Today the economy is divided into two broad classes of people. One is a small elite who control the vast majority of the wealth, organisation, and productive capacity of society; private business owners.
As many higher education institutions are on the brink of financial collapse, it’s time to understand what has brought about this perfect storm and what can be done about it.
Headlines often focus on ‘over-reliance on international students’ but it is more complex than that. Why do you think universities try so hard to recruit international students?... because their fees are not regulated, and universities can charge what they think they can get away with given market forces; i.e. Cambridge can charge a student from China more than Cardiff Met can.
The death of Thatcher, British Prime Minister 1979 - 1990, was marked by celebration across the left and by working people everywhere. Members of the Belfast Local of the Solidarity Federation were certainly among those celebrating. Unfortunately the jubilation at her death all too often descended into sectarianism in the north - a figure despised by so many could have provided a focus for much working class celebration. The ‘Iron Lady’s’ record in power saw working class communities crushed, the miners not least among them, millions were thrown on the dole, in the north her policies amounted to nothing more than pouring petrol on the flames of the conflict. Her legacy is still alive and well. In the 80s it was dubbed ‘Thatcherism’. Interchangeable with ‘Reganomics’ this was the start of a capitalist global offensive against the gains previously made by working people the world over.
Members of Northampton Solidarity Federation joined the masses on the streets of London on March 26 to protest against the brutal cuts being imposed by the government.
People were marching for many reasons: some still accepting the idea that cuts are necessary but wanting to slow them down or alter the focus, some suggesting that investment rather than cuts would stimulate the economy which in turn would reduce the deficit, many pointing out that if taxes were fully collected and if military interventions were curtailed the cuts would not be necessary.
The number of homes standing empty in Brighton and Hove outnumber the number of homeless families ten to one - but a Tory MP is leading calls to criminalise squatting. Brighton and Hove Council accepts responsibility for housing 368 homeless households, while 3,655 homes sit empty. Despite this, Tory MP Mike Weatherly wants to criminalise squatting, putting the interests of landlords and property speculators before those of the homeless. Home repossessions peaked last year following an increase in defaults on mortgages and rent during the recession.
The portentous development of our present economic system, leading to a mighty accumulation of social wealth in the hands of privileged minorities and to a constant repression of the great masses of people, prepared the way for the present political and social reaction and befriended it in every way. It sacrificed the general interests of human society to the private interests of individuals, and thus systematically undermined the true relationship between men. People forgot that industry is not an end in itself, but should be only a means to insure to man his material subsistence and to make accessible to him/her the blessings of higher intellectual culture. Where industry is everything, where labour loses its ethical importance and man is nothing, there begins the realm of ruthless economic despotism, whose workings are no less disastrous than those of any political despotism.
I asked the president, “What can we do to show support for America?” He said, “Mom, if you really want to help, buy, buy, buy”.
(Barbara Bush, 2001)
During the 1950s, at a time when the U.S. was in recession, Victor Lebow outlined what was to become one of the enduring tenets of global capitalism in the years to come:
Our enormously productive economy demands we make consumption our way of life, that we convert buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things to be consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever accelerating rate.
A recent government report into poverty paints a depressing picture of inequality in Britain.
The Acheson Report on Health Inequality, set up by New Labour, found that working class people die younger, and suffer more from lung cancer, coronary heart disease, strokes, and suicides than the rich. They also suffer more house vandalism, and their children are less well-fed, despite the fact that their mothers often go without. Children are less likely to have any form of pre-school education, and have less access to child care. Not surprisingly, after this start in life, they do less well at school. The list goes on…
Throughout the world it is the workers who are paying the price for the capitalist crisis. In Britain it took a trillion pounds sterling to save the banks from collapse and the government now aims to pay for the bank bailout by making brutal spending cuts. The attacks by the Thatcher government decimated many working class communities but the planned spending cuts go much further than Thatcher ever dreamed. Over the next 4 years the government intends to cut public spending by 25%.
Even the government admits that this will lead to the loss of half a million public sectors jobs. And as the British economy is so dependent on the public sector, again, according to the government’s own figures, there will be at least another half million jobs lost in the private sector. These job losses will be felt hardest in the old industrial heartlands of Britain, places like Scotland, the North of England and Wales, that were decimated by the Thatcher government.
OWNERS AND WORKERS
As many higher education institutions are on the brink of financial collapse, it’s time to understand what has brought about this perfect storm and what can be done about it. 
