Unsung Britain is the latest report from the Resolution Foundation. It provides statistical proof of what we already know: that everything has got worse over the last two decades for working-class people while the rich have got richer:
“Over the 40 years before 2004-05, the typical incomes of the poorer half of working-age families doubled. By contrast, if progress continues to crawl in the way it did between 2004-05 and 2023-24, a further doubling would take over 130 years.”
And so it goes on: we work harder and carry the burden of services being cut and closed; but at the same time wages have stagnated, benefits have reduced, prices and bills have soared, and there is a housing crisis. Otherwise known as Tory and Labour austerity.
All the result of a rotten capitalist system in deep crisis, with a bosses’ class determined to make us pay.
The Resolution Foundation doesn’t have any solutions apart from a little bit of tinkering. But we do.
Working-class people may be ‘unsung’ in the eyes of the Resolution Foundation, but have actually been singing quite loudly in recent years: the 2022-23 strike wave was the biggest in Britain for 30 years; the Tories were booted out and replaced with Starmer’s government, with historically low levels of support for any winning party; 800,000 signed up last summer to say they want a new party.
We can’t afford a system that drives people into the dirt. Fight austerity with mass trade union action and a new workers’ party that fights for socialist change. Take over the major companies and banks that dominate the economy, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need, and bring them under democratic workers’ control and management, as part of a socialist plan of production, to guarantee jobs, homes, services and a decent life for all.
