The Socialist 26 August 2009

Jobs and Education not Dole and Debt

Jobs and education not dole and debt

Afghanistan: Withdraw foreign troops

No to health privatisation and 'the market'

Private Finance Initiative still threatens NHS future

Vestas workers fight on

Ireland - workers campaign against Lisbon Treaty

Recession threat grows

Time to Fight Back: demonstrate at TUC conference

Construction workers defending jobs and conditions

Postal strike reports

Fiddlers Ferry protest continues

South Yorks firefighters plan industrial action

No to Future Jobs Fraud scheme

Leaving education: comment

Youth Fight for Jobs action

Socialist Students and Youth Fight for Jobs campaign material

World recession, revolution and counter-revolution in Latin America

March shows growing opposition to far right BNP

Daventry: socialist candidate in council by-election

Passengers want publicly owned buses

Unison witch-hunt/employment tribunal: The truth is coming out

How safe are our houses?

Poorest suffer globally from climate change

Previous issues, etc

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Comment

Leaving education - freedom! No more homework! Making your own way in the world! Independence! Get a job. Oh no, wait, I forgot about the biggest financial disaster since the 1930s. Suddenly, leaving education doesn't look quite such an inviting prospect. As usual, greedy capitalists got greedier and it's the ordinary people who end up suffering.

It's young people who are among those hit the hardest. Those 16-25 year olds currently seeking work, having been raised under the brutal consumerism that came in with Margaret Thatcher and the rest of her gang, are now being exposed to the flip side; vicious competition for menial jobs, and at the heart of it all, a basic social insecurity that comes from spending your entire life being told to buy, buy and buy some more.

What everyone needs, young people especially, is a job or education, and the space to develop as positive members of society. Unfortunately, capitalism dictates that we can't have jobs, must pay for education and should act like drones to line someone else's pocket.

Building a fighting alternative to this is vital for the lives of young people in this country and across the world.

Youth Fight for Jobs provides a way to fight for that alternative. The protests, demonstrations, petitions and everything else the members of the campaign do, will place pressure on politicians to do something that will help ordinary people and boost support for socialist policies as awareness of the failings of capitalism and the advantages of socialism is spread.