Fight for a Socialist World

Step Up the struggle against capitalism

Fight for a Socialist World

WHY ARE hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in Genoa this weekend against the G8 group of world capitalist leaders?

The Genoa protest is a continuation of the anti-capitalist movement that has sprung up in recent years in revolt against the deadly stranglehold that global big business has over people’s lives.

200 individuals – super fat cats – have more wealth than the combined income of the poorest 2.4 billion people in the world – most of who have to live on under $2 a day.

That unequal distribution of wealth is getting greater as the profit-driven greed of the capitalists goes unchecked, believing they can literally get away with murder to enjoy the full fruits of their rotten profit-driven system.

The capitalist system means 2.6 billion people have no access to sanitation – up by 300 million in the last seven years.

This lack of sanitation means there are 250 million cases of waterborne disease which will kill between 5 million to 10 million people a year.

According to UNICEF, it would cost $68 billion to put this right. Compare that to the $1,300 billion tax cuts ($1.3 trillion) that US President George Bush handed out to the wealthy elite in the US after his election.

Access to water provision in many countries, including so-called advanced capitalist countries – is worse than it was 2,000 years ago.

Yet, the money to overcome these ‘basic’ problems exists within the confines of the capitalist system already.

The British water industry has made £10 billion (approx. $15 billion) profits in the last ten five years. The British government pays out £28 billion a year in interest to the big banks who already make thousands of billions of profit every year.

Yet, while big business coffers overflow at our expense, people starve in the underdeveloped and developed world and billions lack decent water and sanitation.

Even if a fraction of the wealth that the capitalist super-rich have was redistributed then many of these problems could begin to be overcome.

As socialists we support those who are protesting in Genoa against capitalism. But we also believe that while capitalism remains in existence the inequality and misery it brings will continue.

That’s why we don’t just protest against capitalism, we want it abolished.