What’s the Alternative to Capitalism?

An article by Iain Dalton - from Leeds branch of the Socialist Party - discussing the "ever greater questioning of the current way society is organised".

As the Occupy movements signify, there is an ever greater questioning of the current way society is organised, with many questions the capitalist economic system itself. For socialists, it is incredibly encouraging to see wide layers of people criticising the current economic system, but one feature of the present questioning of capitalism, is confusion and a lack of any definitive alternative. Therefore all sorts of ideas are being thrown up and seized upon by people eager to find a way out of the current economic impasse. Yesterday the Yorkshire Evening Post (YEP) published an article ‘Is the golden age of capitalism over?’, which discuss this and raises some alternative views, in particular steady-state economics.

The main thrust of steady-state economics is that rather than aiming for growth within an economy in terms of production of resources, people should be content with maintaining what already exists, or as the article puts it “instead of continually accumulating more things, we would have to be content with what we have – we would be encouraged to fix things instead of buying new, to grow our own vegetables or buy locally produced ones”.

This questioning of the need for growth, is something that is common to many of the people taking part in the occupy movement. For many it is synonimous with environmental destruction, wastage and greed and as one of the interviewees in the article explains “the economy simply cannot grow forever on a planet which has finite resources and we can see that happening right now with the price of oil”.

For socialists, the question of growth has to be related to the needs of people, the very essence of socialism relies upon the democratic planning of the economy to ensure the production and distribution of the resources that are required by people to live a full life. But to take a glance at the consumption levels for most people even in the advanced capitalist countries such as the UK, reveals the high levels of poverty currently existing, let alone the neo-colonial world. For the majority of people “most of us changing to a more modest lifestyle” (ie a majority, not simply the super-rich 1%), would simply not be viable and is an attempt to turn back the clock of development.

Critics of socialism often accuse socialists of wanting to level down everyone’s income in such a manner, but as is pointed out “The idea with the steady state economy is to accept we have this low level of growth and that we are happy with it and to figure out how we live within that. It sounds like socialism but it’s not.” Or as another interviewee comments “A steady state economy is simply another version of capitalism".

But is such a steady-state even possible under capitalism?

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Please click here for the full article.

What have we been up to?

In December we produced this leaflet to review what the SP Roth branch did in 2011 and to begin building the campaign for the local elections in early May 2012! Election 2012 Leaflet Decmber2011

Name the day of the next strike!!!

PCS Left Unity is organising a 'organising conference' early in 2012 to put pressure on the TUC to stop the pensions sell-out!

PCS Left Unity National Committee

DEFEND PENSIONS - ESCALATE ACTION

NAME DAY FOR NATIONAL STRIKE

Organising Conference Saturday: Friends Meeting House

(opp. Euston Station) 7th January 2012 11am – 4pm

Chair: Janice Godrich PCS President

Speaker: Mark Serwotka PCS General Secretary

(other speakers to be announced)

November 30th was the biggest show of strength from Britain’s trade unions in living memory. It shook the coalition government and provided a firm foundation for the escalation of industrial action to defeat the unjustified attack on pensions and to challenge the coalition’s pay freeze, cuts and privatisation programme.

At the TUC’s Public Sector Liaison Group Mark Serwotka on behalf of PCS argued the TUC should set the date for a further day of nationally coordinated strike action to bring the government into serious negotiations. Although there was some support for this position the TUC general secretary Brendan Barber argued that all the unions should sign up to a so-called “Heads of Agreement”, this means the core issues, on which we took action, working longer, paying more and getting less, are surrendered, just  as the government have wanted. Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, argued for acceptance of this “deal”.

It is almost beyond belief that when the confidence of the movement is at its highest point in decades as a result of November 30th and with an additional 100,000 recruits due to the action such an abject surrender is being considered. Now is the time to set the date, as early as possible in 2012, preferably January, for a further day of nationally coordinated industrial action which can be escalated by bringing even more unions on board including workers, like those in Unilever, fighting to defend private sector pensions.  

The PCS Left Unity National Committee invites all activists from all unions to an organising conference on the 7th of January to debate how we can build the campaign to defend our pensions and fight the cuts and prevent any unacceptable “deal” that makes us work longer, pay more and get less.

This will be an organising conference, not just a debating forum. It is intended to arm activists with the issues so they can go back to their workplaces and into their unions in order to build a campaign that will secure justice on pensions.

To cover costs there will be a registration fee of £5 for waged delegates.

FAIR PENSIONS FOR ALL - STOP THE CUTS - NO PRIVATISATION

Sheffield Nov30 pics: Matt Holmes via IndyMedia Sheffield All photos by Matt Holmes. Originally posted on IndyMedia Sheffield.

Nov 30 - March and Rally in Rotherham!

Rotherham is to hold a March and Rally on November 30th to support the stikes in the public sector.

In a meeting organised by Rotherham Unison branches, with representatives from many unions, community groups and campaigning groups, the following action was agreed in order to promote and to support the strikes:

10am: After pickets, gather outside town hall.
10:30am: Start the March around Rotherham (details + map below - red line marks the route of the march).
11am: arrive for a rally in All Saints Square
11:15am onwards: Board coaches and head to Sheffield to join the regional demonstrations.

Also there will be 'Action Days' held on Saturday12th and 19th November, leafletting and promoting the strike and the march. Stalls will be organised in All Saints Square and outside the Market/Halifax Bank/Boots.

MARCH DETAILS: - March begins outside Rotherham Town Hall
- March behind Job Centre along Stanley street
- Turn left, down the hill, along Mansfield Road
- Turn left and march along Wellgate
- Turn right, up the hill, along Doncaster Gate
- Turn left along Howard Street/Eastwood Lane past RCAT
- Turn left, down the hill, along Wharnecliffe Street/ Drummond Street past the Markets and Rotherham Central Library
- Turn Left, march along Henry Street/ Effingham Street towards All Saints Square
- Rally in All Saints Square 

Activity report: 05/09/2011

This week Rotherham Socialist party held 2 stalls in the town centre... we keep having to jostle for position on Howard Street (pedestrian street linking the bus station with the market square); at one end there are small stalls and Big Issue sellers who we don't want to annoy and at the other we've got a new shop opening doin' opeing day promotion type stunts complete with Borat lookalike!

Either way - 27 (a sell out situation) on Tuesday and 46 on Friday (totaling 73) copies of The Socialist were shifted! Not bad that!

Also, we made a few new contacts and we were glad to see one of them turn up to Sundays meeting. The Meeting itself was entitled 'Socialism FAQ' and was supposed to be a general discussion outlining Socialism for people who had not been to our branch meeting before. 10 people turned up and although only 2 new faces were there, the discussion was really healthy. It is probably true that these types of general discussions help the branch to develop our analysis and arguments for Socialism!

Next Sunday most of the branch will probably be down in London for the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) lobby of the TUC conference to urge the TUC to call a date for a general strike.

Plans for the Rotherham leg of the Jarrow March are comeing on nicely with projected route going through Thorpe Hesley before heading into Sheff... although we have no definite plans as yet, we do intend to get some sort of 'Welcoming Rally' at the rec in Thorpe Hesley and join the march for a wee while, hopefully attracting some help from local pubs etc...

This week we will be doing stalls on Wednesday and Friday from 11am to 1pm... we also hope to get up to the colleges for a bit of leafleting!

See you on the streets!

b!x

July Round Up!

A round up of the branch's activities and a few dates for your diaries!

• This month we managed to get out and do a stall on about 8 times; we shifted 194 copies of 'The Socialist'!
• We had a couple of good political discussions covering the 'NHS', the 'Spanish Civil War' and 'Chomsky and Herman's Propaganda Model of the Mass Media and Murdoch'
• The Spanish Civil war themed social was a really good day. A small group of us had the fortune of listening to Joan Brown telling us the stories of Rotherham people who had gone to fight Fascism. Also had a few songs from a cracking folk musician (name to follow!)
• Took part in numerous Rotherham Against the Cuts activities and meetings.
• Members attended a Regional educational weekend in Leeds on the Spanish Civil War/Revolution.
• Started preliminary planning for our participation in the Jarrow March
• A monthly branch newsletter is being planned... watch this space...

BRANCH PROGRAMME - meeting every Sunday, 7:30pm at the Trades Club:
7th August: Business meeting and Stalls 'workshop'
14th: Discussion on the Miners' Strike
21st: Business meeting and 'recruitment workshop'
28th: TBC
Sunday 4th September: SOCIALISM FAQ + Bring a Friend!

Other Meetings:

Tuesday 2nd August: RAC Constitution meeting , 7:30pm Bridge Inn, Rotherham
Tuesday 9th August: RAC general meeting, 7:30pm Bridge Inn, Rotherham