Tom Gibson, Leeds Socialist Party
The working class has faced the brunt of capitalism’s crisis over the last decade and a half. One of the main issues has been a severe rise in the price of food. As with water, food is an essential item for survival. Increasingly, people are going without.
Food inflation has seen a rapid increase since 2022, reaching its peak in March 2023 at 11.1%. It now stands at 4.5%, according to Office for National Statistics. A Guardian article details how one woman’s regular shop went from £100 to £150, from 2022 to 2025. Our wages stagnate while food prices go up. This is on top of a rise in housing, transport and energy prices. Some workers find themselves going into debt as their wages can’t match their living costs.
The capitalists portray rising prices as an inevitability, a small price to pay to have a ‘free market’ economy. While politicians and the bosses can shrug off increased food costs, ordinary workers cannot.
The government has announced an expansion of free school meals for all children whose households claim Universal Credit from September next year. This should be extended to all.
Nutrition is also an issue, as the price of fruit and vegetables increases, unhealthier food can be far cheaper than healthier meals.
How to solve the problem
In his recent mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani proposed publicly owned stores that would sell food at cheaper rates, a good policy but one which could go much further.
Supermarkets are making record profits while people struggle to afford food, and those who produce and sell the food, aren’t getting their fair share.
By nationalising the big supermarket giants under democratic workers’ control and management, we could take profits out of the equation and reduce prices while also improving the working pay and liv-ing standards of employees.
Food insecurity is a product of capitalist greed. We need to take the food production and distribution out of the hands of agribusiness and the capitalist elite, and put it under the control of workers along-side small farmers and consumers. Only by replacing the capitalist system with socialism, in which workers plan production democratically based on a nationalised economy, can we end food insecurity for all.
