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Workers Show Their Strength

Get Organised: Strike Back!

THIS WEEK tube workers brought London to a standstill and showed the power of organised labour. The courts, the press and London Underground management could not stop the first political strike against New Labour's 'privatise everything' ideology.

Alison Hill

Lord Justice Gibbs granted an injunction to the bosses but a 90% 'yes' vote for strike action by a determined and well-organised workforce could not be overruled and the tube network was brought to a standstill.

Other workers are showing similar determination to defend their jobs and living standards. Council workers in North-West England in Knowsley and Bolton (see page 11) and Wigan are taking strike action to defend their 35-hour week agreement.

Hackney council workers in east London have already had a one-day and a three-day strike to defend jobs and services. In all these disputes large mass trade union meetings have voted overwhelmingly for strike ballots.

Along with other more localised industrial disputes, air traffic controllers, members of the IPMS union, are balloting against privatisation and Vauxhall workers are balloting for industrial action to defend their jobs.

Many workers in the public and private sectors now see they have to get organised and fight for their jobs and living standards. The union leaders are being forced to react to this pressure by organising mass meetings, demonstrations and ballots, increasingly resulting in strike action.

Many workers know what a downturn in the world economy will bring, further attacks from the bosses. And they are certainly not waiting for the general election to express their misgivings.

None of the main political parties offer anything to the working class. They all put the interests of big business first. And the first reaction of the bosses in any recession is to try and make the working class pay for the failings of their capitalist system.

The Socialist Party will be providing a socialist alternative to the ideology of the profit system at the election but workers will also attempt to transform their trade unions into fighting bodies capable of taking on the bosses.

Join the Socialist Party today to fight for jobs, services and a socialist future.

 

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Coventry University expulsion threat

Non-Payers Stand Firm

STUDENT ACTIVISTS at Coventry University have stepped up their campaign to stop the threatened expulsions of students who are not paying their tuition fees. Officially all students who have not paid by now should no longer be at the university.

Tim Lessells, Coventry University

On 1 February mass expulsions were due to take place. At the very least we expected the blocking of students from library and computer facilities to begin.

However, I still have not paid my fees and I'm writing this report on a library computer. The widespread blocking we feared has not yet happened.

This could be down to the slow administrative process, but we believe that the media attention and the pressure of our campaign may have delayed the management's sanctions for now.

However, for many students the chance to receive a higher education never began, or has just ended. Applications to university are down, and drop-out rates continue to rise.

This is because of the introduction of tuition fees and the abolition of the student grant.

The Socialist Party and Save Free Education (SFE) have argued for some time that the introduction of fees will result in a two-tier higher education system. This has been borne out now as campuses at some of the new universities are being threatened with closure after facing financial penalties because they could not attract enough students.

The reason they can't attract enough students to meet their government-imposed targets is because the intake of these new universities comes mainly from state schools.

Now the working-class students who have made it to these colleges face cuts and deterioration of their courses. At Luton, the college faces a £3 million penalty cut in its money from central government.

All the Labour cabinet gained degrees in the days when education was free at the point of use. Now they are in government they have used their power to deny us the right to free education.

Students should give Labour a hammering at the polls in the upcoming general election.

But students can't rely on voting alone to win back free education. Every major right we now enjoy has been won by mass action. The right to vote and form trade unions are good examples.

Students need to use mass action to force the government to abolish fees and restore the grant. Petitions, demonstrations, shut-downs, and the like are all good.

However, only mass non-payment will make fees unworkable and force the government to back down.

Urgent protests against the threatened expulsions to the vice-chancellor, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB. Fax: 024 7688 8083.

Solidarity messages and more information from SFE, PO Box 858, London E11 1YG. Tel: 020 8558 7947.

 

 

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The case for socialist nationalisation

WITH ONE stroke of Corus chairman Brian Moffat's pen, over 12,000 workers will lose their livelihoods once the knock-on effects of last week's steel closures work their way through the local economy.

The cutbacks aim to slash capacity as the demand for steel in the world capitalist economy slows down. This doesn't mean that there's not a need for steel production. The decrepit state of Britain's railways, schools and other infrastructure requires massive investment which could boost steel output.

But this is of little significance to Corus, which isn't concerned about making steel. The Corus board is only interested in the upward trajectory of its profit graph to its corporate shareholders.

Even Tony Blair, normally subservient to big business, the government, the Welsh Assembly and the union leaders were all treated with contempt by Corus.

In desperation, the ISTC steel union, in the absence of putting forward a clear strategy for action, have proposed a £650 million buyout of Llanwern. This will not provide a solution, but Corus rejected this from the outset saying it would hardly allow its most productive plant to be set up in competition with its remaining plants.

There is widespread support in South Wales for the idea raised by Socialist Party Wales of renationalising Corus with no compensation to the fat cats. These shareholders received a £750 million payout when the company was formed in 1998 and have seen share values jump by 10% since the announcement.

But the one word the union leaders have not allowed to cross their lips in recent weeks was the n-word, nationalisation.

Neither, predictably, has there been a whisper of nationalisation from New Labour. Tony Blair went out of his way last week to restate the safe pro-capitalist credentials of New Labour in a way Thatcher would have been proud of. He said: "The purpose of this government has been not to turn the clock back on the enterprise agenda; but to deepen it and then to correct the instability and under-investment."

But how does Labour plan to do this while there is private ownership of the means of production - capitalism?

Labour's ideologically driven, privatisation policies for the tube, air traffic control, local government and education are in turmoil. The problem for Labour is that this pro-capitalist ideology isn't working anywhere from London to Moscow to California.

The strike by London Underground workers and the threatened strike by 1,800 air traffic controllers has captured public support because privatisation is so hated.

The chaos and fat cat culture surrounding privatisation has produced a massive shift in public opinion back towards public ownership - nationalisation - of major industries. Compare the crisis-ridden privatised utilities in Britain with their state-owned counterparts in Europe, where for example train travel is cheaper, faster and safer because of massive public investment.

Public ownership, even in only one industry with all its limitations, is a step forward over private ownership. It means that production is generally planned for society's needs rather than for the profit-driven interests of the fat cat shareholders of private companies.

Amongst steel workers there is a belief that renationalisation of steel would be best but they are not yet convinced that it is a practical option to fight for it, given that neither the union leaders nor the Labour government back it.

But a mass campaign led by the organised workers in the threatened communities, linking up with the other workers who are striking against privatisation, can force this government to retreat.

But, while The Socialist opposes privatisation of public services and calls for nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy we believe this should not be the old-style capitalist nationalisation of the past, where isolated state-controlled industries became milch cows for capitalism.

Instead, we argue for socialist nationalisation with workers' control and management and a proper plan of production based on need not profit. This would guarantee sufficient investment to protect jobs and ensure modern working conditions. That is the only way working-class people can end the "instability and under-investment" of the capitalist market.

 

 

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Solid Tube strike tells bosses - no sell off!

THE TUBE strike in London on 5 February was a massive step forward in our fight against tube privatisation. Even the London Underground (LUL) propaganda machine could claim only an 8% service. To all intents and purposes, the network shut down.

Bill Johnson, RMT member, London Underground

Lord Justice Gibbs tried to ban it; the Evening Standard and Metro newspapers lied about it and management tore down union notices and intimidated staff in a desperate effort to undermine our action.

RMT members ignored his Lordship's flagrant political judgement against our union. This judgment ruled that a 90% yes vote was no grounds for calling a strike. So we respected ASLEF picket lines or took unofficial action to demand a safe tube system and to keep 4,500 maintenance and engineering jobs in the public sector.

Management were shocked at the unity behind the action. They were expecting to run a reduced service but never imagined that on most lines no trains would run at all.

Prescott, Blair and underground management will be in abject panic as they stumble around desperate for a way out of a crisis that's all their own making. Even a last-minute climbdown by Ken Livingstone and his commissioner Bob Kylie to look at a form of PPP with a unified structure, couldn't save the government and LUL from their humiliation.

The success of this action proves that despite the anti-trade union laws, solidarity and rank-and-file action can still deliver effective action. This should be a lesson to all those in the trade union movement who, having lost the stomach for a fight, hide behind the law to justify subjugating their members' interests to their bosses' demands.

As tube workers we must now discuss where to take our dispute. It's clear that tube unions must take the lead in arguing for a publicly run tube system. Unfortunately, Livingstone has gone from promising to stand shoulder to shoulder with us on the picket line to imploring us to call off our strikes.

Bosses in retreat

Prescott and Blair have been forced to concede important ground already. But the alternative financial and management arrangements put forward so far by Livingstone and Kylie will still invite the private sector and its myriad of unaccountable sub-contractors to take over the maintenance and regeneration of the tube.

Whether Bob Kylie can speak to their boards or not will make next to no difference. What have other regulators of privatised transport, water and power utilities done to stop the fat cats ripping us off and making super-profits at our expense?

This is now a critical phase in the fight against tube privatisation. The government and LUL management are disorientated and in retreat. We must force home our advantage.

Tube unions should settle for nothing less than a full programme of refurbishment and expansion of the tube, financed from central government. If the government needs to raise money let the City banks and finance houses pay.

All routine work should be done by in-house London Underground engineers and maintenance workers. Tube unions should also step up efforts to campaign alongside passengers for improved safety, lower fares and an expanded, more reliable service.

Victory is not yet ours but with determination in our programme and action, defeat of tube privatisation is within sight.

"THE VAST majority of the RMT's 1,100 tube drivers defied the injunction and went on strike. This has knocked management for six - they'd promised measures to keep the tube running. The success of this strike will encourage others to join the action." A Northern line RMT train driver

 

 

 

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Imagine - A socialist vision for the 21st Century?

HANNAH SELL reviews Imagine, a socialist vision for the 21st century by Alan McCombes and Tommy Sheridan.

IMAGINE HAS received favourable reviews from many on the Left. It graphically describes the inequalities of capitalism and shows the need for a socialist alternative. As such it's an important read. Many readers, especially those new to socialist ideas, will learn much from Imagine.

The book's authors, Alan McCombes and Tommy Sheridan, were until recently, members of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI, the international organisation to which the Socialist Party is affiliated). Regrettably, after a three-year discussion within our ranks, the ISM majority (in which Imagine's authors play a leading role) chose to abandon the ranks of the CWI (for a fuller explanation see The Socialist, Issue 189).

Despite this book's excellent anti-capitalist agitation and propaganda, unfortunately it also reveals how far the authors have moved from the CWI's programme and methods.

Not only do they fail to refer once to the organisation in which they spent so much time; they also express ideas that represent a serious divergence from the ideas of Marxism in general and specifically of the CWI.

In the CWI we have always supported, and fought for, every reform, every improvement in the lives of working-class people, that can be won from the capitalist class. However, we also always link the struggle for day-to-day improvements in pay, conditions, the welfare state and so on, to the need for a fundamental change in society.

We explain that is only on the basis of overthrowing capitalism that working-class people's lives could be permanently transformed. For example, one of the Socialist Party's key demands is for the nationalisation under democratic working-class control and management of the top 150 multinationals that constitute around 70% of the British economy.

In other words we call for the nationalisation of the decisive sectors of the economy. Unfortunately, this kind of clear Marxist programme is absent from Imagine.

Linked to this is the fundamental question of how the working class can successfully overthrow capitalism. We explain the need for the working class to build an organisation, a mass party, with the necessary programme and determination to lead the struggle to change society. The authors of Imagine have abandoned this task.

In the past, although in a popularised form, Tommy and Alan would have put forward these basic ideas. Imagine does not.

The authors laudably aim to popularise socialist ideas for a new generation. However, popularisation is no justification for the imprecise, and frequently incorrect ideas that surface throughout the book.

In reality, on a number of issues, Alan and Tommy have let themselves be influenced by many of the concepts that are currently 'fashionable' in society.

What lies behind most of these concepts is the after-effect of the barrage of propaganda against socialism that the capitalists launched in the 1990s after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes of the USSR and Eastern Europe.

This barrage resulted in a widespread feeling that socialism was no longer possible, and that any attempt to organise to achieve socialism would lead inevitably to bureaucracy.

Although this mood is starting to change, its effects are still being felt. Alan and Tommy's bending to this pressure means that, while they argue an impassioned case for socialism, it is a far more confused, contradictory, and often mistaken case, than they themselves would have argued in the past.

Political weaknesses

AN ARTICLE of this length cannot take up all the points of disagreement we have with Imagine. Nonetheless, it is necessary in this review to outline some of the political deficiencies in the book.

Firstly, throughout the book the importance of information technology, and particularly the Internet, is dramatically overemphasised. For example, Alan and Tommy declare that "the Internet has become the first international bastion of free speech and free thought.

"It is transforming the balance of power between the powerful and the powerless. Without the Internet, the Mexican government would long ago have militarily crushed the Zapatistas."

Socialists should use every available means to spread our ideas. The Internet is one such means, and it's extremely useful, dramatically increasing the speed with which information can be transmitted. Nonetheless, it is only a tool in the hands of living forces; which are made up not of computers, but of people.

Big business uses the Internet for its own means. We have to try and use it for ours; that is to build a movement of the working class and the oppressed to overthrow capitalism. But it will be that movement's strength on the ground, not in cyberspace, that will determine its success or failure.

What's more, under capitalism there are definite limits to the degree that we can use information technology. The majority of the world's population still have to walk over two miles to reach a telephone, nor do they have electricity. They certainly don't have access to the Internet! Even in Britain, it's still a minority of working-class families that are on-line.

Perhaps most worryingly, the authors seem to believe that the Internet is beyond the control of big business. Yet everyone who uses the Internet relies on service providers such as Virgin or AOL; the vast majority of whom are owned by multimillionaires.

There is no doubt that, if they considered that the capitalist system was threatened, these people would be prepared to sabotage protests organised through their companies.

Yet, while Imagine invests the Internet with powers it can never possess, it writes off more 'old-fashioned' means of spreading socialist ideas. For example it says: "Only the seriously rich possess the capital to produce a high-quality daily newspaper.

"It also requires access to the distribution network, which is controlled by a few big companies such as John Menzies in Scotland. In addition, newspapers and magazines are reliant on advertising revenues, which in turn shapes the content and political slant of the publication.

"The Internet, by contrast, is open to everyone," they say.

Socialist papers

THIS IS an amazing statement. Of course all the 'mainstream' press (The Sun, The Mirror, The Guardian etc) are owned by the seriously rich, and this is undoubtedly reflected in their political content. This has always been true under capitalism.

But one of the key tasks of socialists has been to create newspapers which put a different point of view, that argue the case for socialism and are written by, and for, the working class. Such newspapers cannot rely on big business distribution networks, advertising revenues and all the rest.

They have to be written, printed and distributed by working-class people. This requires workers' organisations.

In Britain at the moment there is no daily socialist paper that is written and distributed on this basis. The Socialist, for example, is as yet only a weekly paper. But this doesn't mean that such an achievement is impossible.

As the ideas of socialism gain ground in the coming years our aim is to produce a daily Socialist. Alan and Tommy obviously also believe that socialist ideas will become increasingly popular - but the implication in their book is that a high-quality socialist daily newspaper is impossible to achieve.

Yet the Scottish Socialist Party, despite what some of its leaders say now, could find themselves moving towards a daily paper.

If we're going to succeed in the far greater task of changing society, we must be capable of producing not just one, but many, socialist dailies.

Later in the book Alan and Tommy describe their vision for a socialist Scotland. Unfortunately their vision is somewhat vague. Rather than raising the clear programme of the CWI they write: "A Scottish Socialist government could at least begin to move in the direction of socialism by taking over key sectors of the economy". This is an inadequate and woolly formulation.

They go on to say: "Where practically possible, socially owned enterprise could be broken down into smaller sub-units to enable closer scrutiny by the wider public. Social ownership could also include community-owned and municipally owned enterprises."

This is followed by: "Another form of social ownership that could be encouraged thr-ough the provision of cheap loans and other incentives would be workers' co-operatives. Repeated studies have shown that when employees run and own their own companies, they work harder and more efficiently."

This last statement is startling. It implies that isolated "workers' co-operatives" would be more efficient than state ownership of industry with democratic workers' control and management at every level of industry and society.

It is also very worrying that they don't refer anywhere, in their lengthy comments on a socialist economy, to the need for a national plan to co-ordinate production to meet the needs of the whole population.

Workers' democracy

THE SECTION of the book dealing with the Soviet Union, unfortunately, also shows the authors' lack of a clear conception of the role of workers' democracy.

Karl Marx described the working class as the '"gravediggers of capitalism". He understood that the working class, because of its specific relation to the means of production, had the critical role to play in overthrowing capitalism and building a new society.

He was proved correct by the Russian Revolution in October 1917, when capitalism was successfully overthrown for the first time. The working class made up only 10% of the population; yet they played the critical role in the revolution. Despite their small numbers it was the working class that led the mass of the poor peasantry.

Later, because the Soviet Union was left isolated by the failure of attempts to overthrow capitalism in Germany, Hungary and other countries, a vicious bureaucracy came to power, based around Stalin, murdering tens of thousands in the process.

Tommy and Alan explain that under Stalinism "genuine socialist dissidents suffered imprisonment, torture, exile and execution for daring to demand democratic rights." But not once, throughout their lengthy comments on the subject, do they explain the role of the working class in the Soviet Union in general, or specifically the role of workers' democracy in checking the rise of the bureaucracy.

There's no space to comment here on many other critical issues. For example, the authors of Imagine clearly don't see the need for a clear Marxist mass international party, such as we're aiming to build in the CWI, which fights to change society worldwide.

They wish to return to the failed example of the First International! Nor do Tommy and Alan agree that it was fundamentally the lack of a clear revolutionary party that led to the defeat of the struggle for socialism in the 20th century.

Their only comment on why the Russian Revolution was left isolated and therefore degenerated is that "outside Russia, the forces opposing capitalism lacked the strength, cohesion and determination to win."

This is misleading - the working class of Germany, in particular, was numerically far stronger than the working class of Russia. In many countries (Germany, Hungary and Spain to name a few), the working class were extremely determined - they gave their lives by the thousand to try and change society.

Certainly they lacked cohesion. But this was because, unlike Russia's working class, they lacked a mass party and a leadership that was as determined as they were and had an understanding of how to fight for socialism. If we're to succeed in changing the world in this century we must absorb this lesson.

Imagine is an interesting read but it does not, by any stretch of the imagination, equip a new generation of socialists with the ideas that they need to successfully change society.

"We call for the nationalisation of the decisive sectors of the British economy under democratic working-class control and management. Unfortunately, this kind of clear Marxist programme is absent from Imagine." "In reality, on a number of issues, Alan and Tommy have let themselves be influenced by many of the concepts that are currently 'fashionable' in society."

 

Imagine: A socialist vision for the 21st century by Tommy Sheridan & Alan McCombes

Available from Socialist Books £8.99 including postage and packaging.

PO Box 24697, London E11 1YD.

Credit card orders Tel: 020 8988 8789.

Fax: 020 8988 8787.

email: bookshop@socialistparty.org.ok

 

 

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Who's in charge at our hospitals?

THE REDFERN Report into the organ retention scandal at Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool, has had a huge impact. People can hardly believe that every organ was kept from every child who died at the hospital for at least seven years. Worse, most of the organs were never used or even examined.

Andy Ford, MSF Blood Services Committee

Alder Hey was a national centre for paediatric heart surgery. Few would object to keeping organs to improve future treatment and surgery, but the real issue is that of parental consent.

This consent was not truly informed, sometimes obtained under false pretences, or worse, not obtained at all.

The failure to obtain consent for the removal of organs, and the subsequent revelations of their storage interfered with the bereaved parents' right to grieve for their dead child.

This caused public disgust, in particular at the behaviour of Professor Dick Van Velzen, who was in charge there.

The report reveals the paternalism at the heart of Alder Hey's medical practice and management attitudes. It was almost as if the parents had no right to a view about their child's body. The Human Tissue Act, drawn up in 1961, gave legal force to this attitude.

When removing tissue, the Act merely requires doctors to "make such reasonable enquiry as may be practicable (so that) he has no reason to believe that any surviving relatives of the deceased child object to the body being used."

The ideology of "professionalism" treats (often working-class) patients as inanimate objects to be treated by (mainly middle-class) "professionals". The Act's deliberately woolly terms let a forceful personality like Van Velzen do what he liked with "his" patients, and their bodies.

From day one, rather than electing working-class representatives to control hospitals, the NHS handed power to the consultants.

The Tories tried to place doctors under the control of managers, but both groups are determined to keep any notion of NHS democracy, the only guarantee of true scrutiny and public accountability, at bay.

The Redfern Report found that managers at Alder Hey and Liverpool University didn't resource the department or supervise Van Velzen. They failed to follow up complaints, and allowed Van Velzen to abdicate his responsibilities. They were unaware of his organ retention practices and did not even catalogue the organs retained.

The inquiry also exposed the hypocritical practice of "giving" dead children's thymus glands to a drug company, who gave a "donation" of 40p per gland.

Begging Bowl

BUT WHY was Alder Hey in the body parts market? For years it's been Liverpool's favourite cause, money being raised for incubators and CAT scanners. Years of Tory under-funding, continued under New Labour, forced the hospital to rattle begging bowls at every opportunity, and finally even to sell body parts.

Media coverage can attack science in general by drawing attention to the ghoulish details. An autopsy can never be nice. The body is cut open, the organs removed, examined and weighed, and thrown in a bucket. But it has to be done and somebody has to do it. The issue should be that of respect for patients and their relatives.

Alan Milburn has definitely sought to use the scandal to continue his attack on the medical profession. Doctors and their organisations sometimes speak out against cuts, closures and re-organisations and still enjoy greater public support than either managers or politicians. They are formidable opponents.

The Department of Health want to break medical power and hand power to the managers. Have you ever heard of NHS managers protesting over cuts?

By demonising Van Velzen, Milburn can deflect attention and blame from managers, civil servants and politicians. But organ retention was common practice in the NHS.

 

Change the law to ensure proper consent. Proper funding for hospitals and laboratories. Democracy in the NHS - elected hospital boards.

 

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Gujurat earthquake - No 'natural' disaster

IN THE worst ever earthquake that India has seen in the last two centuries, Ahemadabad, Bhuj, Bhachau and the entire Kutch district have been devastated.

Jagadish G Chandra, New Socialist Alternative, CWI - India.

Ten days after the disaster the most conservative estimate puts the body count at 100,000. The final toll will be at least four times that number as the day of the earthquake was a holiday and people mostly remained home.

"The more we tried to run, the more we stayed in the same place. There was a sound like a screaming train, and then, the silence", said Syed Husain Miya of Bhachau village, who lost his entire family. Ironically, his village Bhachau means "save us" in Hindi.

Gujarat, which was India's second most developed state, has been reduced to ruins. It had a growth rate of 10% a year throughout the 1990s, and industrial growth 22% a year. 11% of India's GDP (national wealth) came from Gujarat.

Ahemadabad, which is one of the most affluent cities in India, had seen rapid urbanisation and a real estate boom in the 1990s. The concentration of buildings in prime areas had sky rocketed the land value of some of the suburbs.

"An earthquake itself never kills people. It's the badly constructed buildings that do", says V Suresh, chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO). Proving his point, are the 30,000 Gujarat Housing Board flats which were designed and built by HUDCO, still standing, with very little damage.

Almost all the high-rise buildings and skyscrapers built by flouting the building bylaws and architectural specifications have been reduced to rubble.

The clique of 'land mafia', corrupt politicians and the government bureaucracy are the real culprits behind this 'natural disaster'.

Two ministers of the Gujarat's right-wing BJP government, Vajubhai Wala and Narottham Patel are also leading property developers.

Earthquake zone

The Gujarat earthquake came as no surprise. The Rann of Kutch has been marked as an extremely high risk earthquake zone since the first seismic hazard surveys in 1935.

Earthquake-resisting designs have been known to structural engineers since the 1960s, and the National Building Code of 1983 clearly identifies structural designs in terms of earthquakes and cyclones. But the profit-driven, corrupt capitalist system makes the innumerable laws and statutes ineffective.

The district of Kutch in Gujarat is cursed in one more way. The underground water tables are shifting and disappearing very fast, (according to one independent survey, by 2020 the entire Kutch region would become a desert). Many fingers point towards the secret and many not-so-secret nuclear bomb tests that were carried out in the neighbouring Pokhran village of Rajasthan.

For the capitalist government the calamity of Gujarat has come as a blessing in disguise. Already facing a huge fiscal deficit, the prime minister has warned that people will have to be ready for harsher times. It is certain that direct and indirect taxes will soar when the budget is announced later this month.

The Gujarat earthquake shows that capitalism is too corrupt and incompetent to save the lives of the people. In fact, it breeds destruction through its greed for quick and more profits.

 

Make the builder-land mafia pay. Seize their ill-gotten wealth and assets. No new taxes: tax the rich. Public ownership and control of land and building. Put massive investment in affordable, safe and modern government housing. Re-house the migrant labourers, who were living in appalling conditions even before the disaster. End the corrupt capitalist system.