The socialist answer to Labor’s program of war and austerity

image: gallery.hd.org

Four years after the collapse of Lehmann Brothers, the world economy remains mired in slump and financial instability. The predictions and promises of a “recovery” have proven to be cruel lies. Instead, the depth of the crisis is being exploited by the ruling elite in the United States, across Europe and internationally to unleash the greatest assault on living standards and social and democratic rights since the 1930s, and make the working class pay for the failure of the capitalist profit system.

At the same time, the US is stepping up its decades-long use of military violence to maintain its waning global dominance. War is being prepared against Iran, amid an escalating intervention in Syria by the Obama administration and the European powers. Throughout the Asia-Pacific, American imperialism is carrying out a reckless military build-up to try to undermine Chinese economic and political influence, threatening to trigger a confrontation between nuclear-armed states.

The program of the Gillard Labor government is determined by the international descent into war and depression. It has unconditionally aligned Australian capitalism with the US drive against China. The deployment of American marines to Darwin is the screen behind which northern and western Australia is being transformed into a staging base for joint operations aimed at controlling China’s access to the key sea lanes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Labor is also abetting Washington’s persecution of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, in order to terrorise and intimidate every opponent of imperialism.

Domestically, the Labor government and the trade unions are working with the major corporations to destroy thousands of jobs and attack working conditions in manufacturing, the airlines, the financial sector and retail. As the mining boom ends and government revenue falls, Gillard and Treasurer Swan are drawing up even greater cutbacks to social security to meet the government’s commitment to a budget surplus, while insisting that the state governments also slash their spending. The type of austerity seen in the US and Europe is being prepared in Australia.

The working class, and young people in particular, are confronted with the political question: how to defend their rights and their future? The SEP meetings will elaborate the socialist and revolutionary program and principles that provide the only viable way forward against the Labor government and the Greens, unions and other organisations that are assisting it impose the dictates of the financial and corporate elite, and drag the population into the maelstrom of militarism and war.

Reference: World Socialist Web Site

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