Fighting global capitalism

Anti-capitalism, globalisation, Social Forums, sweatshops, the environment, war and terror ...

HSBC profits and bonuses soar while it vandalises society. Expropriate the banks!

UK-based international banking and finance giant HSBC has increased the “bonus pool” for its bankers by 50%, to £650m, after its profits grew more than fourfold in the second quarter of 2021. It says it may increase it further before pay-outs early next year. Last year HSBC paid 324 of its bankers more than £850,000 in salaries and bonuses, while eight received more than £4m and one more than £8m. This comes hot on the heels of HSBC being embroiled in a major international money-laundering scandal; the revelation that it was the second biggest UK financial backer of companies in the coal...

Bank workers and transforming finance

Sam Myerson, until recently a worker at one of the big banks, spoke to Solidarity . Until a few months ago I worked in IT, for one of the big six in the UK. We were a ‘global team’, working with colleagues in many countries in Europe and Asia. I did that job for six years and different jobs in the same organisation before that. I don’t think the issues we faced were unique to my company. From working with others I have the impression it is similar across the sector. A lot of the changes we had to manage were driven fundamentally by cost-cutting, by attempts to eliminate human labour from...

Iranian regime in crisis – workers fight back against neoliberalism and repression

We republish this interview with Morad Shirin of the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists' Tendency and the Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign about the current wave of strikes and workers' struggles in Iran. Originally published by the Greek socialist group Xekinima . For more see the Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign website. In Iran, for more than a month now, over 100,000 oil, gas and petrochemical contract workers in over 20 provinces are on strike and despite hundreds being sacked, the strike has spread to 115 facilities. We spoke with comrade Morad Shirin from the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’...

Get socialists organised!

What do we mean by socialism? More here The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a right-wing think tank, is mildly alarmed. It takes its new research indicating that young people are mostly sympathetic to socialism seriously, and urges supporters of capitalism not to dismiss it as “social media hype”, temporary “student radicalism” or a “passing fad which ended with Jeremy Corbyn’s resignation”. It calls its findings a “wake-up call” and a “challenge”. They are also, and even more, a challenge for socialists. The research commissioned by the IEA involved polling just under 2,000 people in the...

What is socialism?

In our editorial this week we argue to “get socialists organised”. What do we mean by socialism? We fight for emergency policies, like taxing the wealth of the super-rich and public ownership of key industries and corporations, to allow action to halt and reverse ever-greater inequality and to slow down climate change. We fight to build a stronger workers’ movement, including trade unions, to win these steps. But the wealth of the super-rich and their power to increase it are deep-rooted in the fact that they own and control the main systems for producing wealth, giving them control over the...

The G7: resistance in Cornwall

More photos below article My trip to Cornwall to demonstrate around the G7 summit (11-13 June) felt a bit like a set of concentric circles: I was part of and helping to cohere a delegation of Workers’ Liberty supporters and friends; we were seeking to imbue socialist politics, internationalism, and a working-class orientation into the wider anti-G7 movement; and that movement was challenging the G7 and the politics they represent. It was only en route towards the most southwesterly tip of this island, cutting through the darkening fog in a car-share with newly-acquainted comrades — and...

Building our solidarity against their G7

Former Labour leader Gordon Brown cites a figure of $33 billion (£23 billion) urgently needed before the end of 2021 for vaccines, virus-testing, and PPE this year, and maybe the same in 2022. That’s just 0.08% of the yearly total revenues of the G7 rich countries who met in Cornwall on 11-13 June. “Instead”, as Brown says, “they offered up about $7 billion worth of vaccines”, some 870 million doses in place of the 11 billion needed this year. They could donate more doses now through the Covax scheme, and help to build new facilities to produce and roll out vaccines, but they don’t. US...

Their G7, our global solidarity

To the picturesque seaside resort of Carbis Bay, Cornwall, on the weekend of 11-13 June, the leaders of the “G7” group of seven of the world’s richest states flock. Fossil-fuelled reboot to an even more unequal, exploitative, violent and destructive world continues. It’s building back bleaker, as vaccine nationalism and pursuit of private profit permit this pandemic to tear onwards through societies, and to compound the evils of pre-Covid capitalism. Cornwall is seen as central to the UK’s green tech sector, so the choice of location is an attempt to flaunt green credentials. But a thin one...

Plutocrat philanthropy and workers' rights

Andrew Forrest is an Australian mining magnate and billionaire who set up a foundation with the seemingly benign purpose to “end modern slavery in our generation”. But as with Bill Gates and his philanthropic foundation , all is not what it seems. In spite of his lobbying for patents and intellectual property, Bill Gates has actually helped some people in the global south get vaccinated. Forrest’s advocacy does very little to alleviate the material conditions which make modern slavery, namely poverty. Within Australia, Forrest’s chief lobbying has been for controls and limits on welfare...

"This is about the kind of world we want to live in"

Ali Treacher is a care worker, Unite the Union activist and workplace rep, and Secretary of the Care and Support Workers Organise! network (CaSWO!) She is also a supporter of Anti-Capitalist Resistance . She spoke to us about care workers' fight. CaSWO! has been meeting throughout the last year, since the start of the pandemic, after a Unison-organised call which brought together care workers around issues like workplace health and safety and PPE. The initial focus was basically offering each other solidarity and advice and sharing information. Government guidelines were so vague that we had...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.