Following the same understanding, Polecon fully supports the efforts being made by the Peoples Assembly to unite a broad movement aimed at resisting the new austerity being prepared by the Tory government. Polecon asks the Peoples Assembly and all those with the relevant expertise and experience, including those supporting Labour's Manifestos of 2017 and 2019, to assemble around a commission designed to prepare the new economy.
A Declaration
Provoked by the Coronavirus, sweeping changes are multiplying across the globe. In the UK many gaps have been exposed in the health and social services. Behind the problems faced by what has been called in the UK – ‘the front line services’ – there also looms deep faults in the UK economy and its politics , exposing the chasm between the rich and the poor. The death count demonstrates the lie that the coronavirus is classless and blind to race. The UK has already become the weakest link in the Coronavirus chain across Europe.
As the first wave of the pandemic subsides in the West, it is generally accepted that the wealth held by States will be used to maintain, as far as possible, the previous economic conditions. But despite the rhetoric poured by politicians over the heads of millions who are struggling with the pandemic, a vicious ‘austerity 2’ is very close. The word ‘austerity’ will be denied by governments and their allies, particularly in the UK. But unemployment plus lower wages and poorer conditions and, after the applause fades, inroads into health and welfare resources, will re-emerge. Millions, including the middle classes, will experience a drop in living standards, deeper and more hectic than in the last decade.
The major States in the West and the East , including the US and China, have, since 2008, been propping up what is dubiously called ‘global capitalism.’ Once more a failing economic system is soaking up the resources of the different nations, in order to maintain the domination of a spent system. In 2008 it was the banks that received State finances, preventing their own collapses via funding stock exchanges that expanded corporate wealth. This time it is the corporations themselves that are directly demanding State wealth.
It is the politics of course that will decide what happens across nations when the pandemic finishes. Since 2008 politics in Western Europe the US and the BRIC countries have failed to serve their populations in terms of living standards. Because of that failure new politics have emerged.
The prime political momentum in the West and in some BRIC countries is becoming more dangerous. Facing down the rise of the right after the pandemic will be a crucial part of breaking the new right’s surge. The rise of the new right and its growing collection of governments has always attacked minorities and is now preparing for the use of force in society. (See Poland, Hungary, Brazil and Trump’s new militia in Michigan.) Because social disruption is now likely to erupt as a response to the second austerity in several countries, the right intends to maintain their political domination by force or by manipulation of the votes. Their drive for their version of ‘security’ is designed to win the support of large capital. Anti-fascism and anti-racism can no longer base themselves simply on liberal speeches. Mass defensive action in the US, in Europe and in the BRIC countries is needed.
The recent defeat of left Social Democracy in the US and in the UK has left millions without mainstreampolitical organisations that might help contesting the right. This will elevate the inevitable excuse following the pandemic that ‘there is no alternative’ when it comes to the reduction in the standards and quality of lives of the majority.
Yet across the whole of the West, especially obvious in the UK, there appears to be the view that a substantial change in society is sorely needed. Endless polls reflect very low belief in current political institutions and disappointment in the failings in society. And these feelings do not inevitably fall to the right.
In the recent two General Elections in the UK, there was widespread support for radical changes in the economy. And despite the defeat of the Corbyn led Labour Party in the 2019 General Election, smothered as it was by a huge deluge of slander, internal divisions and intense media hostility, 10 million voters (following 14 million voters in 2017) supported the democratic nationalisation of all public services - including the Internet and a range of deeply radical policies. This was topped by the priority for a Green industrial revolution. In the UK, Ireland, now Italy and France, a sense of political unease is developing into left-alternative action. The new right is powerful but they are far from winning. The next stage, post pandemic, will decide the issue - through a struggle in society about the coming recession hitting jobs and welfare.
This letter is directed in the UK – to all those who want to build a platform for radical change, turning our society away from the prospect of another terrible ten years.
And the extraordinary development in the UK’s popular focus, now centred on the NHS, has shifted the connection of millions closer to this institution than any other in British society. The monarchy, the armed forces and other previously revered beacons of ‘Britishness’ have been overwhelmed. Westminster politics , the Church and the media have already fallen as in any way prime benefits of British society. More significant in the new context are three shifts. First, the NHS is now understood as meaning the workers at all levels delivering health care in hospitals and the community, the great number of African and Asian heritage people and those who recently came across Europe and South Asia to join the NHS; these are the real NHS. The NHS has nothing to do with its scared Minister of Health or its system of managers. Second, the NHS, despite decades of cuts, privatisations and fragmentation, still offers a new version of how a very large institution can work brilliantly as it resists hierarchy in favour of team work; as it can be directly accountable to the public and as it can cut right through the so-called unavoidable economics of globalisation as well as the equally useless politics of Westminster. Third, the NHS, described by much of the British media as ‘the warriors of the front line’, are actually seen by most people as a million and a half or so of ordinary people, carrying out an extraordinary job.
These changes in the self-organisation and decisions made by literally millions, for the collective aims of all, reflect a radical shift that will be a real first line of defence against the government’s intentions to recreate a new version of austerity 2 (whatever it turns out to be called.) This is a concrete base of an entirely different approach to society; how State forces can be used for peoples’ needs; how collective work and management can be so much more effective than our present arrangements; how the largest and most important requirements in society are achieved without the slightest need for profit.
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