Alex Sampson, Plymouth Socialist Party
As fuel prices begin to rocket, Labour chancellor Rachel Reeves met with business leaders to offer government assistance to help them keep their transport and energy costs down, in the hope that they won’t pass on costs to consumers. Unfortunately, the only trickle-down economics that works is the trickle down of costs.
Meanwhile, low-paid workers are bracing themselves for the impact of vastly inflated fuel and food prices as, while the government talk, petrol has already jumped over 20p a litre and food prices are starting to creep up. One industry body predicts that food inflation could reach 9% this year! This will only get worse the longer the war lasts.
While the Labour government tries to sound as if they are protecting us from the effects of this ill-conceived war, their priority is protecting the profits of companies who already make shed loads of money at our expense, and who will continue to see their profits rise while the rest of us struggle to afford the basic necessities of life.
This crisis shows exactly who this system works for and it is not us. As long as the profit motive is the key driver of the economy, we will bounce from crisis to crisis and it will be the working class who are forced to pick up the bill. We need to remove the profit motive by nationalising the companies which dominate the economy, including power and food – from agribusiness to the supermarkets – and run them democratically for the good of us all.
Councils can act too, for example by providing free school meals for all, including during school holidays, and free public transport (see left). We should not have to choose petrol over food so we can travel to a job that does not pay enough for both. Only a democratic socialist society can provide the decent level of living that we all deserve.
