Review: Arguments for the
G8
We need arguments for
socialism
I can’t fault this book
for doing exactly what it says on the tin. It makes a
number of well-researched points on the record of the G8
and their hypocrisy in proposing that the governments of
the eight richest countries are making poverty history.
The limitations of the G8’s pledges are illustrated in
chapters on poverty, debt, HIV and AIDS, climate change
and food security. A chapter on the Group of 8 lists
their combined crimes, calling on them to stop using
“repressive legislation and warmongering”.
Sarah Sachs-Eldridge
Since the book was
published at the start of this year many of these points
have been made in the press. The Make Poverty History
(MPH) campaign and all the publicity it has earned through
celebrity support, a method which has its limitations, has
nonetheless provided an opportunity for a closer
examination of the enormous obstacles to the attempts to
consign world hunger to history.
Privation, debt, the
inequalities of so-called free trade have all featured in
the papers. Of course we don’t expect the newspapers whose
owners number amongst the rich bosses to provide us with a
real explanation of these horrors.
This book collates a lot of
very useful information for campaigners, but the so-called
leaders of the movement should go further. The overarching
problems named in the book are mainly neo-liberalism,
imperialism and globalisation. What the majority of the
writers fail to say is that these are all manifestations
of capitalism.
In the final chapter the
editors describe what they call “the social movement for
capitalism”, by which they mean the bosses of the big
multinationals who run the world and the governments who
do their bidding. They quote Marx’s German Ideology in
explaining how the ruling class enforces its law in
different ways, through the mass media, by force etc. As
an antidote to that “social movement for capitalism” they
prescribe that we “raise our voices” and form our own
social movement but they don’t say what for.
Bob Crow, General Secretary
of the RMT, gets the closest in his closing words on
privatisation. “More than 150 years after it was first
coined by Marx and Engels, the phrase ‘Workers of the
world unite’ remains just as relevant – not just as a call
for international solidarity, but as the foundation stone
of any practical programme to counter the power of global
capital.” Tommy Sheridan, Scottish Socialist Party MSP
mentions public ownership but does not spell out what that
entails and how it would work and why it is so important.
The Socialist Party has
been campaigning for the G8 protests and the MPH demo for
some months now. Through that work we have met a lot of
young people who recognise the need to change the world.
They want to be part of the force that changes it. But
they don’t just want to have the problems of this system
listed for them so they can wring their hands in despair.
For the most thoughtful,
their hands are too busy carrying the banner for
socialism. They recognise that these symptoms add up to a
rotten system that we have to change. They recognise that
what we have to change is the question of who owns and
runs society.
Come to the ISR international youth camp
2nd
to 7th July
Travel
to and from Edinburgh & camp including food and transport
to all G8 counter-summit events
£85
unwaged/ low-paid, £105 waged
If you
can’t make the whole week join ISR on the demonstration in
Edinburgh on 2 July
Travel
to and from 2nd of July Make Poverty History demo in
Edinburgh from London
£35
unwaged/low-paid, £55 waged
For
details of transport from your area to the 6 July
demonstration phone 020 8558 7947 or email
anticapitalism@hotmail.co.uk
