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It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. So is a graph or chart.

All provoke questions and new ideas.

The above chart clearly portrays Chinas economic rise as seen by it winning over and hosting top companies in competition with the United States.

It also conjures up some interesting questions

Item #1. Regarding the relationship between the United States and China the common parlance is to refer to America as capitalist and democratic and call China Communist China. Looking at the chart one may wonder if this is accurate.

Further, Marx defined the difference between capitalism and socialism or communism being the location (public or private sectors of the economy) of the forces of production in each country. Also, employment. In the case of U.S., the largest sectors are the military, government, health services and law enforcement and penal care. These are all defined as public. They are much smaller in China. Also, taxes, which feed the public sector, are much higher in America.

History also offers some ideas. Capitalist countries as a rule grow better economically than socialist or communist ones. Chinas gross national product or GDP growth is more than double Americas even though China is suffering from a broken housing bubble, the middle-income country crisis, and American placing economic sanctions on China.

Finally, China outshines the U.S. with its #1 ranking in trade, heavy industry, foreign aid and investments, steel production, patents and a number of other markers that are the bailiwick of capitalist countries.

May I say then we might consider a new narrative. Socialist America and State Capitalist China.

Item #2. A majority of academic pundits, statesmen, and media people speak of the global system heading toward multipolarity. And they approve of that future. Good riddance to the Cold War that gave us bipolarity that embraced MAD (mutual assured destruction), the dominance of ideology, and a constant fear of a nuclear World War III.

This ended in the 1990s with the demise of the Soviet Union and an interlude of unipolarity with the United States in command. But that did not last.

Anyway, as the chart above suggests the world is not multipolar. It is bipolar.

A number of facts and lots of data indicate this is indeed true.

The U.S. and China are the only superpowers. Russia, Japan, Germany and the UK are all much weaker in terms of economic size, financial power, military power (even though Russia has huge stock of nuclear weapons its defence budget is around one-tenth of the U.S.) diplomatic prowess, science and technology and other elements of power. Further, they are all in decline in most respects.

Wantabees such as India, Indonesia, Brazil and maybe a few more are too far behind the U.S. and China to be taken seriously. Perhaps a few decades later. Maybe not.

A new look at bipolarity suggests it was not such a bad system after all. It managed the rapid expansion of super weapons, rapid economic growth, and globalism. An unthinkable war did not happen. Bipolarity worked well owing to cooperation and collusion to cope with the constant fear of war.

That system has been rebuilt with China replacing the Soviet Union.

The difficulty with accepting bipolarity is that historically it was pretty much an untried system and in theory is a zero-sum system prone to war. Multipolarity prevailed in Western history as the balance of power system in operation before World War I. But today balancing power is too complex and difficult and impossible to reconstruct.

Item #3. Charts such as the one above are often used to predict or extrapolate the future. Looking at the one at hand one might expect China, which grew in hosting big global companies from few to as many as the U.S., while others, except China, saw no meaningful growth. Might China continue to grow in this metric to eclipse the U.S. in the next twenty years?

Certainly, Chinas successes and it besting the U.S. measured by other metrics shows such a trend.

Why? In 1976, Mao died and after a short delay Deng Xiaoping became Chinas leader. He ended Chinas extreme egalitarian communism and adopted a free market, free trade system that was essentially capitalism. China boomed economically as never before and grew its GDP many times faster than the U.S. China, of course, had the advantage of being a poor country. But it grew faster longer than any large country ever had.

In 2008, the U.S. fell into recession followed by one of the worst recoveries ever. China continued its high-speed growth. As a result, China passed the U.S. to become number one in the world in industrial production, trade, foreign investments, economic assistance, and even GDP if measured in purchasing power parity.

In recent years, China has become number one in the world, passing the United States, in the number of scientific papers it produces and patents. It has bested America in artificial intelligence, quantum computers, and robotics (with more than half of the worlds total working in industry). It is way ahead in materials science, chemistry, engineering, environmental science, agricultural studies, physics and mathematics. According to Nature index, seven of the top ten universities in research are in China.

China has an advantage over the United States because of linking research to its industrial base. Meanwhile, its lead in engineering explains its major breakthroughs in weapons, including hyper speed missiles.

Explaining this, since 2000 Chinas spending on research has increased 17-fold. And it is sill growing. America, with its multi-trillion dollar deficits cannot raise its spending on research or its military because of having to pay huge interest on its debt.

This, and the fact The Economist and other such organisations rate the U.S., not as a democracy, but as a flawed democracy and no longer consider it a model because of its debased legal system and equality under the law. Some foreign historians exclaim the U.S. is in a period of dark ages. China is experiencing a renaissance.

In conclusion, the above analysis includes some hard to accept data and conclusions. But they should at least be food for thought.

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Socialist America, state capitalist China - Pearls and Irritations

Communism is clearly a modern form of slavery, as Ill explain below.Yet recent opinion polls show that communism is ridiculously popular with younger generations of Americans, especially when its presented as socialism.

In 2020, 49 percent of Gen Z and 47 percent of Millennials said they viewed socialism favorably, numbers that dipped slightly in 2022. That same year, 58 percent of young Democrats said they had a positive view of socialism (compared with only 29 percent who had a positive view of capitalism). These numbers are all the more horrifying when you consider what communism actually demands of us.

Communism is slavery that poses as justice. This has been proven over 100 years of history and by at least 100 million murders at the hands of communist regimes treating their human subjects as chattel. Socialism is the weasel word that paves the path to the slavery we politely call communism or Marxism.

Ive grown frustrated with well-meaning people who bend over backward to try to explain how Marxism doesnt work or how capitalism is so much better for a healthy economy. These perfectly reasonable arguments fall flat because theyre incomprehensible to the vast majority of Americans today.

We occasionally see statements that compare slavery and communism. Theyve come from a survivor of Maoist China, a public intellectual, the Victims of Communism Foundation, a 19th-century political philosopher, and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. But it simply isnt enough.

The similarity between Marxism and slavery must be shouted from the rooftops, not reduced to an academic argument. We must build on the emotional understanding people already have of slaverys evils if we hope to escape the bondage of communism.

The hour is late. Along with governments worldwide, America is sliding hard into socialism. Our overlords are fast eroding freedom under the guise of justice. Communism is designed to centralize the power of a small vanguard over the vast majority. If this process continues, people inevitably end up reduced to chattel controlled by one central master. Today thats made up of an oligarchy of billionaires, politicians, corporate CEOs, and technocrats.

This collective master is not hiding its intention to control the entire means of production, the food supply, education, employment, transportation, information, pop culture, sports, medicine, and, ultimately, your personal life and relationships.

The self-appointed benefactors in communist societies intend to distribute goods and services according to a social credit system modeled on Chinas. Your access to goods and services will depend on your political compliance. The Covid mandates served as a test run to check our levels of compliance. Your job is to have nothing, obey orders, and, of course, be happy in your slavery.

To better understand the urgency, lets take a quick look at some of the key features of communism, how they are reflected in slavery, and how chillingly close we have already come to losing our freedom in America.

There are four areas in particular where government is moving toward such total control that it reflects a master-slave relationship: communication, property rights, due process, and private life.

Communism is profoundly anti-thought and anti-speech.

Communist regimes outlaw any perspectives other than their own. Speech and reading are confined to propaganda only. During the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, Vladimir Lenin quickly decreed the takeover of all media outlets. Shutting down free expression is key to all totalitarian governments from Nazi Germany to Communist China.

Communist regimes also require you to accept absurdities, such as the slogan Freedom is Slavery! of Orwells novel 1984. Compelled speech, self-censorship, and cancel culture are all elements central to communism.

In 1860, abolitionist Frederick Douglass emphasized that free speech is the right which they [tyrants] first of all strike down. Slavery cannot tolerate free speech. Laws prohibited slaves from learning how to read so they were kept isolated, ignorant, and compliant. Slaves who didnt adequately self-censor were whipped, sold, or even killed.

And in America today? We see constant government and Big Tech attempts to silence dissent under the guise of protecting us from disinformation. The goal is to enforce the propagandistic narrative in all institutions, particularly in education and media. Censorship is also corrupting medicine, sports, finance, and the military.

Americans are quickly learning they have no right to speak their mind on obvious questions such as, How did a female-identifying male swimmer move from a ranking of No. 554 to No. 1? without risking social punishment.

New absurdities emerging in America today include asserting that speech is violence, compelling speech through gender identity laws that require pronoun protocols, and referring to pregnant women as womb-havers.

Personal ownership of land, a business, or anything of value is particularly hateful to communists.

Likewise, slaves were expected to own nothing and be happy.

And just as a master who buys and sells human beings feels justified entering slave quarters at any time, so the communist dictator sends his thugs to conduct politicized raids in homes. This is a feature of all totalitarian systems.

And where are we now? This exact communism-slavery sentiment Youll own nothing. And youll be happy was central to the 2016 World Economic Forum promotional video 8 Predictions for the World in 2030.

The goal is always total dependence on the master regime. We long ago reached the tipping point of over 50 percent of Americans dependent upon government aid, which doesnt even account for the benefits showered on illegal aliens.

For decades, the government has been federalizing huge swaths of land over which it controls access and entry. It uses taxation accelerated by the desolation imposed during the Covid era to shut down businesses and home-buying.

We see law enforcement conducting politically motivated raids of private residences, often warrantless. Federal agents raid Amish farms. The FBI seizes the contents of countless safe deposit boxes without cause. Politically incorrect Americans are de-banked and targeted by the IRS.

Pre-dawn raids were a specialty in Stalinist Russia, a clear indicator that due process does not exist in communist regimes. Show me the man and Ill show you the crime, bragged Stalins Chief of Secret Police Lavrenty Beria. Show trials in kangaroo courts followed by quick execution of the accused were standard practice in all radical utopian revolutions from the French Revolution to Maos China and beyond.

Slaves are treated no differently. The master did as he pleased to slaves, and the law was silent.

Were moving toward this scenario with the erosion of rule of law and due process in America. Diversity, equity, and inclusion tribunals in all of our institutions can use anonymous bias response reports to punish any accused offender.

Officially sanctioned virtual lynchings are fast replacing due process.

Any fair-minded person can see that the recent show trial of Donald Trump was meant to dispose of a political opponent. The charges and timing were obviously contrived and politically motivated. The same goes for the hundreds of protesters on Jan. 6 who believed they were simply exercising their First Amendment right to petition their grievances but ended up thrown in jail and even solitary confinement without a trial date.

Ten years ago, Wisconsin district attorneys ordered raids on the homes of Gov. Scott Walkers supporters. Today, the FBI conducts political raids on homes from President Donald Trumps residence down to those of unknown pro-life activists.

Communist regimes also impose cruel isolation from loved ones, often by inciting political hostilities where hostilities never existed before.

Consider Stalinist Russia, where 13-year-old Pavlik Morozov became a national hero for essentially snitching on his fathers political incorrectness, leading to his fathers execution. Soviet schoolchildren were taught they must emulate Pavlik if they wanted to be socially accepted. All such communist systems teach children that their first loyalty must be to the master state.

Likewise, slaves were sold on the auction block, brutally separated from loved ones.

Americas move toward socialism comes with many indicators that were losing the right to family cohesion and the right to bring up our own children. Family breakdown seems to have been designed by our political overlords, whose power grows when people are isolated. Covid mandates even forced our loved ones to die in isolation.

We have an education system that mind-rapes children under the banner of social and emotional learning. We see states promote abortion for minors and the social and surgical transing of children without parental knowledge.

We are also losing our right to defend ourselves, our families, or even strangers in distress. Consider the case of Daniel Penny, who was charged with murder for trying to protect himself and other New York subway riders from being attacked. We are also quickly losing our right to refuse untested injections into our bodies.

So lets dispense with the formalities. Nobody needs to hear a dissertation on Marxism versus capitalism to understand that Marxism is literally slavery. Lets say it every chance we get: As America moves toward communism, it moves toward slavery. But we abolished slavery once in this country. We can do it again.

Read this article:
Socialism And Communism Are Weasel Words For Slavery - The Federalist

National Secretary Chris Marsden introduced the Socialist Equality Partys final general election rally, held Sunday at the Indian YMCA in the London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, by stressing its extraordinary international character.

To build a mass, international socialist anti-war movement in the UK meant breaking once and for all with the rotten, right wing, pro-big business, anti-working class, genocide enabling, warmongers of the Labour Party. But this meant recognising that all the major problems confronting the working class can only be fought on an international level.

The meetings platform featured many of the principal leaders of the party that the working class needs to wage this struggle, the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution founded by Leon Trotsky.

Darren Paxton, the SEPs candidate for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-Shire, began with an appeal to support the campaign for the release of Bogdan Syrotiuk. The 25-year-old leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists was arrested on April 25 by the Zelensky regime, working closely with the Biden administration, for opposing imperialist-provoked war and advocating for the socialist unity of Ukrainian and Russian workers.

Paxton welcomed the freedom of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, victimised and imprisoned by US and British imperialism for opposing war and war crimes. I am one of thousands of young people worldwide who learned about Assanges case through the WSWS, he said. All of us in the partys branch in Inverness, all in our early 20s, have been educated politically in the fight for Assanges freedom.

He warned that Though Assange is free, the global capitalist offensive against democratic rights is only accelerating and the sharpest expression of the crackdown on democratic rights in the service of imperialist war is in Ukraine. Bogdan has been accused of high treason and faces life imprisonment, but by organising a global picket outside Ukrainian embassies on June 13, We have put the Ukrainian government and its NATO backers on notice that we intend to redouble our global campaign for his release.

Alex Lantier brought the fraternal greetings of the Parti de lgalit socialiste of France on the day of the first round of snap elections in that country in which the neo-fascist National Rally (RN) is in striking distance of a parliamentary majority.

Lantier explained that what unites the snap elections called on both sides of the Channel is that NATO is preparing a massive escalation of war with Russia and class war at home. The decisive question facing workers not only in Britain, or in France, but around the world is how to fight capitalisms plunge into world war and fascistic reaction.

The ruling class is discussing how to rule against the people to wage war. This could take the form of a far-right regime led by Le Pens RN, or Macron possibly suspending parliamentary democracy and granting himself emergency dictatorial powers of indefinite duration, unchecked by parliament or the courts.

Fundamentally, Workers cannot pressure capitalist politicians to find a democratic policy on the national soil, because the capitalist class does not ultimately want democracy. It wants dictatorship and war. This underlies the bankruptcy of the electoral strategy proposed by the New Popular Front coalition led by Jean-Luc Mlenchonthe French ally of Podemos in Spain, the Democratic Socialists of America, and Jeremy Corbyn.

The New Popular Front is a pro-war trap for the working class. Bringing together the Socialist Party, Communist Party, the Pabloite New Anti-capitalist Party, and Mlenchons France Unbowed, it supports Macrons war with Russia and the French police state.

Lantier explained: The rise of the far right is not the result of mass support for genocide and war. It is the product of the systematic disenfranchisement of workers by the nationalist bureaucrats that the media and the ruling class promote as the left The decisive issue is the forging an international, revolutionary movement in the working class against imperialist war and fascism, and for socialism.

Christoph Vandreier, national secretary of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei, is the author of Why are they Back? Historical falsification, Political Conspiracy and the return of Fascism in Germany.

The partys lead candidate in the European elections explained that the successes of the far-right were not the result of a fascist mass movement, as was the case in Germany in the 1930s. If the right can also win votes among workers, it is because of the bankruptcy of the pseudo-left, which, like Syriza in Greece and the Left Party in Germany, pushed through the worst social cuts and promoted war policies in the name of left-wing politics. The shift to the right is not coming from below, but from above.

Vandreier said, It is the height of cynicism when the German elites use the fight against antisemitism as an ideological lubricant for the new war machine and the suppression of resistance to it It is not the millions of workers and young people who are showing solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians, but the ruling class that is once again taking up the brown traditions of the Nazis by rolling German tanks against Russia, declaring genocide to be a reason of state, and arming the Bundeswehr on a scale not seen since Hitler.

Vandreier insisted, Our struggle against the falsification of history has shown how important the struggle on the ideological front is. On this basis, we achieved important success at Humboldt University in the last [student] elections, winning 7.7 percent of the vote. At the same time, the German secret service stepped up its action against us and added the IYSSE [the SEP/SGPs youth movement] to the list of extremist organisations alongside the SGP The working class can only defend its rights, can only prevent the catastrophe of a world war, if it bases itself on historical truth and the lessons of history.

Joseph Kishore is the national secretary and presidential candidate for the Socialist Equality Party in the United States. Referring to the presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump as one of the most degraded spectacles in American political history, Kishore noted that media commentary has focused on the cognitive decline of the American president and his possible replacement. But what would be the aim of a change in the candidate of the Democratic Party? What policies would it be intended to facilitate?

Kishores answer was War Such are the real priorities of the Democratic Party, whether Biden is at its head or someone else. It is a party of war, of imperialism, of the military-intelligence apparatus, of Wall Street, and the corporate-financial oligarchy that is directing this increasingly reckless militarist policy.

Bidens opponent Trump, is a fascistic conman who, just three-and-a-half years ago, staged a coup that was aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election and establishing a personalist dictatorship

That Trump could very well win the presidency in the upcoming elections is the product of, on the one hand, the turn of the ruling elites toward authoritarianism and dictatorship, and, on the other hand, the thoroughly right-wing character of the official opposition... To speak of a lesser evil between these two parties is politically meaningless. They are two representatives of a corporate and financial oligarchy that is driving the entire world toward catastrophe.

Kishore explained that We live in a period of shocks, sharp transformations, of mass protests and demonstrations, of snap elections and the downfall of governments. The situation can shift very rapidly. The critical question is the development, within the working class, of a political leadership capable of orienting the masses toward the conquest of power and the socialist transformation of economic and social life.

Tom Scripps is the Socialist Equality Partys general election candidate for Holborn and St Pancras and the assistant national secretary of the British section.

Scripps explained that Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a snap poll because he was told to do so by Washington and those in the British state closest to the White House and the Pentagon A new government was needed to wage war, even if this meant Sunak falling on his sword. And the overwhelming choice to lead it in ruling circles is the Labour Party.

The SEP was alone in alerting the working class to these dangers. Any candidates standing to protest the genocide in Gaza, such as Andrew Feinstein in Holborn and St Pancras, who mostly take their cue from former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, do so while refusing to make the obvious connection between British imperialisms support for mass murder and ethnic cleansing by Israel and the war it provoked in Ukraine that has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and will cost far more unless it is stopped.

Scripps insisted, We oppose the Labour Party as a whole, including the handful of lefts who cry crocodile tears for Gaza while planning to take their seats on Starmers government benches. The working class, especially the younger generation, need to understand that war is the major issue on which a new socialist movement must be built.

Starmer and the Labour Party are not going to have it all their own way, said Scripps. Theirs will be a government of crisis and class struggle. Our task is to train political leaders who can intervene, educate and win large numbers of workers and young people looking for a way forward against war, austerity and authoritarianism, to a socialist perspective. That is the purpose of our campaign in this election.

See more here:
UK Socialist Equality Party election rally advances socialist and internationalist opposition to war - WSWS

The latest meeting of the Council of Ministers brought new "pearls of wisdom" from leader Miguel Daz-Canel, who once again emphasized the centrality of the socialist model in Cuba's economy.

Gathered on Monday in the halls of the so-called Palace of the Revolution, the assembly evaluated various economic issues affecting the country's macroeconomic stability, with a particular focus on the activities of the "new economic actors."

Focusing on the campaign against "crimes and illegalities," the Cuban leader addressed the "distortions" introduced by these "new actors" that complicate macroeconomic stabilization. He cited reasons such as their "violations of established norms" and the growing corruption in the country.

To them, Daz-Canel issued a warning: "No one here needs to worry if they are operating legally and doing things correctly."

"It was always definedwhen the economic and social [socialist] model was recognized by the Army Generalthat the non-state sector of the economy had to work legally, as a complement to the economy, and had to pay taxes. These three things are being violated in some way. Therefore, we need to combat this," he asserted.

However, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) also acknowledged that state entities are also at fault for the issues with these "new actors."

"I insist, and I have always said, wherever there is a distortion of this kind, there was poor work, poor performance from the state entity that was related to that non-state entity," Daz-Canel noted.

The report from the Cuban Television News (NTV) captured another moment of the meeting during which the leader, appointed by Ral Castro, concluded with a "pearl" of his political, economic, and philosophical wisdom.

"[We are here] with the conviction that all of us are here to save the revolution and to save socialism. And remember that building socialism requires consciousness... it requires consciousness... and it requires the formation of a person who acts differently in society," Daz-Canel remarked.

To further comprehend the implications of Daz-Canel's statements during the Council of Ministers meeting, here are some frequently asked questions and their answers:

The "new economic actors" refer to the non-state sector of the Cuban economy, including private businesses and cooperatives, which have been given more space to operate within the country's socialist framework.

Daz-Canel stresses legality and tax payment to ensure that all economic activities align with the socialist principles and contribute to the state's revenue, preventing distortions and corruption within the economy.

Daz-Canel's stance fosters a more regulated and controlled relationship between state and non-state entities, ensuring that the latter operates within legal boundaries and contributes to the national economy without causing macroeconomic instability.

Excerpt from:
Cuban Leader Daz-Canel Reminds Business Owners: "We're All Here to Save the Revolution and Socialism" - Cuba Headlines

Socialist Party statement

Not just booted out. The Tories have been crushed. The electorate has punished them for fourteen years of austerity, attacks on the working class, lies and corruption. Less than seven million people went out and voted for the Tory Party, its lowest vote in a century. Ten cabinet ministers and 250 Tory MPs have lost their seats, the biggest losses ever suffered by an outgoing government in Britain. Rishi Sunaks only achievement is that there is still a Tory MP in his constituency alone among the constituencies of the last five Tory prime ministers. Over breakfast on 5 July, millions got to enjoy seeing ex-prime minister Liz Truss booted out as MP for South West Norfolk a seat which previously had a 24,180 majority.

The result, in terms of the number of seats, is a Labour landslide, just shy of Tony Blairs New Labour victory in 1997. But enthusiasm for Keir Starmers Labour was absent from this general election. The absolute vote for Labour was 9.6 million, lower than the 10.2 million vote Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour got in 2019, never mind the 12.8 million he got in 2017. Labours vote share, at around 34%, is the lowest ever for a general election victor, whereas in 2017 Corbyn got 40% of the vote, the biggest jump for a national party in one election since 1945.

The absolute vote for Labour was 9.6 million, lower than the 10.2 million vote Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour got in 2019, never mind the 12.8 million he got in 2017

The turnout, at less than 60%, was at least as low as 2001, and perhaps the lowest ever in a general election. None of this, of course, has stopped spokespeople for Labour, echoed by the capitalist media, spending election night endlessly repeating how it was only Starmers successful change in the party (in reality into pro-capitalist New Labour) that had allowed them to go from the allegedly worst election result since 1935 in 2019 to victory in 2024.

In reality, voters picked up whichever they saw as the most effective weapon they could find to defeat a government which has presided over a massive fall in living standards. In 2022/23 the government faced the biggest strike wave since the 1980s: now came the electoral follow through. In Scotland that also meant using Labour to punish the SNP Scottish government, but in England it was the Tories that were the governmental enemy. As a result, while Labours vote share in England was no higher than in 2019, many Tory seats had swings to Labour but, in seats Labour already held record numbers stayed at home or voted for other parties. In Wales the process was similar, although Labours vote share actually fell from 2019, reflecting anger at the austerity that has also been inflicted by the Labour-led Senedd: the Welsh parliament.

In other seats, particularly in the so-called Surrey stockbroker belt and the south west of England, it was the Liberal Democrats who were seen as the best means to defeat the Tories. As a result they gained an extra 63 seats, while only increasing their overall share of the vote by 0.6%.

However, for many trade unionists and socialists, the most concerning thing about the election result will be the support for Nigel Farages right-populist Reform Party. Reform won four MPs, but its absolute vote was just over four million, half-a-million higher than the Liberal Democrats. This is a warning for the future, and the danger of right-populist, racist forces stepping into the vacuum as anger with the incoming Labour government grows. Nonetheless, at this stage Reforms vote was not the breakthrough that the capitalist media are suggesting. The direct predecessor of Reform, the Brexit Party, got more than five million votes in the 2019 European elections, and its incarnation before that UKIP got close to four million votes in the 2015 general election.

Reforms vote was just over 4 million. Its predecessor the Brexit Party got more than 5 million votes in the 2019 European elections, and its incarnation before that UKIP got close to 4 million votes in the 2015 general election

What has changed in 2024 is the complete collapse of the Tory vote. Historically this was the most successful capitalist party on the planet. In the 1950s it had almost three million members, now it has been reduced to little more than a few rats fighting in a sack. Without doubt, in the aftermath of the election, there will be further battles in and around the Tory party, as the more serious representatives of capitalism fight with the Tory populist right for control of the wreckage of their party.

However, ultimately the Tories unpopularity stems from their acting in the interests of British capitalism, which has presided over falling real wages, rising living costs, and collapsing public services. Today, on 5 July, 2024, the mood of millions has been lifted by the successful eviction of the Tories, but unfortunately the incoming government has promised, in essence, a continuation of Tory policies. Sticking by the Tories fiscal rules, as Starmer has pledged to do, would mean if growth averages 1.1% per year, as it has since 2008 a black hole in the public finances of around 60 billion. In other words Starmers Labour, acting in the interests of British capitalism, is set to oversee a new era of yet more austerity, including tax rises and attacks on the living conditions of the working-class majority. That is why the Sun, the Sunday Times, The Economist and the Financial Times all supported Starmer, reflecting the majority of the capitalist classes preference for a Labour government, something unimaginable when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.

What conclusion does the workers movement need to draw from this? Not that nothing will change, but that we will have to be prepared to fight for things to change. One YouGov poll in the week of the election found that only 2% of Labour voters expect the incoming Labour to cut public services. That shows that, despite all of Starmers attempts to dampen workers expectations about how very little change he will actually deliver, it is inevitable that some hopes are raised by the Tories exit. Starmer, however, has made clear that he does not intend to restore the 40% of government funding cut from councils, or make up for the 10% plus real-terms pay cut suffered since 2010 by teachers, nurses, civil servants, doctors and other public sector workers. Nor has he pledged to renationalise steel, mail, water, or other privatised utilities.

The strike wave against the Tory government demonstrated graphically how collective action can win results, but now the trade union movement needs to prepare to fight for workers interests under Starmers Labour, rejecting the inevitable attempts of some trade union leaders to try and act as a cover for Labour when it attacks workers interests. A Starmer administration would not be the first capitalist government to, for example, increase public sector pay or to make concessions to students facing poverty and huge debts. None of this will be achieved by asking nicely, however, but will require mass workers struggle.

And the workers movement also needs to create a political voice, to fight for the interests of the working class in parliament, giving voice to the struggles in our workplaces and communities. In the run up to this election the Socialist Party fought for a workers list of candidates, arguing that even a small bloc of workers MPs in the next parliament would put pressure on Starmer from the left, and prepare the ground for the building of a mass workers party under the next parliament. Some, justifying a Labour vote, argued that the first-past-the-post system made it impossible to stand outside the major establishment parties, and that electing a handful of MPs could make no difference. Yet the election of just four MPs for both the Greens and Reform has already created waves, and gives a glimpse of what a bloc of workers MPs could have achieved.

Imagine if when, at the height of the strike wave, Enough is Enough was launched by prominent trade union leaders, and half a million people joined, it had been a new political party fighting for the working class, rather than a nebulous campaign. It certainly could have got a bloc of MPs elected. It would also have been the best means to start to cut across the Reform vote. Remember that, in 2017, more than a million UKIP voters switched to Corbyn, demonstrating the potential to win workers voting for the right populists to an anti-austerity programme.

Of course, that is not how events unfolded. The Socialist Party participates in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), an electoral coalition which aims to enable trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists who are fighting for a new mass workers party to stand candidates against pro-austerity, pro-war, establishment politicians under a clear banner. TUSC strove to bring together different forces under one umbrella but, while TUSC stood forty candidates on a fighting socialist programme, many others stood as independents or under other banners. As a result, rather than a clear workers list in this election, we had a kaleidoscope of different independent and left candidates, which, while some got good votes, made a limited impact.

However, almost two million people voted for the Green Party, which stood on a Corbynite programme, indicating the search for a left alternative in this election. However, unfortunately the Greens are not a workers party, with no democratic rights for trade unions within it. And while there are socialists in the Green Party, they have made clear they are not a socialist party. For all they won votes by adopting aspects of Jeremy Corbyns programme, they also stood against him in Islington North. Despite this, he won his seat as an independent, offering an opportunity to begin building a left bloc in parliament that, for example, can voice the demands of the public sector trade unions and the Tata Steel workers in the coming weeks and months. If the four new Green MPs are willing to act as part of that bloc, that will, of course, be very welcome, and would allow the Greens to play a positive role in the fight for a mass party of the working class.

In addition to Jeremy Corbyn and the Greens, there were other candidates who were elected by voters who wanted to protest to the left. Across the country, Labours vote fell markedly in areas with large numbers of voters from a Muslim background, reflecting the deep anger with Starmers support for the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Despite our differences with him, it is unfortunate that George Galloway, standing for the Workers Party, narrowly lost Rochdale, the seat he had won in the by-election a few months earlier. However, in four seats independent candidates standing against the onslaught on Gaza won victories: Leicester South, Birmingham Perry Barr, Blackburn and Dewsbury. Arch-New Labourite Wes Streeting in Ilford North was also nearly ejected by an anti-war independent. The four independent victories are welcome, but if they are to be a step towards building a workers bloc in parliament it is important that the new MPs combine a battle on Gaza with all the other issues facing the working class in Britain, seeing themselves as representatives of the whole working class rather than just one section of it.

The crisis of British capitalism is increasingly being reflected in the volatility of politics. Labour have been swept to power in a landslide, but so was Boris Johnson at the head of the Tories five years ago. At the time we said it would be a pyrrhic victory, but the same will also be true for Starmers Labour. Any capitalist government will face mass opposition because capitalism is offering only endless austerity for the working-class majority. Therefore, discussions on how the working class can build its own party, armed with a socialist programme, are being posed increasingly urgently.

The Socialist Party will argue for such a party to fight for the socialist transformation of society: for the nationalisation, under democratic workers control, of the major monopolies and banks that dominate the economy, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need. This is a vital step to breaking the stranglehold of the capitalist class, and laying the basis for the development of a socialist plan of production, where all the science and technique created by capitalism could be harnessed and developed to meet the needs of all.

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Tories smashed - build the socialist opposition - Socialist Party