The Crisis: Make the bosses pay! - Manifesto of the International Marxist Tendency – Part Two

How to combat unemployment

During
the boom, when fantastic profits were being made, the majority of
working people did not see a real rise in wages. They were subjected to
increased pressure for ever-higher productivity and longer hours. But
now, as the crisis begins to bite, they are threatened not just with
drastic cuts in living standards and conditions but also with the loss
of their jobs. Factory closures and rising unemployment are on the
order of the day. This in turn signifies a deepening of the crisis and
a further deterioration in the living standards of the people. On a
world scale, millions are faced with the danger of being cast into the
pit of pauperism.

For ten years the Spanish economy was presented as the motor of job
creation in the euro-area. Now the ranks of the jobless in Spain have
been swollen by more than 800,000 in the past year. The collapse of the
decade-long construction boom has pushed Spain’s unemployment rate to
11.3 percent, the highest rate in the European Union. “It’s going to
get worse; this has just started,” said Daniele Antonucci, an economist
at Merrill Lynch International in London. He forecasts Spain’s
unemployment rate will rise to 13 percent next year, while European
joblessness will swell to 8.1 percent from 7.5 percent by the end of
2008. In reality, the figures for unemployment are far worse, but
governments resort to all kinds of tricks to reduce them. The same
situation exists, to a greater or lesser degree, in all countries.

The workers must defend their living standards, if they cannot
increase or better it. Unemployment threatens society with
disintegration. The working class cannot permit the development of mass
chronic unemployment. The right to work is
a fundamental right. What sort of society condemns millions of
able-bodied men and women to a life of enforced inactivity, when their
labour and skills are required to satisfy the needs of the population?
Do we not need more schools and hospitals? Do we not need good roads
and houses? Are the infrastructure and transport systems not in need of
repair and improvement?

The answer to all these questions is well known to everybody. But
the reply of the ruling class is always the same: we cannot afford
these things. Now everybody knows that this answer is false. We now
know that governments can produce extraordinary sums of money when it
suits the interests of the wealthy minority who own and control the
banks and industries. It is only when the majority of working people
request that their needs are attended to that governments argue that
the cupboard is bare.

What does this prove? It proves that in the system in which we live
the profits of the few are more important than the needs of the many.
It proves that the whole productive system is based on one thing and
one thing only: the profit motive, or, put plainly, greed. When workers
go on strike, the press (which is also owned and controlled by a
handful of billionaires) pillories them as “greedy”. But their “greed”
is only the struggle to make ends meet: to pay the rent or mortgage, to
pay the food and fuel bills that are increasing steeply month by month,
to provide for their children and families.

On the other hand, the greed of the bankers and capitalist is the
greed to accumulate vast fortunes from the labour of others (for they
themselves produce nothing). With this money they spend money on works
of art, not for enjoyment but only as yet another profitable
investment, on lavish lifestyle and extravagance, or to indulge in
further speculation that always ends in economic collapse and misery –
not for themselves, but for the majority upon whose productive labour
society rests.

In the past the employers argued that new technology would lighten
the burden of labour, but the opposite has been the case. The EU has
just passed a law that increases the maximum working week to sixty
hours! This is in the first decade of the 21^st century,
when the miraculous advances of modern science and technology have
produced more labour-saving devices than in all previous history. What
sense is there in this? What sense is there in having a large number of
unemployed people being paid for doing nothing, while in the workplaces
other workers are being forced to work long hours of compulsory
overtime?

During the boom, the employers force the workers to work long hours
of overtime, in order to squeeze the last ounce of surplus value from
their labour. But when the recession starts and they no longer have a
market for their goods, they do not hesitate to close their factories,
as if they were so many matchboxes, and throw their workforce onto the
streets, while exploiting the rest to their very limit. The impasse of
capitalism is such that unemployment will no longer have a
“conjunctural” character but will be increasingly organic or
“structural”. A man or woman who is over 40 or 50 may never work again
in their lifetime, while many qualified people who lose their
employment will be forced to take unqualified and low-paid jobs in
order to survive.

This is the economics of the madhouse! From a capitalist point of
view it is quite logical. But we reject the crazy logic of capitalism!
Against the menace of unemployment we advance the slogan of public works and work sharing without loss of pay. Society needs schools, hospitals, roads and houses. The unemployed must be put to work on a major programme of public works!

Trade unions must ensure that the unemployed are closely linked to the
workers, bound together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. It
is necessary to share out the available work without loss of pay! All
the available work must be divided among the workforce in accordance
with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of
every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week.
Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. This is the only programme that can protect the workers in a time of economic crisis.

When they are making huge profits the property owners jealously guard
their business secrets. Now that there is a crisis, they will point to
their account ledgers as “proof” that they cannot afford the workers’
demands. This is especially the case with the smaller capitalists. But
whether our demands are “realistic” or not from the standpoint of the
employers is not the point. We have a duty to protect the vital
interests of the working class and to protect it from the worst effects
of the crisis. The bosses will complain that this will reduce their
profits and have a negative effect on their incentive to invest. But
what incentive do the majority of people have under a system based on
private profit? If the vital interests of the majority are incompatible
with the demands of the present system, then to hell with the system!

Is it really logical that the lives and destinies of millions of
people are determined by the blind play of market forces? Is it fair
that the economic life of the planet is decided as if it were a
gigantic casino? Can it be justified that the greed for profit is the
sole motor force that decides whether men and women will have a job or
a roof over their heads? Those who own the means of production and
control our destinies will answer in the affirmative because it is in
their interest to do so. But the majority of society who are the
innocent victims of this cannibalistic system will have a very
different opinion.

By
fighting to defend themselves against the attempts to make them pay for
the crisis, the workers will come to understand the need for a
root-and-branch change in society. The only answer to factory closures
is factory occupations: “a factory closed is a factory occupied!” That is the only effective slogan for combating closures. Factory occupations must necessarily lead to workers’ control.
By means of workers’ control the workers acquire experience in
bookkeeping and the administration of the enterprise that will permit
them later to run the whole of society.

This has been the experience of the most advanced workers’ struggles
in recent years, especially in Latin America. In Brazil
(CIPLA/Interfibras, Flasko and other factories), Argentina (Brukman,
Zanon and many others) and Venezuela, where the giant oil company PDVSA
was restarted and run by the workers for months during the bosses’
lockout in 2002-2003, and where a movement of occupied factories
developed around Inveval in 2005 and is gaining strength.

In all these cases and in many more, workers have attempted
successfully against all the odds to run their factories under their
own control and management. But workers’ control cannot be an end in
itself. It poses the question of ownership. It raises the question: who
is the master of the house? Either workers’ control will lead to nationalization,
or else it will merely be an ephemeral episode. The only real solution
to unemployment is a socialist planned economy, based on the
nationalization of the banks and major industries under democratic
workers’ control and management.

We demand:

No to unemployment! Work or full maintenance for all!
Down
with business secrets! Open the books! Let the workers have access to
information about all the swindles, speculation, tax dodges, shady
deals and excessive profits and bonuses. Let the people see how they
have been swindled and who is responsible for the present mess!
No to factory closures! A factory that closes is a factory occupied!
Nationalization under workers’ control and management of factories that threaten to close!
For
a wide-ranging programme of public works: for a crash building
programme of affordable social housing, schools, hospitals and roads to
give employment to the jobless.
For the immediate introduction of a 32-hour week without loss of pay!
For
a socialist planned economy, in which unemployment will be abolished
and society will inscribe on its banner: THE UNIVERSAL RIGHT TO WORK.

Fight to defend living standards!

While the bankers and employers made fabulous profits, in real terms
the wages of the majority either stagnated or declined. The gulf
between rich and poor has never been greater than it is today. Record
profit levels were accompanied by record inequality. The Economist (hardly
a left wing journal) pointed out: “The one truly continuous trend over
the past 25 years has been towards greater concentration of income at
the very top”. (The Economist, June 17, 2006.) A tiny minority
became obscenely rich, while the share of the workers in the national
income is constantly reduced and the poorest sections sink into
ever-deeper poverty. Hurricane Katrina revealed to the whole world the
existence of a subclass of deprived citizens living in Third World
conditions in the richest country in the world.

In the USA millions are threatened with losing their jobs and homes,
while profiteering continues apace. At the same time that Bush
announced his $700 bailout plan, US utility companies reported a record
rise in the number of customers defaulting on their gas and electricity
bills. The largest increase in power cut-offs was in the states of
Michigan (22 percent) and New York (17 percent), although rises were
also reported in Pennsylvania, Florida and California.

The workers of the USA produce 30 percent more now than ten years
ago. Yet wages have hardly increased. The social fabric is increasingly
strained. There is an enormous increase in tensions in society, even in
the richest country in the world. This is preparing the ground for an
even greater explosion of the class struggle. This is not only the case
in the USA. Around the world, the boom was accompanied by high
unemployment. Reforms and concessions were being taken back even at the
peak of the boom. But the crisis of capitalism does not only mean that
the ruling class cannot tolerate new reforms. They cannot even permit
the continued existence of those reforms and concessions that the
workers have won in the past.

Working people derived no real benefit from the boom but are now
being presented with the bill for the recession. Everywhere there are
attacks on living standards. In order to defend the profits of the
bosses and bankers, wages must be reduced, the hours and intensity of
work increased and spending on schools, housing and hospitals slashed.
This means that even the semi-civilized conditions of life that were
achieved in the past are under threat. In present-day conditions no
meaningful reform can be achieved without a serious struggle. The idea
that it is possible to do this by agreement with the bosses and bankers
is false to the core.

The idea of “national unity” to combat the crisis is a cruel
deception of the people. What unity of interest can there be between
the millions of ordinary working people and the super-rich exploiters?
Only the unity of the horse and the rider who digs his spurs into its
sides. The leaders of the Socialist, Labour and left Parties who vote
for “crisis measures” involving lavish bail-outs for the bankers and
cuts and austerity for the majority of society are betraying the
interests of the people who elected them. Those trade union leaders who
argue that in a crisis “we must all pull together” and imagine that it
is possible to secure concessions by moderating wage demands and
agreeing to the conditions imposed by the employers will achieve the
opposite of what they intend. Weakness invites aggression! For every
step back we take, the bosses will demand three more. Along the road of
class collaboration and so-called New Realism there lies only new
defeats, factory closures and cuts in living standards.

While unemployment inexorably rises, the cost of living also
increases. Fuel, gas, electricity, food – all have increased, while
wages are frozen and the profits of the big energy companies soar. In
the past period the bourgeois economists argued that they had “tamed
inflation”. How ridiculous these arguments sound today! Families who
yesterday lived on two wages now have to live on one – or none. The
struggle for life now assumes an ever-harsher meaning for millions.
Inflation and austerity are merely two faces of the same coin. Neither
can serve the interests of the working class. We completely reject all
attempts to place the burden of the crisis, the disorganization of the
banking system and all other consequences of the crisis of the profit
system on the shoulders of ordinary working people. We demand employment and decent living conditions for all.

The only solution to the galloping rise in prices is a sliding scale of wages. This
means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in
wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods. The
bankers and their political representatives tell the masses: we cannot
afford higher wages because this will cause inflation. But everybody
knows that it is wages that are trying to catch up with prices, and not
the contrary. The answer is a sliding scale of wages, whereby wages are
automatically linked to increases in the cost of living. However, even
this is not sufficient. The official indexes of inflation are rigged in
order to underestimate the real amount of inflation and then workers
are ordered not to ask for increases in excess of these false figures.
It is therefore necessary for the trade unions to work out the real
rate of inflation, based on the price of basic necessities (including
rents and other housing costs) and to keep this under constant review.
All wage claims should be based on this.

We demand:

A living wage and pension for all!
A sliding scale of wages, linking all increases to the increases in the cost of living.
The
trade unions, co-operatives and consumer associations must work out the
real index of the cost of living in place of the “official” index,
which does not reflect the real state of affairs.
Set up committees of workers, housewives, small shopkeepers and unemployed to control price increases.
Abolition
of all indirect taxation and the introduction of a heavily progressive
system of direct taxation. Abolish all taxation for the poor and let
the rich pay!
An
end to fuel poverty and a drastic reduction of fuel bills! This can
only be achieved through nationalisation of the energy companies, which
will enable us to impose price controls on the consumer price of gas
and electricity. No more profiteering at the public’s expense!

The trade unions

In
the present period, the workers more than ever before need their mass
organizations, above all trade unions. The trade union is the basic
unit of organization. It will not be possible to fight to defend wages
and living standards without powerful trade unions. That is why the
bosses and their governments are always seeking to undermine the unions
and restrict their scope of action through anti-union legislation.

The long period of boom has affected the union leaders, who have
embraced the policies of class collaboration and “service unions”,
precisely when the conditions for such things have vanished. The right
wing trade union leaders are the most conservative force in society.
They tell the workers that “we are all in the same boat” and must all
make sacrifices to solve the crisis, that the bosses are not the enemy
and class struggle is “old fashioned”.

They preach a bargain between wage labour and Capital, which they
regard as “new realism”. In reality it is the worst kind of utopianism.
It is impossible to reconcile mutually exclusive interests. In the
present conditions the only way to obtain reforms and wage increases is
through struggle. In fact, it will be necessary to struggle to defend
the gains of the past, which are everywhere under threat. This is in
direct contradiction to the class collaboration policies of the
leaders, which reflect the past, not the present or the future.

In their efforts to neuter the unions and turn them into instruments
to control the workers, the ruling class does all in its power to
corrupt the tops of the unions and entangle them with the state. We
oppose all such attempts and stand for the strengthening and
democratisation of trade union organization at all levels. The unions
must be independent of the state and must control their leaders and
oblige them to fight consistently for the interests of the workers.

The reformist union leaders, who like to think of themselves as
practical and realistic, in reality are completely blind and obtuse.
They have not the slightest idea of the catastrophe that is being
prepared by the crisis of capitalism. They imagine that it is possible
to muddle through, accepting cuts and other impositions in the hope
that everything will be all right in the end. They cling to the “good
relations” with the capitalists that they imagine their conduct will
achieve. On the contrary! All history shows that weakness invites
aggression. For every step back they make, the bosses will demand three
more.

Even when they are forced by pressure from below to call strikes and
general strikes, they do everything in their power to limit such
actions to mere gestures, limited in time and scope. When they are
obliged to call mass demonstrations, they turn them into shows and
carnivals with balloons and bands, with no militant class content. For
the leaders, this is only a means of blowing off steam. For serious
trade unionists, on the contrary, strikes and demonstrations are a
means of getting the workers to understand their power and prepare the
ground for a fundamental change in society.

Even in the previous period there was an undercurrent of discontent
as a result of the attacks on workers’ rights and anti-trade union
legislation. This will now come to the surface and find an expression
in the mass organizations of the working class, starting with the
unions. The radicalisation of the rank and file will enter into
conflict with the conservatism of the leadership. The workers will
demand a complete transformation of the unions from top to bottom, and
will strive to turn them into real fighting organizations.

We stand for the building of mass, democratic and militant trade
unions, which will be capable of organizing the majority of the working
class, educating and preparing them practically, not just for a radical
transformation of society, but for actually running the economy in a
future democratic socialist society.

We demand:

Complete independence of the unions from the state.
An end to compulsory arbitration, no-strike deals, and other measures to restrict the scope of action of the unions.
Democratise the unions and place control firmly in the hands of the members!
Abolition of election for life! Election of all union officials with right of recall.
Against
bureaucracy and careerism! No official to receive a higher wage than a
skilled worker. All expenses to be available for the inspection of the
membership.
No class collaboration! For a militant programme to mobilise the workers in defence of jobs and living standards.
For trade union unity on the basis of the above demands.
For
rank and file control, including the strengthening of the shop stewards
committees and the creation of ad hoc strike committees during strikes
and other conflicts as a means of ensuring the fullest participation of
the widest number of workers.
For
the nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy and the
creation of an industrial democracy in which the unions would play a
key role in the administration and control of every workplace. Trade
unionism is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end, which is
the socialist transformation of society.

The youth

The
crisis of capitalism has particularly negative effects in the case of
the young generation, which represents the key to the future of the
human race. The senile decay of capitalism threatens to undermine
culture and demoralize the youth. Whole layers of young people, seeing
no way out of the impasse, become prey to alcoholism, drug addiction,
petty crime and violence. When young people are murdered for a pair of
trainers we must ask ourselves what kind of society we are living in.
Society encourages young people to aspire to consume products that they
cannot afford, and then throws up its hands in horror at the results.

Margaret Thatcher, that high priestess of market economics, once said there is no such thing as society.
This noxious philosophy has had the most devastating results since it
was put into practice thirty years ago. This crude individualism has
contributed powerfully to creating a spirit of egotism, greed and
indifference to the sufferings of others that has seeped like a poison
into the body of society. It is the real essence of market economics.

The true measure of the level of civilization in society is how we
take care of the old and the young. By this measure, we do not qualify
as a civilized society, but rather a society that is teetering on the
edge of barbarism. Even in the period of boom there were already
symptoms of barbarism in society, with a wave of crime and violence,
and the spread of anti-social and nihilistic moods among a layer of
young people. But these moods are a faithful reflection of the morality
of capitalism.

The reactionaries protest loudly about this but, since they cannot
admit that such things are the consequences of the social system that
they defend, they are powerless to propose any solution. Their only
response is to fill the prison cells with young people, who learn how
to be real criminals instead of mere amateurs. And so we enter into a
vicious circle of social alienation, drug addiction, degradation and
crime.

The “answer” of the Establishment is to criminalize young people, to
blame them for the problems generated by society itself, to increase
repressive policing, to build more prisons and hand out heavier
sentences. Instead of solving the problem, such measures only serve to
aggravate it and to create a vicious circle of crime and alienation.
This is the logical result of capitalism and market economics, which
treats people as mere “factors of production” and subjects everything
to the profit motive. Our answer is for the youth to organize and join
the working class in the struggle against capitalism and for socialism!

The crisis of capitalism means more unemployment and a further
deterioration of the infrastructure, education, health and housing.
This decay of civilized standards brings with it the risk of further
social disintegration. It will mean an increase in crime, vandalism,
anti-social behaviour and violence.

It is necessary to take urgent measures to prevent new layers of
youth sinking into the morass of demoralization. The fight for
socialism means the fight for culture in its broadest sense, to raise
the aspirations of young people, to give them an aim in life that is
more than the struggle to survive on a level hardly higher than that of
animals. If you treat people like animals, they will behave as animals.
If you treat people like human beings, they will react accordingly.

Cuts in education at all levels, the abolition of student grants and
the imposition of fees and student loans mean that working class youth
are excluded from higher education. Instead of being properly trained
to serve the needs of society, and given access to culture, the
majority of young people are condemned to a life of drudgery in
low-paid unskilled jobs. At the same time private companies are allowed
to interfere in education, which is increasingly being treated as a yet
another market for making profit.

We demand:

A
decent education for all young people. A massive programme of school
building and a genuinely free system of education at all levels.
The immediate abolition of student fees and the introduction of a living grant to all students who qualify for higher education.
A guaranteed job for every school-leaver with a living wage.
An end to the domination and exploitation of education by big business. Drive private enterprise out of education!
The
provision of well-equipped youth clubs, libraries, sports centres,
cinemas, swimming pools and other recreational centres for young people.
A programme of affordable public housing for students and young couples.

“Practicability”

The crisis of capitalism means that everywhere the bankers and
capitalists wish to place the entire burden of the crisis onto the
shoulders of the people who can least afford to pay: the workers, the
middle class, the unemployed, the old and sick. The argument is
constantly repeated that, because there is a crisis, we cannot afford
to improve or even maintain living standards.

The argument that there is no money to pay for reforms is a blatant
falsehood. There is plenty of money for arms and to pay for the
criminal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there is no
money for schools and hospitals. There is plenty of money to subsidize
the rich, as we saw with Bush’s little gift of $700 billion to the
bankers. But there is no money for pensions, hospitals or schools.

The argument about “practicability” therefore falls to the ground. A
given reform is “practical” or not, depending on whether it is in the
interests of a given class or not. In the last analysis, whether it is
practical (that is to say, whether it will be carried into practice)
depends on the class struggle and the real balance of forces. When the
ruling class is threatened with losing everything, it will always be
prepared to make concessions that it “cannot afford”. That was shown in
May 1968 in France, when the French ruling class conceded huge
increases in wages and important improvements in conditions and hours
in order to bring the general strike to an end and get the workers to
leave the factories they had occupied.

The onset of crisis may at first produce a shock, but this will soon
turn to anger when people realize that they are being asked to pay the
price of the crisis. There will be sudden changes in consciousness,
which can be transformed in the space of 24 hours. A big movement in
just one major country can provoke a rapid change in the whole
situation, as happened in 1968. The only reason that this has not yet
happened is because the leadership of the mass workers’ organizations
is lagging behind events and failing to present a real alternative.
However, there are already signs of a change.

In the recent period there have been general strikes and mass
demonstrations all over Europe. In Greece there have been nine general
strikes since the right wing New Democracy party took office in 2004.
In the first six months of 2008 Belgium witnessed a wave of wildcat
strikes reminiscent of the 1970s. The movement spread spontaneously
from one sector to another. In March 2008 the Berlin Transport Company
(BVG) was paralysed by a long and militant strike of the drivers and
the maintenance and administration workers. After years of concessions
and backsliding by the unions the workers have said they have had
enough. Thousands of students took to the streets in Spain on Wednesday
22^nd October
to protest against plans to privatise university education and also
opposing any plans to make workers pay for the capitalist crisis
through cuts in education, health and other public services.

In Italy the students are mobilising. Hundreds of thousands of
school and university students, together with teachers, professors and
parents are mobilising all over Italy against Berlusconi’s attempt to
further privatise education. This has led to occupations of schools and
universities. The response of the government has been to threaten the
use of armed police against the students. On Saturday, October 11,
300,000 workers and youth demonstrated in Rome in a demonstration
called by Rifondazione Comunista.

All this shows that the workers will not remain with arms folded
while their living standards are destroyed. The stage is set for a big
upswing in the class struggle. The workers are not interested in the
logic of the profit system. Our duty is to defend the interests of our
class, preserve living standards and raise the conditions of the
workers to levels that approximate a civilized standard of living. If
there is money for the bankers, then there is money to finance the kind
of reforms we need to make society a fit place to live in!

Defend democratic rights!

For
more than half a century, the workers of Western Europe and North
America believed that democracy was fixed for all time. But this is an
illusion. Democracy is a very fragile construction, and one that is
only possible in rich countries where the ruling class can make certain
concessions to the masses in order to mitigate the class struggle. But
when conditions change the ruling class in the “democratic” countries
can pass over to dictatorship with the same ease as a man passing from
one compartment of a train to another.

In conditions of heightened class struggle, the ruling class will
begin to move in the direction of reaction. They will complain that
there are too many strikes and demonstrations and demand “Order”.
Recently, Cossiga, who was Christian Democrat Minister of the Interior
in Italy in the 1970s, later President of the Republic, and now life
Senator, was asked what should be done about students’ demonstrations.
He answered:

“Let them get on with it for a while. Withdraw the
police from the streets and campuses, infiltrate the movement with
agents provocateurs who are ready for anything, and leave the
demonstrators for about ten days as they devastate shops, burn cars and
turn the cities upside down. After that, having gained the support of
the population – making sure that the noise of the ambulance sirens is
louder than those of the police and carabinieri – the forces of order
should ruthlessly attack the students and send them to hospital. Don’t
arrest them, as the judges will only release them immediately; just
beat them up and also the professors who foment the movement.”

This is a warning of what we can expect in the coming period of
heightened class struggle in Italy and other countries. In the future,
because of the weakness of the reformist leaders it is possible that
they may succeed in establishing some kind of Bonapartist
(military-police) dictatorship in one European country or another. But
under modern conditions such a regime would be very unstable and
probably not long lasting.

In the past in Italy, Germany and Spain there was a large peasantry
and petty-bourgeoisie, which formed a mass base for reaction. This has
disappeared. In the past most students were from rich families and
supported the fascists. Now most students are left wing. The social
reserves of reaction are quite limited. The fascist organizations are
small, although they can be extremely violent, which reflects weakness,
not strength. Moreover, after the experience of Hitler, the bourgeoisie
has no intention of handing power to the mad dogs. They prefer to base
themselves on the “respectable” army officers, using the fascist thugs
as auxiliaries.

Already in the recent period democratic rights have come under
attack everywhere. Using the excuse of anti-terrorist legislation, the
ruling class is introducing new laws to restrict democratic rights.
After the 11the September terrorist attacks, Bush rushed through the
Homeland Security Act (HSA). The Bush administration is attempting to
destroy the basis of democratic regime established by the American
Revolution and move towards a form of rule freed from the constraints
of law. Similar laws have been passed in Britain and other countries.

We will fight to defend all the democratic rights that have been
conquered by the working class in the past. Above all we will defend
the right to strike and demonstrate and oppose all legal restrictions
on trade unions. Everyone must have the right to join a trade union and
combine with other workers to defend his or her rights. Very often the
defenders of capitalism contrast socialism with democracy. But the same
people who dare to accuse socialists of being anti-democratic and put
themselves forward as the defenders of democracy have always been the
most ferocious enemies of democracy. They conveniently forget that such
democratic rights that we possess today were conquered by the working
class in long and bitter struggle against the rich and powerful who
consistently opposed every democratic demand.

The working class is interested in democracy because it provides us
with the most favourable conditions for developing the struggle for
socialism. But we understand that under capitalism democracy must
necessarily have a restricted, one-sided and fictitious character. What
use is freedom of the press when all the big newspapers, journals and
television companies, meeting halls and theatres are in the hands of
the rich? As long as the land, the banks and the big monopolies remain
in the hands of a few, all the really important decisions affecting our
lives will be taken, not by parliaments and elected governments but
behind locked doors in the boards of directors of the banks and big
companies. The present crisis has exposed this fact for all to see.

Socialism is democratic or it is nothing. We stand for a genuine
democracy in which the people would take the running of industry,
society and the state into their own hands. That would be a genuine
democracy, as opposed to the caricature we now have, in which anyone
can say (more or less) what they want, as long as the most important
decisions affecting our lives are taken behind locked doors by small,
unelected groups on the boards of directors of the banks and big
monopolies.

We demand:

The immediate abolition of all anti-trade union laws.
The right of all workers to join a union, strike, picket and demonstrate.
The right to free speech and assembly.
No to restrictions of democratic rights under the pretext of so-called anti-terrorist laws!
The
workers’ organizations must reject the false idea of “national unity”
with capitalist governments and parties under the pretext of the
crisis. The latter are responsible for the crisis and want to present
the bill to the working class.

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