Dean Young, Liverpool Socialist Party
The housing crisis, the thousands of pounds of student debt, poor access to quality jobs (or indeed any job for many!) and the idea pushed by the bosses that we must accept being poorer, more insecure in housing and work, and having a smaller welfare state than our predecessors.
What future does the capitalist system offer young people receiving their grades this summer?
We don’t accept the predicament capitalism in perpetual decline offers. We fight to raise the minimum wage, for all workers regardless of their age, to at least £15 per hour. For an education system from nursery to university funded by the state with grants students can actually live on, not spiralling debt.
The new Labour government on these two issues offers weak, pitiful solutions. It promises, without saying when it’ll do it, to end pay disparity for all workers over 18, but what about those below 18? They shouldn’t be treated as cheap labour and deserve the same rights as all other workers.
Starmer’s Labour say there is not any money to fund properly fund education, that they have no choice but to consider an ‘uptick’ in university tuition fees to tackle the funding crisis.
In reality, the money does exist. It always has! With the decline of the ability to make profits, with shrinking markets and increased international competition, big business has clawed back previous reforms which made life a bit easier for young workers. To win improvements in our lives we have to fight, organising in trade unions and on our campuses.
Taking the wealth out the hands of the bosses, nationalising the vital industries that dominate the economy – placing them under democratic working-class control – and a mass council house building programme would transform young people’s lives for the better. These socialist policies would not just temporarily alleviate stresses on young people but would change the nature of how the economy is run. It must be run by working-class people in our interests, not for the profits of the bosses.
Starmer’s Labour is appealing to act in the interest of the bosses, not workers and young people.
None of the main parties stand on our side. If you want to fight for socialism, join the Socialist Party.
