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www.marxisteconomics.com
A government Report has confirmed what everybody already knew. The
'liberalisation' of the postal service has benefited big business, but
not ordinary people. This is no surprise. The Post Office works on a 'one price goes
everywhere' principle. The monopoly on letters enables the huge volume
of business to business mail from and to central London head offices to
in effect subsidise highland crofters and little old ladies who live on
remote Scottish islands keeping in touch with their loved ones. Does
anyone have a problem with that?
Fannie and Freddie Mac sound like two characters
out of the old West – with her in a gingham dress and him in a check shirt. But
Fannie Mae is the Federal National Mortgage Association and Freddie Mac is the
Federal Home Mortgage Corporation. They’re both in big trouble and, if they’re
in trouble, so are we.
Before the
establishment of the NHS in 1948, the provision of health care was inextricably
bound up with religion and controlling the poor. What is clear is that
capitalism has never been able to provide health care for working people and
they have been forced to rely on charity and philanthropy.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the
National Health Service, once described by Tony Benn as the “the most socialist
and most popular” of all institutions in the UK. Supported even by a majority
of Tory voters over the years, ardent supporters of privatisation such as
Margaret Thatcher, was obliged to assure voters that “The NHS is safe in our
hands!”
In 1976 the Lucas Aerospace Company was faced with the
prospect of making up to 20% of its 18,000 workers redundant. Lucas was a big
conglomerate that had just come into existence, partly with the support of the
1974-79 Labour government’s industrial policy. They wanted to create ‘national
champions’ and thought ‘big is beautiful.’ Not if you’re going to lose your job
as a result, it isn’t!
This
new book by Alan Woods is a polemic against a well-known (in Latin American
terms) intellectual Heinz Dieterich. Dieterich claims to have invented a new
"Socialism of the 21st Century" and much else into the bargain. He offers a
great deal of advice to those involved in the Venezuelan Revolution dressed up
in all manner of revolutionary rhetoric. However, when you clear away all the
verbiage that surrounds his "new" socialist philosophy, there remains
nothing new at all, simply a rehash of stale petty-bourgeois ideas of the past.
Months
after Branch Secretary Michael Gavan was sacked from Newham Council, after he
was victimised for undertaking trade union activities, the left have taken
control of the branch. This is an indication of the way things are moving.
Hedge funds are in the news again. They don’t much
like being in the public gaze. We wonder why. Does their speculation cause
prices to go up? Do they drive firms into bankruptcy so workers lose their jobs?
These are the questions being asked. Let’s see what they get up to.
The cleaners on London Underground are taking strike action
for a decent standard of living. Successful 24 hour action on the 26th of June
was followed by a 48 hour strike starting on the 1st of July. The organising Union, the RMT, has reported that there was
widespread bullying of the strikers. Bob Crow said, “Reports coming in from the
picket lines over the last 36 hours indicate that the employers are so
desperate that they are resorting to gangster-style intimidation and using the
worst sort of fear attacks to stop more people joining the strike.
As Socialist Appeal goes to press PCS union reps in the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Group are gearing up for an industrial
action ballot in the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), the civil service
body that is responsible for making subsidy payments to farmers. The
RPA is based at several large offices in Exeter, Reading,
Northallerton, Newcastle, Workington and Carlisle.Rural Payments Agency
Socialist Appeal 164 is out now!
