we could ask why no democracy whatsoever exists on the management side of industrial relations. But this would not for a second make them reconsider their position.

The fact is plain to see that the laws currently in place for strikes are unneccessarily restrictive. And that, whatever their flaws, workplace ballots offer workers a chance to make the decision for themselves rather than (as in parliament) simply choose somebody else to make that decision for them. Because being able to withdraw your labour when unhappy with working conditions is a fundamental right.

But, as far as the bosses are concerned, the rights of the employer and proprietor should match those of a monarch. If we can think, organise, and act in our own interests, then we are violating their "property rights." On the right, liberty needs property, and those without property can be denied liberty.

This is why responding to the persistent attack on hard-won rights by appealing to their sense of reason is a lost cause. Concessions are not handed down from above out of good will.

It is for this reason that, though offered with the right intentions, the Lawful Industrial Action Bill will not address the issue at hand. In the first instance, its main purpose is to prevent employers from using the courts to block strike action "on minor technicalities." This may put an end to the recent trend of strike bans, but doesn't address the bigger hurdles that Boris and the CBI want to strengthen.

Secondly, it is a bill that never even emerged in 13 years of Labour government, and is unlikely to pass under a Tory one. Cynicism suggests that its purpose isn't even to become law, but to rebuild the old myth of Labour being a party for the working class.

Not to mention that it will be the subject of intensive lobbying by exactly such groups as the CBI.

If we need to affirm how out of touch with even the basic principle behind a strike, we need only turn to CBI deputy director-general John Cridland. He believes that it should "be business as usual, even during a strike." And so "firms must be allowed to hire temps ... to provide emergency cover."

He offers the caveat that "workers have the legal right to withdraw their labour," clearly thinking that conceding that whilst returning to the early 20th century practice of bussing in scabs to break strikes is an acceptable compromise for both sides. Which in effect proves the IWW's point that "the working class and the employing class have nothing in common."

We cannot appeal to the ruling class's sense of reason. Any legal actions, even if effective in the short-term, will act only as a stop-gap in the face of the long term onslaught of the class war.

If we really want to end repressive anti-strike measures, and to stop the business lobby in their efforts to roll back every hard won right and privilege of the last 150 years, there is only one conclusion. We need to break their laws and stand together in struggle - no matter what they throw at us.

From anarchism in Manchester to fighting fascism in Liverpool, reflections on an interesting day

As I mentioned in a previous post, today I went to the Anarchist Bookfair in Manchester, as well as a PCS anti-cuts demonstration nearby. Meanwhile, the BNP returned to Liverpool City Centre. Luckilly, I caught the end of that particular event - and it was little short of epic.

The Bookfair was a fairly laid-back event. Lots of groups and lots of comrades were present, the aim being to promote solidarity and the ideas of anarchism.

As well as stalls containing books, pamphlets, and merchandise from various organisations - Solidarity Federation, Anarchist Federation, Class War, The Commune, The IWW, Manchester Anti-Fascist Alliance, etc - there were a variety of interesting talks on. It also offered, as I mentioned in the week, a reprieve from activism whilst still being around people of like mind.

The only downer was that whilst there I learned of the BNP being in Liverpool. I rang around a few others to spread the word, but being so far away was frustrating to say the least.

The PCS demonstration was also something of a muted affair. There were a number of speakers including a rather interesting socialist rapper and (shamefully) a Labour councillor. But it was more about encouraging people to get involved and doing something than making a scene, which was good.

Taking a leaf from that book, I took the opportunity to hand out free copies of Catalyst, and make the argument to my fellow PCS members for a more radical, i.e. anarcho-syndicalist approach.

Though, in hindsight, referring to Mark Serwotka as a "bloated bureaucratic gasbag" may have been far too inflammatory a closing remark. I stand by the point within it, but occasionally passion (not to mention a couple of pints) numbs my sense of tact and diplomacy. Oh well.

I got off the train to Liverpool at quarter to six, and headed into town to see if the fascists were still around. What I saw was truly astounding to behold.

Two weeks ago, when the BNP tried to hold a stall in the City Centre, they were met with spontaneous resistance from over 200 people, more considering that people came and went during the day. As a result, last week they retreated to their comfort zone in Huyton, but today they tried once again to claim the streets of Liverpool for the far-right. What a mistake that was.

As two weeks before, phone calls and text messages saw local antifascists mobilise in opposition. And once again, their ranks were swelled by great swathes of the public, particularly young people.

However, today far eclipsed the events of a fortnight ago, and the police were unable to prevent the fascists from being entirely surrounded and blocked from public view.

Earlier on in the day, activists from Liverpool Antifascists gave out several thousand leaflets to largely receptive passers-by. Some people did angrily reject the leaflets - only to come back and apologise when they realised they weren't BNP!

They also received genuine thanks from people, especially those from ethnic minorities, for the work we were doing. 

There was some trouble later in the day when fireworks were thrown. One exploded on the BNP's stall table, collapsing it. Another exploded within the ranks of antifascists. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured. BNP "super-activist" Peter Tierney hurt his foot, though given that he attacked an antifascist from behind with a camera tripod, we find sympathy difficult.

The thrower of the fireworks, a silly and incendiary act which I could have gotten any number of innocent people hurt, was not identified.

 

The BNP, however, were on top form.

Their activists got in the faces of teenagers and youngsters, with Andrew Tierney at one point breaking ranks to chase a young girl, only to be physically restrained. One fascist shoved a man holding his young daughter in has arms. And Jamie Luby was seen telling the same young girl to "find him in O'Neill's" if she wanted to fight him.

Most telling of all, however, was Andrew Tierney's threat that - because an unknown individual had thrown fireworks (one at antifascists, we hasten to add) everyone who opposed the BNP was now "fair game."

Organiser Mike Whitby also promised that when they took pictures of those opposing the BNP, they would end up "on a site far worse than Redwatch."

This shows that the BNP have far from outgrown their violent roots, and that they are still more than willing to intimidate and attack opponents. As Peter Tierney, of course, showed us when he picked up that camera tripod.

But the threats didn't work on local people. Even children, some no older than eleven, stood up to the thugs. At one point, they jumped on a raised podium to block Andrew Tierney's view of the girl he had been shouting at when he tried to take a picture of her.

Eventually, the BNP gave in, packed up and loaded their propaganda into two cars, to much jeering. But this time, people did not simply watch them go. Motivated by the success of the day, and antagonism from the fascists, people surrounded the police and the cars and literally ran them out of town.

This really was one of the best things I have ever seen, and it made my day. It also demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that militant direct action is the greatest weapon against fascism.

The myth of "the cuts that aren't cuts"

In timely fashion, the Devil's Knife has proved my point about the authoritarian tendencies of the "libertarian" right with a post called "Time to kill the unions." He opens the post with something else common across the right: the idea that talk of cuts is being blown out of all proportion.

He links to the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) - a think-tank which has nothing to do with the real Adam Smith - who tell us why we should "take a deep breath, look at the numbers, and then calm down."

In their own words;

the government's proposed cuts are pretty small beer. In nominal terms, spending will rise every year. In real terms (assuming 2 percent a year price inflation) this equates to small cuts in 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14, followed by small rises in 2014-15 and 2015-16. Compared to the c.60% real terms public spending rise that took place under the previous government, this is, frankly, insignificant.

...

What the coalition's spending plans really amount to is a five-year, real terms freeze of current expenditure, combined with three years of significant falls in capital expenditure. The overall impact of that is a a very small, real terms drop in TME [Total Managed Expenditure] (roundabout 1.5%) between now and 2015-16.

Although "you would be forgiven for thinking that the coalition government's planned public spending cuts are every bit as swingeing as the BBC would have us believe," the "fuss the unions are making" blows things out of all proportion.

So there's no need to go jumping out of windows just yet. Or so the ASI and DK would have us believe.

The main problem with the ASI's figures is that they'll go tits up with the comprehensive spending review. This is where the bulk of cuts come in, with a target of 25 - 40% reductions.

Before that arrives, we have promises of 800,000 claimants being thrown off incapacity benefit and £4bn being cut from the welfare bill. Cuts in housing benefits put 200,000 people at risk of homelessness, at a time when construction of social housing will slump by 65%.

In the workplace, the GMB union estimates there are nearly 150,000 job losses are already in the pipeline. The Sunday Times doubles that, whilst the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development expects the final tally to be closer to 725,000. Which, of course, gives the most conservative estimate to the "fuss-making" trade union.

Compared to the stale, impersonal figures of the ASI, this paints a more credible picture because it is a human picture. The economy doesn't exist in abstract, after all.

As I noted earlier this month;

Back on planet earth, it is the real economy which produces actually existing wealth, and upon which genuine economic stability is built. After all, it is no good having vast quantities of imaginary wealth if you can't keep your family fed and clothed and a roof over your head.

But the British government (among others) want austerity. That is, they want cuts in jobs, benefits, and public services. Even within the parameters of the existing economic system, this is little short of madness.

As workers, our labour power is reduced with less of us working. As consumers, our purchasing power is diminished with less money to spend on the goods being produced. Each impacts on the other, and production and consumption are driven into a downward spiral.

Thus, the real economy contracts. The effects of this, based upon the tangible rather than on generated figures, is far more damaging than of a recession in the financial markets.

But, of course, pointing this out makes me a "deficit denier." I could probably also be labelled a union thug for recognising that people will want to defend their livelihoods. And a filthy commie for not believing in the joys of capitalism or the self-evident divinity of "the market^TM."

In which spirit, I gladly ignore the ASI's advice to "take a breath," and will continue to organise against attacks on my class. No matter how bland the number crunchers make those attacks look.

The Taxpayers' Alliance - an alliance of capitalists and scabs?

According to the Telegraph, the Taxpayers' Alliance has seen its membership grow by 70% to 55,000 people. It has also been seeking advice from FreedomWorks, a Washington-based organisation connected to the US Tea Party movement. At the least, these developments should raise a few eyebrows.

Like the Tea Party movement, the Taxpayers' Alliance is a grouping of conservative/pseudo-libertarian right-wing reactionaries. On its website, it claims to be about "committed to forcing politicians to listen to ordinary taxpayers." In reality, it represents the interests of the more privileged sectors of society and the agenda of at least one segment of the ruling class.

This is evident in the fact that the rhetoric used by the organisation - for example, on welfare reform (PDF) - is almost perfectly in tune with that used by the conservative government and the Daily Mail.

Another case in point is its attitude to trade unions. It has strongly attacked facilities time for trade union reps in the public sector, claiming that the arrangement costs taxpayers £85m per year. The potential cost-benefits, from negotiation which prevents strikes to representation which resolves disputes before they reach employment tribunals, isn't examined. Funny, that.

But, for all that, they remain another right-wing lobby group amidst many others calling for a tune to which the government is already dancing. The real problem arises when their opposition to workers and trade unionists - i.e. the real ordinary taxpayers - becomes physical. Which it is seeking to do.

In yesterday's Guardian Matthew Elliott, founder of the TPA, said this;

You could say our time has come. Take the strikes on the London underground this week and how much they annoyed and inconvenienced people. Couldn't we get 1,000 people to protest that?

Perhaps they could. They'd certainly get a lot of take up from the scabs of this world, braindead, class-traitor scumbags that they are.

This would be a great boon for the government, able to emulate America by obfuscating class war with a manufactured culture war. Thus would an army of the ill-informed take on the government by attacking their fellow workers and shoring up the state that is attacking their livelihoods.

In response, the working class need to rebuild the culture of mass participation and solidarity that once defined the labour movement. Our picket lines need to be brimming with people fighting for their livelihoods, not staffed by six "official pickets" whilst everybody else uses the "day off" to go shopping, as is often the case at present.

If we can't do that, then the emergence of a "British Tea Party" would be a crushing defeat. We cannot allow that to happen.

Some simple economics

A poll conducted by the BBC has found that six in ten people questioned were i"n favour of taking steps to reduce the deficit." No doubt, that will be enough for the government who will take this  a public "endorsement" of their programme. But, even without context, this result is hardly vindication.

It would be a surprise if the majority of people thought any other way. Before the election, all three main parties took a virtually identical line on the "need" for cuts, and the media has continually parrotted the propaganda line with consistent attacks on public sector workers in order to justify robbing the poor to pay for the rich.

With the ideological line being hammered home so consistently, it is no wonder that people believe that we need to take action to reduce the deficit. But this doesn't mean that they agree with the Tories that their basic standard of living needs to come under fire.

In fact, as the BBC found, they believe quite the opposite. Hence why "some 82% of 1,000 people surveyed were against education and healthcare cuts."

But then, these people (that is, the majority of ordinary people) are "deficit deniers." They simply don't understand economics or what's good for them. The working class need to understand that their being able to sustain themselves adequately would "set the economy on a road to economic ruin."

This is the great lie about economics that so many happily perpetuate - it is not a science, and it is not a specialist area that you have to study and understand. It is, in fact, an extremely simple thing to grasp.

What those who spend years studying it learn, in essence, is the bluff and bluster which goes into masking the subject's simplicity and keeping it out of the reach of ordinary people. Economists are little more than the high priests of capitalism.

Thus, the "deficit deniers" don't actually deny the deficit at all. We simply recognise that it is not our deficit, but the ruling class's deficit, borne of gambling and lending on the back of stolen wealth.

The working class constitute the vast majority of people on this planet, and it is from us that all the wealth of this world comes. Through our labour power as workers, we produce every necessary, valuable, or saleable product. Through our purchasing power as consumers, we drive trade and give money its value.

This is the real economy. But whilst the workers drive it, on the back of our labour it feeds a small minority of parasites in the top strata of society: the capitalist class.

The capitalist class punch above their weight because, right back to the feudal era, the monopoly of violence enjoyed by the state has enforced the illusory "right" of private property, allowing the few to control the wealth of the world and claim dominion over those who produce it.

The financial markets, meanwhile, are merely the mechanism by which that class gamble with money which isn't their own, against "indicators" whose parameters they define, to multiply their wealth to entirely fictitious levels. The money being played with during the financial crisis and bailouts, for example, did not exist until central banks declared that it did and "injected" it into "the economy."

All that the "stability" of banks and the financial markets, much vaunted as the basis of economic security, guarantees is the ability of the ruling class to create money out of thin air.

Back on planet earth, it is the real economy which produces actually existing wealth, and upon which genuine economic stability is built. After all, it is no good having vast quantities of imaginary wealth if you can't keep your family fed and clothed and a roof over your head.

But the British government (among others) want austerity. That is, they want cuts in jobs, benefits, and public services. Even within the parameters of the existing economic system, this is little short of madness.

As workers, our labour power is reduced with less of us working. As consumers, our purchasing power is diminished with less money to spend on the goods being produced. Each impacts on the other, and production and consumption are driven into a downward spiral.

Thus, the real economy contracts. The effects of this, based upon the tangible rather than on generated figures, is far more damaging than of a recession in the financial markets.

All of which is obvious on the basis of simple observation. Ordinary people are aware of this, even if on an unconscious level, which is why acknowledging the deficit doesn't equate to accepting the government's "fix" for it.

Propping up the financial markets at the expense of the real economy will bring down both. Maybe when that happens, the market ideologues will start listening to the deficit deniers.

The flaws in the tax system and the falsehoods of the cuts agenda

HM Revenue & Customs have revealed that their new computer system has identified discrepancies in nearly 6 million tax records. At the same time, the revelation adds to the case that, if the government genuinely wants to reduce the deficit, it is aiming in entirely the wrong direction.

According to BBC News, 4.3 million people have overpaid tax and are due a rebate, whilst a further 1.4 million have underpaid at an average of £1,500 each.

Considering that there are around 30 million taxpayers in Britain, this is actually a relatively low margin of error. Moreover, it is one caused by the change in peoples' working patterns and the routine of modern life rather than an explicit error.

As the BBC explains;

Discrepancies arise when the amounts deducted in tax and National Insurance by employers using the PAYE (Pay as You Earn) system do not match the information held on HMRC records.

This most often occurs when individuals change jobs, have more than one job at the same time, or because employers are using the wrong tax code.

Obviously, this is occuring more often now with the casualisation of labour, employment becoming less permanent or long-term, and more people having to take multiple jobs in order to survive. It is, quite simply, becoming harder to keep a roof over our heads or remain in stable employment.

As a result, "the new computer system was introduced by HMRC in 2009 to cope with changing working patterns."

A blog for computer weekly, from January, explains the changes;

Disparate tax records on the old Fujitsu-based COP [Computerization of PAYE] mainframes have been brought together on the more modern Accenture/Capgemini National Insurance Recording System (NIRS2), based at Newcastle.

Since NIRS2 holds one record on every individual in the UK, information on various employments can reside in that file.
So, for the first time, HMRC's tax officers are able to see at a glance when a person has more than one employer.

As such, the discovery of these discrepancies should be the first step towards perfecting the PAYE system and avoiding such errors and over/underpayments in the future.

But the new system was dogged by errors from the start.

Computer Weekly cites the Chartered Institute of Taxation, who tell us that "HMRC is issuing around 25 million tax coding notices this year, double the number issued last year." Which would be fine, except that "a significant proportion of these are wrong."

A month later, the BBC received word from anonymous Revenue employees on the reason for this;

Frontline Revenue staff who use the new system have told BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme how bad the problems are.

They said that the computer cannot be relied upon to generate the correct tax codes in numerous cases.

One employee - who spoke on condition of anonymity - said the situation is getting worse

"When it first started, we were all getting terribly frustrated with the new system, and we didn't know if it was us or it that was the problem," she said.

"But as it's gone on and on it's evident it's the system.

"We're waiting to see if things are put right in April.

"But none of us believe that they will be, because we've heard it all before."

Pensioners could over-pay

Another Revenue worker who deals with customer problems said more than half a million people who started claiming their state pension this tax year could automatically have too much tax deducted from their income, next tax year.

The system assumes the pension was paid for a whole tax year, rather than for part of one.

It then concludes that not enough tax has been taken, and collects it by reducing the tax code in 2010/11.

The Revenue said it has now fixed this problem and corrected affected records. However many people will have already received an incorrect tax code.

Marriage allowance at risk

The employee also said that married couples and civil partners aged 75 or more - who can still get a married couple's allowance - may find it dropped from their tax code.

"If our computer doesn't have their partner's name or national insurance number, as soon as it recodes for next year, it's taking the marriage allowance out.

"We've then got to write to these people to ask for their partner's name and national insurance number." 

In 2008, the National Audit Office predicted (PDF) that "MPPC" - the "Modernisation of PAYE Processes for Customers" - would cost £140m up to 2011, and deliver £93m savings over that period.

But the value of the savings may be exaggerated, given the volume of work that the new system has generated. It is, after all, the staff within HMRC who will be finding and issuing the over and underpayments of tax. All that the system itself can do is generate work items.

As John Stokdyk of Accounting Web notes (via the delightfully-named HMRC is Shite);

The capability to reconcile many of these discrepancies within the new system was not available until the third phase of the project in April 2010, which meant that more than 7m over- and underpayments were unreconciled when it came to run the 2010-11 annual coding exercise. These records will now be processed from August 2010, although it is not yet clear how many cases will clear automatically and how many will be left for manual working.

When the new system encountered an employee that it could not match to existing employment data, it automatically generated a new, erroneous employment record. So many new items were appearing that when HMRC processed 2008-09 data on the system, it exceeded its 12.5m capacity for open items. The 7m work items arising from 2008-09 returns had to be removed from the workflow queue rescheduled for processing in August 2010.

Thus, whilst the likes of Tim Worstall might presume that "if you’ve just automated some function you simply do not need as many people as you used to," the reality here is quite different.

He is delighted that the government can sack Revenue employees, allowing them to "go off and do something else" as he puts it. But whilst they join an ever-growing dole queue created by austerity measures, the tax affairs of those still working become ever more fucked up.

If there is a drain on resources in HMRC, then surely it senior management. They have fostered a low morale which saw HMRC score lowest of all government departments on the 2010 civil service People Engagement Survey (PDF).

As the 2009 Capability Re-Review noted;

Current efforts by the senior leadership team to tackle poor staff engagement and improve visibility and communications are not working and this is affecting the productivity of staff. HMRC has a very high rate of sickness absence.

The result is not only a decline in the health and performance in the staff, but also in the service offered to taxpayers. Since it is the staff, if anybody, who will be sorting out the records of the 6m people not paying enough tax, this doesn't bode well at all.

The sensible alternative to this mess, and the dogma of "cuts, cuts, cuts" which has brought us to this point, is to make sure that there are enough staff to get things right first time.

This would help to put the tax system right, ensuring in the future that several million people aren't faced with a tax bill they can ill afford. But it would also mean that the deficit could be addressed without having to attack the working class with job, public service, and benefit cuts.

Richard Murphy argues this point in much more depth in Tax Justice and Jobs: The business case for investing in staff at HM Revenue and Customs.

But we should be under no illusion that we can argue for such a situation using reason alone. The government's agenda is driven not just by a desire to reduce the deficit, but by an ideological need to make the working class pay for the crisis of the rich.

That is why the PCS union are leading the fight for tax justice, lobbying and campaigning for the closure of the tax gap over the closure of tax offices. It is a laudable aim, which in the short term could help countless working class people cling onto their livelihoods, and keep a roof over their heads and food on their table.

At the same time, we need to be sure that we don't lose sight of the long term. Ultimately, there is no such thing as "fair" capitalism. As long as the working class are under the heel of the state and capitalism, the welfare state is our only (weak) protection and the threat of its removal will be ever-present.

Lobbying, petitions, and campaigns such as the one for tax justice need to be the beginning of our fightback, not the end. Ultimately, our only real defence will be in direct action.

More job losses at RBS, but still no picket lines

The Royal Bank of Scotland has announced that it will be cutting a further 3,500 jobs from its technical and back office division. This comes on the back of a total 27,000 job losses since it began its restructuring plan in early 2009. Meanwhile, the company has announced profits of £1.1bn.

Needless to say, the contrast is an obscenity. Especially given that the bank has no qualms about giving those at the top individual bonuses of over £1m whilst those at the bottom are shown the door.

However, this kind of disparity - where those at the top are rewarded even for failure and those at the bottom punished even for success - is to be expected. It is a microcosm for the ideology of cuts more broadly, and part and parcel of capitalist society.

What is truly obscene is the lack of serious fightback.

Unite, the union which supposedly represents RBS workers, has issued a press release condemning the job losses;

The news that the Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut another 3,500 staff from across the UK is a horror story.

It will be a specially bitter pill for staff to swallow as RBS has decided to move some of the jobs abroad to the Far East, India and America.

Just three weeks ago staff were boosted to hear of the £1.1 billion half year profit yet today thousands of them are told that they have no future at the bank.

Unite is appalled that this 84 per cent tax payer supported institution has since 2009 - under the banner of a strategic review - cut 21,500 staff.

The scale of the cuts announced today beggars belief and staff across the country today will be left reeling from this news. We continue to see a financial services sector which thinks the skills and expertise of it's staff are a disposable asset with scant regard for the high level of service these very same staff provide to their customers.

There is nothing wrong in their assesment of the situation. It is indeed unacceptable that workers are little more than a "disposable asset" for the purpose of boosting the bosses profit.

But simply being "appalled" will not save the workers' jobs.

As I've argued many times previously, the only way to do that is by building a culture of militancy from the ground up. Solidarity, exercised in the form of direct action, is our most powerful weapon against the ruling class. Those facing job losses need picket lines, not press statements.

Global capital and the second occupation of Iraq

Much is being made of Tony Blair's memoir, particularly the section on Iraq. But the war is being treated like a part of history. US combat troops have withdrawn. Yesterday, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said that his country "is sovereign and independent." But that isn't the end of the story.

For Al Jazeera, Mark Levine makes the following observations;

Winding down the war in Iraq and removing all troops from the country is considered the most important campaign promise Barack Obama, the US president, made. So actually, withdrawing troops on schedule would be a major accomplishment, perhaps the singular accomplishment, of his presidency thus far. But it should be noted that the schedule, and the reality underlying it, belong to President Bush, his predecessor, not Obama.

It was Bush who signed the memorandum of understanding that included the August 2011 timetable for withdrawing combat troops.

It was Bush who initiated the "surge" and, most important, it was the Bush Administration which set the conditions so that when it actually came time to "leave" Iraq, most Iraqis, however grudgingly, would opt to have some permanent US presence rather than be left completely to their own devices, with no one to referee and prevent a possible return to sectarian civil war.

And this is precisely where we are today.

Combat might officially be over for most US soldiers, but the US is not likely going anywhere anytime in the near future.

It was clear as I watched the huge convoys heading out into the desert six years ago that the US was there to stay. And today, listen to the words of Iraqi Lt Gen Babakir Zebari: "If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians, the U.S. army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020."

Ryan Crocker, the former US ambassador, revealed a core American reason, or excuse, depending on your point of view, for staying. "For a very long period of time, we're going to be on the ground, even if it's solely in support of its [Iraq's] US weapons systems," he said.

This ties in with the point that I made last week, when the "withdrawal" apparently came to pass.

Yes, on paper, Iraq is now "sovereign and independent." But the malign influence of capital remains, as does the shadow of 50,000 armed troops. (Though they will apparently "only use their weapons in self-defence or at the request of the Iraqi government." Call me cynical...)

The reasons, as Levine points out, don't really need exploring. "US oil companies may not have got all the spoils they'd hoped from the US takeover of Iraq, but the US defence industry has never had it better."

And, alongside the 50,000 armed US soldiers, there are "at least 7,000 private security contractors working for the state department, and tens of thousands of American military contractors." Not to mention the "tens of thousands of foreign contractors" serving corporate interests.

These private forces - the forces of global capital - are not always brought in, as they were in Iraq, at the point of a gun. In other parts of the world, bribery, extortion, and corruption are preferred to outright war. But nonetheless, the consequence is always the same - the rich-poor gap expands exponentially and incomprehensible levels of wealth flow into private hands.

This is the direction in which "sovereign" Iraq is headed. The military occupation is over, but the corporate one has barely begun. Though it is unlikely to make the history books.

Health and safety to be attacked on the basis of deliberate misinformation

In a shock twist, an investigation by a Tory peer and veteran of the Thatcher administration has found exactly what his ideology demanded. Lord Young, has called health and safety regulations a "burden that we have to eliminate."

According to the Telegraph report;

Britain's onerous health and safety laws are stifling enterprise and may have pushed up unemployment, the peer appointed to review the legislation warned last night.

Lord Young said that small firms were spending up to a day every month ensuring they were complying with the regulations. He said that it was a “burden that we have to eliminate”.

The former Cabinet minister, appointed to review health and safety laws by David Cameron, will propose a crackdown on “ambulance-chasing” lawyers next month.

He will recommend new restrictions on adverts by claim management firms and changes to no-win, no-fee legal arrangements.

In an interview, Lord Young said: “What we have got to do with health and safety is to reduce bureaucracy. It is all cumulative and it adds to costs.”

He accused some lawyers and claim-management firms of “inciting” people to bring frivolous claims.

“There firms are inciting people to bring claims,” he said. “They are not bringing cases that will win in court, they are just looking to bring cases that will last two or three letters until the other side pays them off.

“They are factories churning out letters and it is an area of great concern. There is no magic bullet, but it is a matter of bringing these claims management firms under control.”

When Young was first appointed as David Cameron's advisor on this subject, I wrote in some depth about this. I dissected the media propaganda against "elf n safety" and explained how the Bhopal disaster was an inevitable result of exactly this kind of ideological warfare against workers' rights.

An additional point that I would make here is that Young, Cameron, and the report above all play the exact same trick - conflating "ambulance-chasing lawyers" with health and safety law.

The former do actually exist, of course. An industry has indeed emerged on the basis of "where there's blame, there's a claim." Though it hasn't taken off, and Britain hasn't developed a compensation culture, it is not entirely a figment of the right's imagination.

But this has nothing whatsoever to do with health and safety legislation. It is the work of private companies looking to turn a profit from accidents, not of the state or "bureaucracy."

The Health And Safety At Work Act (HASAW) and subsequent legislation, on the other hand, gives employers, landlords, and individuals specific duties in order to minimise risk and address hazards in the workplace. But even now, in many instances, it leaves a lot of workers without protection.

It should come as no surprise that the media and politicians are capable of such intellectual dishonesty. But with a trade union response still lacking, there is a risk that expectation has led to acceptance.

Anarchist action at the party conferences - and beyond...

In the same manner as the Radical Workers' Bloc planned for the Liberal Democrat party conference here in Liverpool, it seems anarchists in Birmingham have their eyes on the Conservatives;

As most of you know, the Tories are holding their Conservative Party Conference in October to meet with various heads of industry to define the future of our communities.

As usual our our interests are being decided by corporations such as RBS, BAES, A|D|S, G4S, ASDA / Wallmart, Tesco and the Tobacco Manufacturers Association to name but a few.

If the corporate involvement of the CPC hasn’t pissed you off enough, the Tories will be holding various champagne breakfasts, dinners and events in Birmingham to discuss cuts in spending that will negatively impact on our lives over the coming months whilst the rich and corporations continue reaping the benefits.

They talk, but what the hell do these bastards know of our struggle?

Enough! You have bitten the hand that fed you for the last time.

Fightback!

CPC Convergence Direct Action Bloc!

Sunday October 3rd 2010 from 12 noon
Birmingham

Remember all the cool kids are wearing black…

Venue / Target map…
http://snipurl.com/cpccvenuemap

Updates / Banners / Posters / Stickers
http://toffsout.wordpress.com/ (Mirrors coming soon)

Spread the word and get organised.

It is good to see anarchists taking the initiative and bringing the struggle to the streets. I only hope that, as a movement, we are able to keep our focus once the big moment in front of the cameras passes.

As I said in relation to the Radical Workers' Bloc, the point at such protests isn't to appeal to the politicians, but to our fellow workers. There we are making the case for a campaign of militancy and direct action, fighting the class war on the streets and picket lines.

Once the conferences are over, we still have to do exactly that.

Even if these events attract twenty thousand people under the anarchist banner, the red and black flags will wave for nothing if we don't follow through with our rhetoric.

When the crunch comes, we have to lead by example.

Steering the Camp for Climate Action back on course

The Camp for Climate Action 2010 is drawing to a close. Having occupied a site on the doorstep of Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) global headquarters since last Thursday, tomorrow they will be returning the basecamp to nature. So what's been achieved - and what was the point?

Firstly, it should be said that the camp was never going to bring down capitalism. That was never the point, and it would be a rare and special soul who went to the edges of Edinburgh with that idea in mind.

So why do it then? In the words of the Camp's website;

The Camp for Climate Action is a grassroots movement taking direct action against the root causes of climate change. After mobilising and helping stop the proposed third runway at Heathrow and a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth, we're growing into a mass movement reclaiming our future from government and profit-hungry corporations.

The point is not some vague and impossible goal of "overthrowing capitalism," but of challenging its advances in the present whilst drawing peoples' attention to what is happening.

The choice of RBS as this year's target is a case in point;

RBS is the UK bank that has been the most heavily involved in financing fossil fuels and corporate bad guys around the world. It took part in providing E.ON with $70 billion at the time it was looking to bust out 17 new coal and gas power plants across Europe, and underwritten $8 billion in loans to ConocoPhillips in the last three years, who apart from being active in the Peruvian Amazon are one of the biggest players in the Canadian tar sands. In fact RBS is the UK bank the most heavily involved in providing the most loans to oil companies that are extracting tar sands and in doing so trashing the climate and destroying Indigenous Communities.

Since the financial crisis, RBS has received billions of pounds of public money to keep it afloat, to the point where it is now 84% owned by the UK public. Communities in the UK are now facing years of cuts to health, education and social services as a result of bailing out the actions of irresponsible bankers. And now they are using our money to prop up the E.ONs and the Shells of this world.

Using public money to support banks in trashing the climate embodies the absurdity of the economic and political system we live in. We need to stop our money from being used to finance tar sands, coal and all fossil fuels, and we need to have democratic financial institutions that serve the needs to people, communities and sustainability rather than just lining the pockets of greedy bankers.

The only way to prevent catastrophic climatic change is to stop burning fossil fuels by leaving them in the ground and switching to the alternatives. The current growth-orientated economic system causes our society to be addicted to burning fossil fuels. In order for our species to survive we need to move beyond capitalism by radically transforming human social relations.

World leaders, Politicians and the Capitalists they serve are failing to prevent the destruction of our planet because they have a vested interest in maintaining profits through business-as-usual. The false solutions they offer (such as bio-fuels, carbon trading, carbon capture and storage, nuclear etc) serve only to "green" capitalism in the search for more growth.

Banks and finance institutions are essential to maintaining the social control of capitalism for the benefit of the ruling class. British banks such as Barclays, Lloyds TSB and RBS are also major investors in companies that extract and burn conventional and unconventional fossil fuels. While the economy is in crisis after the bailouts and austerity measures begin to bite we must ask: Why is it that elites are benefiting from the profits of destructive investments which are killing the planet all loaned with money they stole from the public in the first place?

This disastrous investment must stop because fuels such as coal and the tar sands will if fully exploited certainly lead to global climate catastrophe. The building of new coal power stations and the expansion of other polluting industries must also be stopped and existing plants decommissioned.

The exploitation of Coal, Tar sands, Oil and Gas affects the health and environments of communities the world over, often causing militarization and conflict. Many are resisting this locally and finding solidarity globally, the climate justice movement works in solidarity with these struggles against these corporations for direct community and worker control.

Direct community and worker control being not only the ultimate goal of the anarchist movement but also, as I've argued previously, the only way to seriously combat climate change. This cannot happen overnight, but only through serious efforts to educate, agitate, and organise.

Indymedia offers an overview of the camp's actions to that end;

GROWING RESISTANCE

There was a day out from Climate Camp to Cousland on 21 August to participate in Growing Resistance, an event organised by Coal Action Scotland in solidarity with Communities Against Airfield Open Cast.

Report from the Growing Resistance event.

SUNDAY STROLL TO RBS HQ

On Sunday, several hundred climate campers, including lots in 'greenwash guerilla' outfits took a stroll across the bridge from the camp and into the grounds of RBS Headquarters. Undeterred by police attempts to keep them on the climate camp side of the bridge, a large number of activists reached the RBS HQ, where it appears that balloons full of molasses (dirty oil) were catapaulted at the building, a couple of windows got broken and some activists may have got onto the roof (unconfirmed).

MONDAY DAY OF ACTION

Monday's Day of Action saw campers taking diverse actions against RBS and other connected climate criminals. Five activists were arrested following an occupation, lock-on and banner drop at the headquarters of Forth Energy in Leith, protesting against the company's plans for four biomass power stations. In Edinburgh, a giant pig delivered and spilt a large quantity of 'oil' at the entrance of oil prospectors Cairn Energy, with more sprayed onto the walls; several branches of RBS also received attention.

In themselves, these actions have done nothing but cause some inconvenience to RBS and good copy for the media. The "climate justice movement" is not a big one, and its hestures are often tokenistic. Moreover, being an extremely broad-based movement, it is unable to build momentum based on class struggle.

In short, it holds lofty and admirable goals at its core, but is doing little more than tread water.

This is not to say that actions such as Climate Camp are a waste of time and should be scrapped. Far from it. If we are to take that attitude, we might as well simply declare that we are fucked, wash our hands, and wait for disaster.

More constructively, we need to see this movement become more explicitly anti-capitalist. If that seems a strange statement, then it is down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what capitalism is.

As an article on Infoshop.org explains;

Capitalism is the name for an entire social order. It is not just an "economy." Thus, the international nation-state system is an integral part of capitalism, and has been from the very beginning. Capitalists took over the pre-existing state forms and turned them to their own ends, integrating them into their project of accumulating capital. The ability to make profit from privately owned productive properties would be impossible without the legal framework provided by governments, backed by police and military violence. Businesses and governments are in bed together, and have been for the past five hundred years (profit takers + politicians = capitalism). Yet even when a few climate justice activists do admit that capitalism has to be destroyed in order to stop global warming, they fail to note that states do too. Except for anarchists. 

Though the mission statement and press releases from Climate Camp hint at exactly this perspective, talking of the "political and economic power" that "lies at the heart of the problem," an anti-statist anti-capitalism is never explicitly laid out.

Indeed, as one commenter noted on Indymedia, "many come from an anarchist position, [but] others [come] from more mainstream (i.e. Labour, Conservative, and Liberal) positions." This limits the potential of the Camp to offer a genuinely anarchist perspective on the matter or to push for the kind of broader social movement neccesary to enact real change.

Indeed, the dilemma Adam Ford described a year ago still holds true;

The idea of a class-based transformation of society is rejected – in some cases because of righteous disillusionment with traditional forms of class struggle, in many cases because the individual is from a relatively wealthy background. When such people see impending environmental catastrophe as the number one threat to their lives, their philosophy often becomes more anti-technological than anti-capitalist. Taking this perspective to its logical conclusion, capitalism and the state wouldn’t be much of a problem if they could somehow leave people alone in ecological peace, but since they can’t, both must be overcome. But with international class-based solidarity apparently ruled out, the result is that “setting an example” (as one woman put it) becomes the main method of ideological recruitment.

This sets green and black anarchism up for its own failure. Due to the built-in ideological structures of mainstream media and the state, the example set is of using those compost toilets, getting attacked by police, and putting yourself in mortal danger on your week off. Understandably, this is not an example that many are willing to follow.

Thus, a shift in focus is needed from the "lifestyle" of the Camp to germinating the ideas behind it amongst the working class. After all;

While capitalist ideas prevail amongst the working class, invasions of power stations are less direct action and more dramatic lobbying; ultimately impotent appeals to the government to see further than the short term bottom line, something it is organically incapable of doing.

Needless to say, overcoming this point will not be easy.

As the Infoshop article notes, effective and long-lasting action "will require an unprecedented, massive, global anti-capitalist (including an anti-statist) movement." Such a thing may be beginning to emerge, but it remains in its infancy. Susceptible to easy diversion along less radical paths.

In both action and dialogue, we need to fight to ensure that doesn't happen. In short, we need to turn direct action away from gesture politics and towards pushing more long-term change.