Bin charges; hundreds sleeping on the streets in the midst of an economic boom; soaring profits for the banks while many workers can’t afford decent housing; underfunding of health, education and public transport.
This is the reality for workers in Ireland today, elsewhere, and particularly in Africa, it is far worse. For years we have been told that this is the way it is, that there is ‘no alternative’. This is a lie.
Bin charges; hundreds sleeping on the streets in the midst of an economic boom; soaring profits for the banks while many workers can’t afford decent housing; underfunding of health, education and public transport.
This is the reality for workers in Ireland today, elsewhere, and particularly in Africa, it is far worse. For years we have been told that this is the way it is, that there is ‘no alternative’. This is a lie.
Over the last two years a movement has been growing all over the world that seeks to end the rule of the banks. It didn’t start in Seattle when the World Trade Organisation congress was blockaded in November 1999. But Seattle showed that working class people were resisting even in the heart of the beast.
It won’t end in Genoa in July when massive protests will take place against the G8 summit. But Genoa is another opportunity for us to build links while disrupting their plans for ‘business as usual’.
We have a global economic system where billions of dollars can be transferred at the touch of a key but where 19,000 people die every day from easily preventable diseases. The G8 are the eight most economically industrialised countries. They are part of the global structures of rule, which controls the World Bank/IMF, the WTO and the UN. They are essential to maintaining a situation where the world’s 225 richest people have a combined wealth equal to the combined annual income of the world’s 2.5 billion poorest people.
We need to learn from our history. No one can liberate us. We don’t need a new bunch of rulers who claim to represent us better. We need to get rid of the divisions between order givers and order takers, between bosses and workers. We need a global self-managed society where bosses and politicians become seen as historical absurdities.
First published in Workers Solidarity 64, May 2001