Protest !!

World socialists aren't much bothered which activities of capitalists actually comply with its own laws or not, except perhaps to draw attention to the inconsistencies of the system and to show how it doesn't even live up to its own ideology: the “free” market just doesn't do what it says on the tin. World socialists don't want the "free" market system. But neither do we have any confidence in a supposedly regulated market system. There will never be enough anti-trust legislation to police capitalism. Instead a cosmetic pretence is maintained that the market system is dynamic and competitive. A veneer of fairness is maintained to encourage us all to carry on participating in the game, on the basis that there is some sort of level playing field in capitalism. Businesses never voluntarily take into account the interest of the capitalist class as a whole, let alone that of society in general. They have always acted on the basis that, as Thatcher put it, there is no such thing as society. Businesses leave it to governments to represent the overall capitalist interest but, even here, they are reluctant to let governments interfere with their freedom to make profits in the way they want.

In any event, free market capitalism without any state regulation has only ever existed on paper. Capitalism and the state are not opposites or incompatibles. They have always co-existed and in fact capitalism could not have come into existence or survived without the support of the state. It was the state that helped dispossess peasants of their land so that they became factory fodder for the capitalist factory owners. It is the state that creates and enforces private property rights, without which the capitalist class would not be able to monopolise the means of production and extract surplus value from the wage-labour of their employees. There is, then, no such thing as capitalism without the state. That said, there are still degrees of state regulation at different times and in different countries. The state is supposed to represent the general capitalist interest, but in practice is subject to all sorts of lobbying and pressures from special interest groups who want it to make laws and regulations in their interest, to which it often gives in. Whenever capitalists are given a free hand to do what they want, they exaggerate and go for short-term benefits, even at the expense of their long-term interest so that eventually the state has to intervene to restrain them in their own interest. This seems to be the situation that has been reached today after twenty or more years of deregulation of financial markets. The banks and other financial institutions are now widely seen by other sections of the capitalist class as having abused their freedom and thus landed the world capitalist system in the crisis it now finds itself in. The cry is now going up for the re-introduction of a stricter state regulation of financial institutions and dealings. The aim for many on Saturdays TUC protest seems to be to bring pressure to introduce reforms and to change policy so as to tame the banks and the multi-national corporations and a return to state interventionism. Anti-capitalists should be campaigning for socialism not changes of policy.

Capitalism runs on the basis of firms seeking to maximise profits which are then accumulated as further capital invested in further profit-making. As Marx put it, “Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!“ This has nothing to do with personal greed on the part of individual capitalists. It’s something that is built-in to the system which those having to take decisions about economic matters have to abide by or risk the business they own or manage going under.Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. The only possible capitalism is the one we’ve got: a profit-maximising one.

Given the dire condition clapped-out capitalism is now in, and that we’re heading for a prolonged period of additional working class suffering and misery, mainstream party politicians will be trying harder than ever to dupe people into believing that they have the answer to alleviating and solving capitalism-caused problems. They’ll want people submissively accepting worsening state-funded services. They’ll want those without jobs submissively accepting any low-paid work they are offered. They’ll want those with jobs submissively accepting pay restraint and cuts. They’ll want people turning against supposedly less-deserving recipients of welfare benefits. We need to get people to completely reject this bogus capitalist agenda is in our best interests. It isn’t.

The politicians' and reformists' logic—the urge to "do something"—must be resisted. Doing something is no good, we need to do the right thing. We need to campaign for socialism.

The Socialist Party