In a world desperate for change, what is to be done?

Editorial, by Ken Ferguson

As we proudly take the 600th edition of the Voice to press we do so against a background of a people and planet crisis inflicting hunger, war, floods, fire and economic misery on millions. All this is taking place in a world of unprecedented technological development which would have been unimaginable even when the first Voice was published in 1996.

The world that has produced mass participation social media, driverless cars, increasing use of AI has also given the world some of the wealthiest and powerful men such as Bezos and Musk who naturally preach the gospel of individual wealth and power.

But it also presents the billions who share the same planet with such Titans with immense social, economic and ecological challenges driving as it does an ever more voracious profit driven capitalism which now clearly endangers the planet and the people on it.

Never has the need for the harnessing of the collective skills and knowledge in the common good been more urgent but equally seldom has it been more challenging to fashion a politics which can put such an approach into action.

The obstacles to change
A glance around the world illustrates the obstacles standing in the way of this urgently needed change. Across Europe the impact of the economic crisis, the growing war danger and the only too graphic spectacle of flood and fire runs alongside growing rightward political development with the pro-Mussolini right in government in Italy, right victories in Greece, growing support for Le Pen in France and for the neo-fascists of the AFD in Germany.

In the US a deeply divided electorate could still re-elect the nightmare of Trump next year. In Britain a deeply divided and increasingly rejected Tory party, in close co-operation with the rabid right wing press takes it so called “culture war” on civil liberties, refugees unions and social movements deeper into the racist mire.

Leading the charge is the hateful Suella Braverman who dreams of sending refugees to Rwanda, sees kids cartoons painted over at an immigration jail and daily scapegoats those risking their lives on a stormy channel. Sadly the response from the so called Labour Party, as on a clutch of issues including the disgusting bedroom tax, taxing the wealth or protecting vulnerable workers, offer only a softer version of their “opponents.”

And this is surely the nub of the challenge facing socialists and trade unionists and those many organisations and individuals crying for change in a myriad of areas including housing and health — how can change be won?

Within a month or so there will be a by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and with a year or so a UK general election. In both the polls indicate that we can expect a Labour victory. However the real question that flows from this is what will change?

Pluralist Yes movement
In Rutherglen, the circumstances of a disgraced covid rule breaking SNP MP, a bitter leadership contest and ceaseless anti-SNP drive in the unionist media all combine to make this a must win for Labour, anything else would be a major setback for them.

For the wider Yes movement, such an outcome will further underline the fact that, as the SNP vote falls, the Yes share in polls is steady and has, in some cases, risen. What is plain is that the era of national independence being simply an issue for the SNP is ending, and a return to a mass pluralist Yes movement will be essential both to fashion an offer based on meeting Scotland’s many challenges and building majority support. Only this approach can meet setbacks and take the Yes case forward.

On the UK scene again the polls predict a Labour walkover in next year’s general election but don’t of course tell us what that will mean. All the signals however openly promoted by the Starmer spin machine are that change will be minimal and the rich are safe.

What this means in reality is that, like the approach that has dominated one-time workers’ parties across Europe such as the French socialists, the German SDP and PASOK in Greece with uniformly dismal outcomes, we can expect little for the working class majority as Labour gets it feet firmly under boardroom tables to serve the rich. Older Voice readers, looking at past Labour governments, may well say wearily “what’s new?” but there is a vital and urgent aspect to the challenge we now face.

Simply put, the economic crisis and the trail of failures from crumbling concrete to sewage filled seas, poverty pay and victorian housing conditions all stem from the system which Labour pretend it can modify and bend to serve peoples’ needs.

Perhaps they should remember the dictum of philosopher RH Tawney that “you can peel an onion layer by layer but you can skin a tiger claw by claw.”

Capitalism harnesses the vast store of human knowledge, research, invention and skill to the chariot of profit for the few and poverty, insecurity and uncertainty for the rest. Profit is its inner soul, and only a decisive break with it can change this.

End planet-trashing system
For decades socialists have challenged and struggled for such a change and the Voice has played its part in that struggle.

However, we now face not just the normal economic struggles with capital but also the unanswerable truth that this is the economic system that trashed the planet and only ending it — however difficult such a process will be — can usher in a world fit for people to inhabit.

A key part of implementing such change must be the hammering out of a basic programme on such key issues as housing, energy, public transport, heath and ending pollution such as suggested by the SSP’s policy of seeking a Common Programme of demands which both moves towards a people and planet world and meets a range of urgent needs facing working people.