As capitalism’s economic crisis gets more severe our rulers are unleashing a war of impoverishment on the working class at home while gearing up for a hot war on their rivals abroad. The chancellor has proposed to introduce £5bn of cuts to benefits, which is the biggest cut on record. Keir Starmer, justifying the cuts, described the welfare system as “unsustainable,” which indicates that there is worse to come. Far from being generous, as the capitalists continually tell us, the British benefit system, as a percentage of the GDP, is the lowest of all the OECD countries with the exception of Chile. This system, which was part of the post war settlement between capital and labour, is being steadily demolished, and a similar process is occurring in all the major capitalist countries. The cuts, which are in the first instance an attempt to shore up profit rates, are today to go into rearmament. The government’s increase in military expenditure from 2.3% to 2.5% represents £6.7bn, only slightly more than what will be saved from the benefits cuts. Meanwhile the government is quite happy to commit £10bn in military support, and another £5bn in other support for Ukraine. The capitalist class are preparing for war and their watchword is, as coined by the Nazis in the 1930s, “guns not butter.”

Cuts for War

The main aim of the cuts is to restrict eligibility for Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) and Universal Credit (UC). The Financial Times estimates that of the 3.7 million on PIPs half will lose UC and calculates that 1.2 million people will be £4,300 worse off. This alone represents a saving of £5.1bn! Of the 3.7 million on PIPs half will be unable to claim UC and thousands will lose two thirds of their present welfare payments. Many people losing PIPs and other benefits will be forced to look for work. The viciousness of the system is illustrated by anecdotal stories of blind people and cancer sufferers being told they are capable of looking for work or are insufficiently ill to claim benefits. The intention of these changes is to force people into work, but the system does not provide jobs suitable for sick and disabled people's capabilities. So instead, the consequence will be further impoverishment of under and unemployed people, millions more of whom will have to go further into debt to survive.

Another example of the miserable conditions imposed on us is the housing and homelessness crisis. After the Second World War, we were assured, all would get homes fit for heroes. Meanwhile, as capitalist landlords and banks continue to cash in on Housing Benefit, which was left untouched, 1.3 million people are on waiting lists for social housing. Over 164,000 children are homeless across the country, while in 32 local authorities the wait for a three-bedroom home is more than 18 years – a wait of nearly a generation.

We are being forced into deeper debt and poverty and as the drift towards war speeds up the unemployed will be urged to enlist in the army or just mobilized to become cannon fodder for the next round of bloodletting and destruction.

The Fightback

What the government is doing illustrates once again that there is a direct link between the attacks on wages and conditions and the drive to war. How can we fight back?

Billions of workers worldwide produce all the wealth of the capitalist system for a few thousand capitalists who control the system, force cuts in wages and conditions and the drive towards imperialist war against their rivals. If workers were conscious of their collective strength, they could not only prevent war but overturn the whole rotten system. At present the international proletariat is a sleeping giant unaware of its collective strength and unaware of how dangerous the present drive to war is.

Class struggle, initially at the local level, but later internationally is the only weapon we have against what capitalism has in store. A fightback has to start with a refusal to accept cuts in wages and conditions and cuts in the social wage. Such a fight needs to be spread as widely as possible and be organised outside of the normal systems of control such as unions. It needs to be organised by elected strike committees with revocable delegates and decisions put to mass meetings. The local fightback needs to be linked to the fight against war, in order to give the struggle an international dimension and raise class consciousness internationally. This is why some internationalists across the world are forming committees of resistance under the banner of “No War but the Class War”. Join us!

The above article is taken from the current edition (No. 71) of Aurora, bulletin of the Communist Workers’ Organisation.