3 Decades in UK and so little changes...

[00000000000]

On this day in 1982 we had: over 3 million unemployed, a Conseravative government introducing a programme of cuts and boulstering privatisation of national institutions and strikes.
Apart from unemplyment being slightly lower (at 2.6 million as of 18/01/2012), so little has changed.

Wonder what things will be like in another 30 years? There's seems to be a general feeling among radicals / leftists or what have you that this is it; the corrupt capitalist system is definately going to fail and things are going to change for the better (socialism, anarchist revolution, whatever).

But I'm sure there was a similiar sense of inevitability in the 80's (miners strike, unemployment, scandals, wars) but it never happened.

Anyway...feeling a little depressed and cynical...felt like spreadin the joy, sorry.

[Buitraker]

You cry for 3 million unemployed?


We have 5 million
Youth unemployed rate is %50

[workersadvocate]

I actually got a completely different impression of most of today's British left.
Here's why: look not at what they say, but what they are doing.
If their perspectives match changes in focus and activity, then maybe I'd take seriously that thesr groups believe a real objective opportunity is availed and they are preparing to do something about it. On the other hand, if they have upbeat perspectives but their focus and activity is much the same as it has been for decades, then their leadership doesn't really believe in such perspectives and instead it is just another small time sect building marketing and recruiting ploy while the retreat of the left and its alienation from the working class masses continues.

In Britain, it seems almost all the left groups with more than 5 members are electorally focused. If such groups think they have a fraction of a chance for any increased influence, and especially of getting positions and funds from the bourgeois state, then of course the groups' perspectives are soon adjusted to say that revolution is far away, capitalism may be reformed but is here to stay for the forseeable future...but if you join their groups and vote, maybe we could get a bit more change for now. Those groups whose niche in the middle class political marketplace requires a more radical marketing veneer will say that they just want to use elections until workers are ready to overthrow the system...though they never seem to make any actual effort to help get working people ready for such a day, and they sometimes even freak out if the working class and poor ("lumpen" or underclass" in Britishspeak) surprised them with an outburst of spontaneous rebellion and rage against the conditions they face in British society.
If a British left really believed that a revolutionary opportunity was objectively developing on the next decade, and it really want to seize that opportunity to fir a sucessful working class revolution, what sorts of things do you suppose they'd do differently.
Would they be busting their asses to actually organize working people in every workplace, every working class neighborhood, or would they be playing around with bourgeois elections or trying to poach members from such electorally focused left groups?

[MegaBrah]

You cry for 3 million unemployed?


We have 5 million
Youth unemployed rate is %50

So then the unemployed of the UK should stop whining about their shit situation then:blink:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Nothing has changed?

That's bollocks. So much has changed. We now had a huge revolution in the UK: a neo-liberal one. Neo-liberalism, this day 30 years ago, was on shaky ground. After the 1983 election is when everything changed. 1979-83 was a disaster economically, mainly because Thatcher didn't privatise heavily, but restricted the monetary supply, leading somehow to a positive inflation shock and all its associated ills. Post-1983, water, gas, oil, electricity, British Airways, social housing etc. were all sold off, along with a mass de-regulation of the financial services sector. That is when shit really hit the fan, along with the NUM stuff.

[The Idler]

Capitalism won't fail, a Labour government will be voted back in, with the reluctant support of the SWP (formerly Labour Worker) and AWL (formerly Campaign for a Labour Victory) because we musn't let the Tories back in. Labour will keep the Tory cuts, unions will moan about disaffiliating. People will wonder why we voted Labour back in. There'll be more marches, demos and arrests. TUSC might limp on to even less successful electoral results before being replaced by another unity front. BNP will be replaced by EDL who will be replaced by another fascist acronym. Workers will be still as unpersuaded by socialism.

[Firebrand]

Capitalism won't fail, a Labour government will be voted back in, with the reluctant support of the SWP (formerly Labour Worker) and AWL (formerly Campaign for a Labour Victory) because we musn't let the Tories back in. Labour will keep the Tory cuts, unions will moan about disaffiliating. People will wonder why we voted Labour back in. There'll be more marches, demos and arrests. TUSC might limp on to even less successful electoral results before being replaced by another unity front. BNP will be replaced by EDL who will be replaced by another fascist acronym. Workers will be still as unpersuaded by socialism.

Lovely optimistic view you've got there. I think that even if capitalism doesn't currently appear to be on the brink of total collapse, this marks the end of popular support for it. Since thatcher there has been this constant belief amongst almost everyone that capitalism is awesome and the markets will act in everyone's best interests. This crisis has put that myth to rest. People have remembered their class interests after 30 years of self delusion that they don't have to fight for every inch they gain from capitalism. Don't underestimate that. While it may not be the end of capitalism it's the end of belief in neoliberalism and thats at least a step foreward. The governments still believe in it but they're the only ones, even the bankers don't believe in it any more.
We may not get a revolution but there will be major changes for the better and for the worse and I think that the position of the left will turn out stronger.

[The Idler]

Lovely optimistic view you've got there. I think that even if capitalism doesn't currently appear to be on the brink of total collapse, this marks the end of popular support for it. Since thatcher there has been this constant belief amongst almost everyone that capitalism is awesome and the markets will act in everyone's best interests. This crisis has put that myth to rest. People have remembered their class interests after 30 years of self delusion that they don't have to fight for every inch they gain from capitalism. Don't underestimate that. While it may not be the end of capitalism it's the end of belief in neoliberalism and thats at least a step foreward. The governments still believe in it but they're the only ones, even the bankers don't believe in it any more.
We may not get a revolution but there will be major changes for the better and for the worse and I think that the position of the left will turn out stronger.I hope you're right.

[MotherCossack]

I actually got a completely different impression of most of today's British left.

In Britain, it seems almost all the left groups with more than 5 members are electorally focused. If such groups think they have a fraction of a chance for any increased influence, and especially of getting positions and funds from the bourgeois state, then of course the groups' perspectives are soon adjusted to say that revolution is far away, capitalism may be reformed but is here to stay for the forseeable future...but if you join their groups and vote, maybe we could get a bit more change for now. Those groups whose niche in the middle class political marketplace requires a more radical marketing veneer will say that they just want to use elections until workers are ready to overthrow the system...though they never seem to make any actual effort to help get working people ready for such a day, and they sometimes even freak out if the working class and poor ("lumpen" or underclass" in Britishspeak) surprised them with an outburst of spontaneous rebellion and rage against the conditions they face in British society.
If a British left really believed that a revolutionary opportunity was objectively developing on the next decade, and it really want to seize that opportunity to fir a sucessful working class revolution, what sorts of things do you suppose they'd do differently.
Would they be busting their asses to actually organize working people in every workplace, every working class neighborhood, or would they be playing around with bourgeois elections or trying to poach members from such electorally focused left groups?
out of interest where does the speaker of this hail from?
much of it is true, but such harsh words...
this stuff sounds like our dirty washing.... we will sort it alright!!!!!

you ... unless you are cuban,... possibly from venezuala, or some other sorted super cool state that i dont know about ...[maybe such a place is so well good that it has invented a` state sized invisibily cloak' so that all the bad guys dont know you exist]
you should perhaps hava a shifty at your own list of things to do !!!!!!a bit closer to home.

and if by any chance you live round USA way {a brummie colloquialism in memory of the man}
you should seriously investigate how many commie states you have actually bashed , eventually.. to death, basically. And all the other stuff.... where to begin.......

WAIT A SEC... before you go she-devil... demon...death to the witch....
remember i said that you were on the right track.... and if you are my neighbour.......... let's meet over lunch... ok ...yah! darling!

[ed miliband]

Nothing has changed?

That's bollocks. So much has changed. We now had a huge revolution in the UK: a neo-liberal one. Neo-liberalism, this day 30 years ago, was on shaky ground. After the 1983 election is when everything changed. 1979-83 was a disaster economically, mainly because Thatcher didn't privatise heavily, but restricted the monetary supply, leading somehow to a positive inflation shock and all its associated ills. Post-1983, water, gas, oil, electricity, British Airways, social housing etc. were all sold off, along with a mass de-regulation of the financial services sector. That is when shit really hit the fan, along with the NUM stuff.

nah, neoliberalism in the uk started with callaghan's labour gov. not thatcher.

a government bloody tony benn was a minister under, actually. that lovely man shut down hundreds of mines when he was minister for energy.

[Sendo]

Lovely optimistic view you've got there. I think that even if capitalism doesn't currently appear to be on the brink of total collapse, this marks the end of popular support for it.

That's the silver lining if any. Despite the lack of left power and atomization, the appeal of capitalism is at an all-time low in the power centers of capitalism. When the Soviet bloc was at its height (60s) the US still had a lot of fierce nationalism and anti-communism left over from the 50s (wasn't until the late 60s that the "60s" happened).

The 90s were probably capitalism's strongest point with neoliberalism coming out in full force and from the so-called opposition parties and you had China under Zemin and the USSR was gone.

The 2000s continued to destroy what was left of the safety nets of Western societies.

The 2010s: We've hit the trough of this """"recession""" (I hope, but then again resource depletion......). Hopefully we can see capitalism as an ideology fall in a way from which it will never recover, the same way feudalism was kaput by revolution in the latter 19th century.

I go on non-political news sites or specialist news sites and see comments from Yanks (!) about "Euro-socialism".....that are positive! "Well, under Euro-socialism they pay for schools to make their people literate!" "The USA has the best health-care in the world......and government....that money can buy."


...Then comes the European to chime in. Not to say "but the lines, the waiting lines!!11!1!" but rather "we used to have that nice stuff."

It's more than just anger at the Western governments over grievances XYZ. IT goes deeper. I see an understanding that the profit motive is unsustainable and wasteful and more bureaucratic than the social democracies (!)

[fabiansocialist]

On this day in 1982 we had: over 3 million unemployed, a Conseravative government introducing a programme of cuts and boulstering privatisation of national institutions and strikes.
Apart from unemplyment being slightly lower (at 2.6 million as of 18/01/2012), so little has changed.

I think the 2.6m figure is complete shit and were the measurement by the criteria prevailing in 1982, the figure would a million or two higher. Under New Labour at least a million, maybe a million and a half, were brushed under the rug of "long-term disabled." The unemployment situation is worse than in '82.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

nah, neoliberalism in the uk started with callaghan's labour gov. not thatcher.

a government bloody tony benn was a minister under, actually. that lovely man shut down hundreds of mines when he was minister for energy.

True, it started with the IMF bailout in the mid 1970s, thanks for your correction.

[TheGeekySocialist]

the Left in the UK's main issue is and always has been sectarianism and division, we spend too much time arguing with each other other shit that means nothing to 95% of the population rather than working together on things we agree about to actually appeal to that 95%

building any kind of Left alliance or broad grouping of the Left is like trying to build a wall with pebbles though, as I am currently experiencing first hand :mad:

[MotherCossack]

the Left in the UK's main issue is and always has been sectarianism and division, we spend too much time arguing with each other other shit that means nothing to 95% of the population rather than working together on things we agree about to actually appeal to that 95%

building any kind of Left alliance or broad grouping of the Left is like trying to build a wall with pebbles though, as I am currently experiencing first hand :mad:

there is a nail... with a shiny little head... and you with the hammer... HIT!!!
good shot ...for what its worth!

meanwhile over in the far corner kneels a weary woman... by a stone wall... bang goes her poor head.. she is trying to knock the wall down with nothing more than her head..!
i hope that is a mighty strong crash helmet.. . she will need it.....

you know what... i think i might just nip out and pick up a spot of something that goes bang to help her out with that.

[MotherCossack]

seriously ... how do we proceed...
i would be so up for permanent, proper, radical change.... but how.... ?
where do we start?
because unless we come up with a really good new plan...
a strategy... an entirely different approach...
otherwise ... nothing

and we have to go on.. cos we know that the status quo is wrong
it is unfair, unjust, inhuman, greedy, unsustainable [in more ways than one], dishonest, corrupt, nonsensical, unhealthy, irresponsible, destructive, regressive, unappealing, illogical, unkind, cruel, sadistic, top heavy, exclusive, prejudicial, defensive, unresponsive (HEY THIS IS FUN) , inflexible, unimaginative, controlling , undemocratic!!!!!!????? OOER....
well it is a stinky pile of shit and we cant give up.... or who will deliver all these uncomprehending fools from the grip of their master and on towards a fairer thingy.