Fighting global capitalism

Two Parliamentary committees, both headed by right-wing Labour MPs (Frank Field and Rachel Reeves) have called the UK’s big four accountancy firms to be referred to competition authorities for potential break-up. Investigating the collapse of Carillion, which made its bosses millions from taking on outsourced contracts, the MPs found that the firms supposed to audit (check) the firm’s figures were a “cosy club incapable of providing the degree of independent challenge needed”. The government, regulators and Carillion board members had often acted “entirely in line with their own personal...

The TUC has called a march and rally for 12 May under the slogan of a “new deal for working people”. There is plenty to protest about. The cuts since the 2008 crash are overwhelming. There has been a decline in real wages. The NHS has been brought to its knees. At the start of May we heard that one million more children are growing up in poverty since 2010, due to in-work cuts in benefit. Britain’s trade union movement will be a powerful partner for Labour in government, backing and fighting for policies that will surely be under attack from the capitalists, and the media. That is why 12 May...

In the last year or so, world capitalism has had its nearest approach to a general economic revival since the crash of 2008. A clutch of figures at the end of April show that the revival is very weak. Britain’s first-quarter GDP growth was reported at just 0.1 per cent. Britain’s GDP growth figure is only 1.2% during the past year, the lowest figure since 2013. The “purchasing manager’s index” for Britain’s industry was at a 17 month low in April. Across the eurozone, assessments of order books and inventories and expectations have also declined for both industry and services. Even in the USA...

On 17 March Katy Dollar of Workers’ Liberty debated Mark Pennington, Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy at King’s College London, on Socialism or the free market? Here we present extracts from their speeches. The full speeches can be listened to below Katy Dollar Capitalism has brought us progress, an explosion of technology and industry, unprecedented productivity and efficiency. It has connected globally and built human cooperation on a scale not yet known before. Markets have produced products to meet the needs of people of whom they have no direct knowledge. We have stuff...

In January 2018, US President Donald Trump cancelled a planned trip to the UK. His stated reason was that the famously unsuccessful realtor didn’t fancy the “off-location” US Embassy. But the real reason was almost certainly that Trump wanted to duck the huge wave of protest that anyone could see would meet any visit. The racist, authoritarian and climate-change-denying policies of the Trump administration stoked a storm of indignation and a series of huge rallies at the very suggestion of his visit. In mid-April 2018, Trump announced a new trip to the UK, for a “working meeting” with Theresa...

"Expectations were low as the meeting began in the Argentine capital", or so the Economist magazine reported on the latest World Trade Organisation meeting of trade ministers, in Buenos Aires on 10-13 December. "They sank even lower as it progressed. Delegates failed to agree on a joint statement, let alone on any new trade deals". Eighteen years ago, at a similar meeting in Seattle in November 1999, the WTO appeared as a manifestation of the chiefs of global capital triumphantly carving up the world. Tens of thousands of anti-capitalist protesters, trade-unionists, students, and others...

The US Congress has passed the tax-cuts scheme pushed by Donald Trump and long desired by Republicans. The Republicans say that a lot of people will get tax cuts in the short term, and that the big benefits ceded to the rich and to businesses will "trickle down" into improvements from workers. Everyone else says the tax changes are a shameless act of social larceny. The truly instructive story is about one detail. As part of his populist pitch pre-election, Donald Trump had sworn to close a particular tax loophole advantageous to hedge fund and private equity managers, "carried interest". It...

Click here to download as pdf The global credit crash of 2008 and the ensuing travails have produced delayed political effects. A shift to more right-wing, nationalist, and "identity" politics may move neoliberalism sharply to the right, or even explode it from within. The economic turmoil has also produced new life on the left, as yet on a low wattage. For those who fight for a cooperative commonwealth to replace the grey miseries of neoliberalism, or the brutalities of the more right-wing alternatives, there are three imperatives: to be inside the new left-wing surges, helping them or their...

Law professor Sol Picciotto has proposed a new approach to stop tax avoidance by transnational corporations. He spoke to Ed Maltby from Solidarity. Taxing transnational corporations already involves international agreement, based on tax treaties. The issue is, what kind of agreement? Until now, there has only been loose coordination. That's because governments like to hang onto what they call "sovereignty". This means that TNCs can play off one government against another. Current agreements mean governments compete to offer tax breaks to MNCs. Governments need stronger co-operation, but so far...

Workers at the UK′s train operating companies are facing a huge attack on their pensions due to government legislation that ends the contracting-out of the Second State Pension. The legislation means higher National Insurance contributions for both employees (1.4%) and employers (3.4%). The government has also passed legislation to help employers out with this — by allowing them to carry out annual raids on occupational pensions schemes, without even having to consult with scheme trustees. You might think rail unions would mount a robust defence against any attempts by industry employers to...