
The Socialist 1 June 2011
Strike - to defend jobs and pensions

Glencore - Profiting from global hunger
New attacks on women's sexual and reproductive rights
Disabled protester - "inadvertently struck with a police baton"
Shoesmith sacking - social work under growing pressure
Egypt and Tunisia: Revolutions at the crossroads
Greece: unite the struggles and bring down the government
Strike - to defend jobs and pensions
Government plans for the NHS: Privatisation and world class profits!
"Frontline first" a dangerous tactic - unity is the key
Cardiff NHS protest against Topshop tax dodger
Demonstration against closure of day centre in Llandeilo
Southampton - council workers' strike spreads
Saltend construction workers' struggle ends
Lewisham teachers - Action threat spells victory
Newcastle East Coast rail call centre - Save jobs!
18 years since Stephen Lawrence murder
Coventry action against academies grows
Yorkshire meetings make Jarrow plans
Lib Dems - a party rooted in capitalism
PDFs for this issue
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Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/673/12146
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Home | The Socialist 1 June 2011 | Join the Socialist Party
Rage against bankers
Fight for a socialist alternative
Sarah Sachs-Eldridge
'Bankers are scum', they are 'parasites', they are 'gangsters'. It has become a truism; something so widely accepted that it is hardly even worth mentioning. And yet the hatred intensifies.
As predictions for the economy worsen, cuts in jobs and much-needed public services are compounded by rising food and fuel prices. The cost of the economic crisis is piled on the heads of ordinary working and middle class people.
Working class young people suffer massively as every avenue - education, jobs, training - becomes closed off. 'Generation rent' cannot get on the housing ladder, cannot access publicly owned housing and is at the mercy of profit-seeking landlords.
Speaking of profit-seeking, recent figures expose how even the minimal demands made on the banks, in the wake of their unprecedented bailouts, are blatantly and brazenly ignored. The government claimed to be taking action and conjured up its 'Project Merlin', which was supposed to ensure banks stop withholding funds and get lending. They haven't.
Bullingdon Boys
Like Bullingdon clubbers in a china shop, prime minister David Cameron and chancellor George Osborne are merrily attempting to smash up the welfare state. Meanwhile they keep talking about the 'private sector-led recovery'. But small and medium businesses complain they cannot survive without credit and banks won't give them any.
The Con-Dems have refused to take decisive action against the rich, big business and the bankers. Instead they act in their interest. Expressions of our rage at this also risk becoming a cliché.
UK Uncut has tapped into this seam of anger. Its 'Emergency Operation', occupying banks to turn them into hospitals in protest at NHS cuts, vented the frustration. It graphically expressed the instinct to have control over the decisions about where public money gets spent.
Banks continue to be underwritten by the government. This 'implicit subsidy' was valued at £100 billion in 2009. Meanwhile our health service is being carved up, garnished with a sprig of parsley and handed to the private health companies and others to devour.
Protesters in the banks were expressing another truism - you can't control what you don't own. This is why we need to go further than these occupations.
Socialists call for the entire banking sector to be taken into full public ownership. This needs to be under democratic working class control. Then the vast funds of the super-rich stashed in the banks could be used to improve all our lives not just the tiny clique at the top.
Jobs, homes and services
Cheap loans and mortgages could transform people's lives. Money made available could be invested in jobs and services. Combining this with taking over the major companies and a democratic planned economy would mean we could invest in jobs, homes and services - and end the cuts.
This would be real nationalisation - not the abuse of the idea conducted by Gordon Brown's Labour government in 2008. To achieve it will require a mass movement, involving occupations, but also demonstrations like the magnificent show of strength on 26 March and, crucially, strike action.
We also need to create a new mass workers' party - free of big business's vested interests.
The young people and workers protesting in the banks, like those in Spain, in Greece, across the Middle East and North Africa, say that we must not pay for the bankers' crisis. Fundamentally this is a crisis of capitalism. Crucial to changing our worsening conditions is the idea of a socialist alternative.
Join the socialists!
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In this issue
Socialist Party news and analysis
Glencore - Profiting from global hunger
New attacks on women's sexual and reproductive rights
Disabled protester - "inadvertently struck with a police baton"
Shoesmith sacking - social work under growing pressure
International socialist news and analysis
Egypt and Tunisia: Revolutions at the crossroads
Greece: unite the struggles and bring down the government
National Shop Stewards Network
Strike - to defend jobs and pensions
Socialist Party NHS campaigning
Government plans for the NHS: Privatisation and world class profits!
"Frontline first" a dangerous tactic - unity is the key
Cardiff NHS protest against Topshop tax dodger
Demonstration against closure of day centre in Llandeilo
Socialist Party workplace news
Southampton - council workers' strike spreads
Saltend construction workers' struggle ends
Lewisham teachers - Action threat spells victory
Newcastle East Coast rail call centre - Save jobs!
Socialist history
18 years since Stephen Lawrence murder
Youth fight for jobs and education
Coventry action against academies grows
Yorkshire meetings make Jarrow plans
Socialist Party feature
Lib Dems - a party rooted in capitalism
Related links:
10 years since the financial crash - the socialist answer to capitalist crisis
Turn Carillion crisis into movement against privatisation and capitalism
Defuse the consumer debt time bomb: nationalise the banks!
Our lives, our jobs - not safe in Tory hands
BLM: Socialist alternative to racist capitalism
Socialist change to end climate change
Bristol Socialist Party: Turbulent events in US politics
Socialist Party national women's meeting: Perspectives for women and class struggle in Britain
Socialist Students national meeting: Refund the rent, cancel the fees and fight for free education
Books that inspired me: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
World capitalism's terrified strategists abandon austerity - for now
Exams scrapped again - young people need a future with jobs and free education