Weekly Worker 892 Thursday December 01 2011
Marx's spectre haunts the wealthy and powerful
The ruling class has no workable strategy for rescuing the system, argues Hillel Ticktin
The depression - called some years ago the 'third great depression' following on the long depression at the end of the 19th century and the great depression of 1929 onwards - is now official, as it were. Martin Wolf ’s recent article in the Financial Times produced a series of statistics showing that the present downturn has already lasted longer than previous downturns in the last century. His arguments are, of course, statistical and bound within orthodox economics, even if he leans to a moderate Keynesian analysis.[1] [read more]
LettersSlipped up; Build it; Inept Stalin; Betrayal; Distorted; 30 years behind; Tribune; Unrepresented; Bet on war;
Forging unified class action
Dave Vincent reports on the build-up to the big public sector strike
ULA must take itself seriously
Anne McShane argues that the United Left Alliance must take a lead
Out to roll back the revolution
The military and the Muslim Brotherhood are only temporary allies, argues Eddie Ford
Left rhetoric and reformist illusions
The 1891 Erfurt programme adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany was regarded as a 'return to Marxism', writes Ben Lewis. If only the same could be said of Die Linke's 2011 version
Zig-zagging social imperialists
What determines the Alliance for Workers' Liberty line is its support for 'democratic imperialism', writes socialist blogger Arthur Bough
Pushed as far as we will go
David Douglass reviews Keith Pattison and David Peace 'No redemption: the 1984-85 miners' strike in the Durham coalfield' Flambard Press, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2010, pp104, £20
Nothing to contribute
The Durban conference on climate change is likely to be even more useless than its predecessors - James Turley argues it is time to serve notice on capital's stewardship of the environment
Alternative
Roobie Rix reports on a good month for the fighting fund
Weekly Worker 892 is available for download as a pdf file.
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Alternative
Roobie Rix reports on a good month for the fighting fund
George Osborne’s autumn statement on November 29 merely confirmed what everyone knew - Britain’s economy is stagnating, its debt is increasing and most people are getting worse off. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, by 2016 the average family will have less disposable income than 10 years earlier. It’s a marvellous system, capitalism, isn’t it?
And, of course, the answer is … more of the same. A one percent cap on public sector salaries, for instance, following a two-year pay freeze. And the removal of £2 a week in child tax credit. But, as the November 30 strike proved, increasingly workers are no longer willing to put up with the austerity assault. What they need now is, yes, encouragement, but most of all a political alternative.
Almost uniquely on the left the Weekly Worker not only tells the truth about what that alternative must be. We also demand that the left looks at itself honestly, admits to its impotence and takes steps to overcome the debilitating sectarianism that has kept us in separate grouplets, leaving our class without a vehicle to advance its own independent interests.
To keep putting out that message this paper needs to overcome its own financial concerns. That is why we call on our readers and supporters to donate £1,250 every month to our fighting fund. I am pleased to say that in November we beat that target by over £200 - we raised £1,467. We have more than made up for October’s shortfall. Thanks mainly to our standing order donors, but also a nice £50 cheque from CG, an extra £203 came in over the last seven days.
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