Fighting global capitalism

On 17 March Katy Dollar of Workers’ Liberty debated Mark Pennington, Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy at King’s College London, on Socialism or the free market?

Here we present extracts from their speeches. The full speeches can be listened to below

Katy Dollar

In January 2018, US President Donald Trump cancelled a planned trip to the UK.

His stated reason was that the famously unsuccessful realtor didn’t fancy the “off-location” US Embassy. But the real reason was almost certainly that Trump wanted to duck the huge wave of protest that anyone could see would meet any visit. The racist, authoritarian and climate-change-denying policies of the Trump administration stoked a storm of indignation and a series of huge rallies at the very suggestion of his visit.

The US Congress has passed the tax-cuts scheme pushed by Donald Trump and long desired by Republicans.

The Republicans say that a lot of people will get tax cuts in the short term, and that the big benefits ceded to the rich and to businesses will "trickle down" into improvements from workers. Everyone else says the tax changes are a shameless act of social larceny.

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The global credit crash of 2008 and the ensuing travails have produced delayed political effects. A shift to more right-wing, nationalist, and "identity" politics may move neoliberalism sharply to the right, or even explode it from within. The economic turmoil has also produced new life on the left, as yet on a low wattage.

Law professor Sol Picciotto has proposed a new approach to stop tax avoidance by transnational corporations. He spoke to Ed Maltby from Solidarity.

Taxing transnational corporations already involves international agreement, based on tax treaties. The issue is, what kind of agreement? Until now, there has only been loose coordination. That's because governments like to hang onto what they call "sovereignty".

Workers at the UK′s train operating companies are facing a huge attack on their pensions due to government legislation that ends the contracting-out of the Second State Pension. The legislation means higher National Insurance contributions for both employees (1.4%) and employers (3.4%).

The government has also passed legislation to help employers out with this — by allowing them to carry out annual raids on occupational pensions schemes, without even having to consult with scheme trustees.

Dan Mills of the McLibel support campaign spoke to Joan Trevor

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The Association of International Workers' Solidarity (UID-DER) in Turkey organised a commemoration this year of the 15-16 June 1970 workers' protests against anti-union laws, known as "The Great Workers' Resistance".

LabourStart’s “Global Solidarity Conference” in Berlin on 23-25 May 2014 was its fourth major gathering and, with more than 300 participants, its biggest.

The conference was hosted by the German trade union ver.di, and comprised nearly three days of plenaries and workshops covered a range of themes.

A substantial chunk of the conference examined “Digital communications” — how unions can use electronic media to build themselves and their campaigns: LabourStart’s raison d’être!