MILLIONS OF people protested against capitalism worldwide on May Day. According to Tony Blair many did so in London because they wanted confrontation with the police and supported "spurious

causes".

But, contrary to the lies of the police and the New Labour government, the vast bulk of demonstrators were not seeking violence. They were there to expose the violence and exploitation of the capitalist system which allows:

Little wonder a recent poll showed that 74% believe big corporations have too much power and 73% think top executives get paid too much. In Britain a Guardian opinion poll showed that 76% think "big international companies usually care only about profits and not the interests of the people in the countries where they operate". A further 67% believe these companies "have more influence on daily life in Britain than our own government".

On May Day, hundreds of Socialist Party members joined the thousands who were not intimidated by the over-the-top policing, with threats of rubber bullets, to demonstrate against capitalism in London and other cities in Britain. It is clear that the the police's main aim on May Day was to try and frighten potential demonstrators into staying at home. The police were not there to protect the public, but to protect the system.

They did not succeed. Nor will the capitalist class internationally succeed in defending their system against the growing anger of working-class people.

Throughout the world they protested showing that capitalism is a system increasingly under siege.

What we think

Class struggle makes a comeback

TEN YEARS ago, after the Berlin Wall fell and Stalinist "Communism' collapsed the capitalist system's highly-paid commentators proclaimed the "end of history": the capitalist system was triumphant and class struggle was over.

Yet, on May Day 2001 more people probably protested against the horrors of global capitalism than at any time in the last two decades or more. The traditions of marching against the system are being revitalised.

It's true many came to protest with very different issues on their agenda. But one thing united them, an anger at capitalism's exploitation, which has created a huge anti-corporate backlash.

This movement is still undeveloped in its long-term objectives and doesn't clearly yet pose the need to remove capitalism. But, like Karl Marx said 150 years ago that the spectre of Communism haunted the world's capitalist rulers, then it is true today that the anti-capitalist spectre haunts today's global elite.

Worldwide, state forces were massively mobilised to try and stop effective protest. In London, policing costs of £3 million meant that every arrest cost over £46,000. That's the price Tony Blair and New Labour will pay to defend big business.

But the parasitic role of capitalist institutions like the WTO/IMF is increasingly understood by working-class people and youth alike throughout the world. These undemocratic and unrepresentative bodies impose stringent social and economic policies on countries internationally.

In Africa, IMF policies imposed since 1994 have seen poverty soar by an astounding 50%!

As the anti-corporate/anti-capitalist movement has developed it has become clear that whilst everyone knows what the movement is against, it's not so clear yet to them what the alternative is.

The best form of 'direct action' is for the anti-capitalist movement and organised workers to link together to abolish the capitalist system and establish a socialist system.

Anti-capitalist protesters caused £20 million-worth of disruption to big business on May Day. Two days later striking underground workers were being estimated to cause £100 million of economic losses for business.

As socialists we believe that institutions like the IMF/WTO cannot be reformed, any more than multinationals like McDonald's can be made more people or environmentally friendly.

The vast global resources held by these giant multinationals need to be taken over and run by working-class people and the oppressed in a democratic socialist society which will end poverty and exploitation.

Police provocation resisted

HANNAH SELL, CHRIS MOORE and JOHN REID report from London's May Day anti-capitalist protests:

ON ALL the demos there were many young people who'd never been on protests before. Probably over 10,000 people protested.

After about 3pm as everyone converged on Oxford Circus the police penned people in. For hours people couldn't get in or out.

Protesters showed amazing restraint amidst enormous police provocation. All day, police tactics were to pen in people at protests around the capital. At Oxford Circus our members kept up the spirits of trapped protesters with regular megaphone updates.

The demonstrators' peaceful mood started to change as the police made it clear they wanted some trouble before the end of the night.

Outside the sealed area, police shoved and charged protesters away from Oxford Circus.

Using a technique known as the kettle (because it builds up pressure) one line of riot police would block the road while others drove back protesters further, trapping some people in between.

Obviously they wanted to justify spending all this money, which they couldn't have done if there'd been no trouble.

THE POLICE cordons at Oxford Street that penned in people for up to nine hours resulted in inhuman, dangerous conditions for those who were protesting. Demonstrators were not allowed to leave for up to nine hours.

Some women were forced to go to the toilet on the streets, others were prevented from getting away to pick up children

We contacted Tony Benn, Dave Nellist (former MP and Coventry Socialist Party councillor) and sympathetic barristers, telling them thousands of people were being held illegally. They contacted the Metropolitan Police Commissioner asking why people's human rights were being abused.

This partly restrained the riot police who realised they were under scrutiny; otherwise they may have felt confident to attack trapped protesters.

The Socialist Party issued a press release at 7pm on the night to condemn the police's ludicrously heavy-handed response. Their main aim was not to protect the public, but to try and intimidate demonstrators.

Socialist Party member Lois Austin played a vital role in urging demonstrators to stay calm in the face of police provocation.

Stop the fat cats making a killing out of health

Public Health Not Private Profit

AT A time when GPs are having to take action to protest about their workload, ROBIN CLAPP describes the state of hospital services in Bristol, a situation repeated throughout Britain.

Over 17,000 people in Bristol are now waiting for treatment. At Frenchay hospital, ranked tenth worst in the country for its waiting time, someone requiring a hip replacement has to wait six months to see a consultant, then up to 18 months for treatment.

Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) has been slammed for its abysmal cleanliness record, another privatisation disaster.

With over 250 unfilled posts in qualified nursing and midwifery, 212 operations had to be cancelled in March. A consultant at the BRI, anticipating the £2.5 million budget deficit, told me if you become ill in Bristol, you had better hope that it's in the spring or summer, before cash runs out.

Thousands of nurses have left after years of low pay and poor conditions. BRI managers jet off to places like Australia, China or Finland, to entice nurses to Bristol.

Increasing salaries and improving conditions is passed over in favour of these headline-grabbing stunts.

The Bristol Evening Post recently showed what really happens when you need treatment after paying in all your life.

A worker in his 40s tells of needing an angiogram after a heart attack. Because of the long delay, he was forced to go private. He was told his life was at risk without an immediate quadruple bypass.

Another man was warned that his prostate cancer operation would take six months on the NHS. Terrified of the implications, he paid £7,000 to go private.

A 37-year-old hears it will be 18 months before his crumbling vertebrae can be operated upon. He says bitterly after paying £10,000 to go private: "Though we couldn't afford the private op, we had to find a way."

Each story reveals pain, frustration and anger. Ordinary people, workers who pay their stamp, are increasingly the victims of health rationing.

New Labour's forces us through propaganda and circumstance into private medical schemes, while allowing the private sector, through the PFI, bigger opportunities to make a killing out of health. What an argument for Socialism!

Rebuild the National Health Service, free at the point of use - the British Medical Association estimates the NHS needs an immediate cash infusion of £7 billion.
Bring health management and medical services under democratic workers' control.
End and reverse all privatisation within the health service, including the Private Finance Initiative.

Baby Bonds: Labour's election gimmick

NEW LABOUR have launched the big idea for its second term. Now we are to get "baby bonds". At an estimated annual cost of £480 million, the government will open a trust fund for new babies of £250 to £500, depending on how 'poor' you are.

They'll add £100 at key stages and match any contribution the family put in. At age 18, the young person will get about £3,000. The government says this is a "long-term policy to address social exclusion and the gap between rich and poor."

Presumably young people who've grown up on poverty-stricken estates, gone to sink schools and with no prospect of decent employment, will get their £3,000 and set their sights on a glowing future. Somehow I doubt it.

The money will probably be spent on alleviating the extra hardships created by the government - paying tuition fees or compensating for reduced benefits.

The wealth gap has grown since Labour came to power. 100,000 extra children have been thrown into poverty. A few thousand pounds will do nothing.

Working-class people fought for the Welfare State and always saved for their future through National Insurance.

Baby bonds show the ideological shift inside New Labour. Instead of the collective response to human need through public provision which will be democratically decided and held accountable, we are all to take individual responsibility.

Stakeholder pensions, health insurance, baby bonds, New Labour's message is the same. It's up to each of us as individuals to look after our own futures.

Who's to say that in 18 years time, when these baby bonds start to mature, they won't be spent on keeping yourself alive through unemployment or sickness, instead of receiving state benefit?

Many people will see baby bonds as an electioneering gimmick, not a serious attempt to eradicate poverty and support families.

We don't need gimmicks, we need jobs on a decent minimum wage, affordable quality housing, a fully funded health service, free education and cheap good quality child care.

To provide these things New Labour would have to break with big business and its patchwork ideology - baby bonds come much cheaper.

IT IS 75 years since the general strike, when four million out of the five and a half million organised workers struck for nine days in May 1926. But the last thing the TUC leaders wanted was a successful general strike. When it started they did everything to end it.

Bill Mullins, Socialist Party Industrial Organiser explains how the TUC found itself calling a general strike.

1926 general strike

A showdown between the classes

TWO DAYS after the strike was called off, 100,000 more workers were on strike than at the beginning.

"There were no trains, no buses, no trams, no papers, no building, no power. In a strike, 100% is an unobtainable figure generally, but even this real 100% was frequently achieved". (The Common People, Postgate and Cole.)

Winston Churchill summed up the attitude of the ruling class: "It is a conflict which, if it is fought to a conclusion, can only end in the overthrow of parliamentary government or in its decisive victory, there is no middle course open".

British capitalism was weakened after the First World War. Simultaneously the British working class had been radicalised by the Russian revolution and the European-wide revolutionary movement which followed the war.

The British capitalists were forced to concede their dominance in world markets to American imperialism, the real victors of the war.

By 1925, exports from British industry had fallen to 76% of pre-war levels and imports had grown to 111%. The ruling class went on the offensive to attack working-class wages and conditions to boost profits.

The miners had elected a new union leader, Arthur Cook. He was a giant in comparison to other union leaders at the time.

He considered himself a follower of Lenin but he did not fully understand Lenin's methods, in particular the need for a revolutionary party.

In March 1925 the coal bosses cut the miners' wages and demanded they work an extra hour a day without pay. In a refrain familiar to Corus or Vauxhall workers, the capitalist press raged that this was the only way the coal industry could be saved.

Also, Baldwin, then Tory prime minister, made it clear that this was a prelude to a general offensive on all workers' wages and conditions: "All the workers of this country have to take reductions".

In response, Cook coined the slogan: "Not a penny off the pay not a second on the day".

The government, faced with a militant working class, was unprepared for a showdown. To give themselves some breathing space they proposed a commission under Sir Herbert Samuel to examine the coal industry.

Meanwhile, they gave the coal bosses a nine-month subsidy to forestall any moves by them against the miners. They then used these nine months to prepare for a fight to the finish with the working class.

In 1981, Thatcher also retreated in the face of miners' strikes against pit closures. She then spent the next three years building up coal stocks and preparing an inevitable struggle with the miners.

Churchill, a member of Baldwin's cabinet, organised a scab army to break the strike. Lord Londonderry, the chief spokesman for the coal bosses, summed up the attitude of the ruling class: "Whatever it may cost in blood and treasure we shall find that the trade unions will be smashed from top to bottom".

The ruling class's ruthless determination stood in stark contrast to the faint heartedness of the TUC leadership, both Right and Left. Jimmy Thomas, the rail union leader, boasted that he had "groveled" before Baldwin in an attempt to avert the strike.

Left-winger Purcell condemned as "damned Russian gold" the £1.5 million collected by the Russian workers in support of the British workers.

The strike begins

IN MAY 1926, with the subsidy ended, the mine owners launched their attack on the miners' wages and conditions. One million miners came out on strike and demanded that the TUC call a general strike.

But the TUC only called the first meeting of the general council strike committee six days before the deadline.

Jimmy Thomas spoke on 19 April 1926 about: "loose passions being let loose" and "every sane miners' leader wants, as every employer wants - peace". But the only peace the bosses wanted was a complete victory over the miners and the working class.

The ruling class mistook the cowardice of the union leaders for the workers' mood. Millions answered the strike call and hundreds of thousands of others demanded to be called out. The TUC tried to control the strike but the movement developed its own momentum.

Non-trade unionists struck. 100 trades councils became 'Councils of Action'. The employers were forced to ask them for permission to move essential goods.

The Councils of Action had the means of overthrowing the capitalist order and instituting a workers' government, just as had happened in Russia in 1917.

But this would only have been possible if a revolutionary party had come to the head of the movement. Such a party would have called for the Councils of Action to be linked up nationally.

The Councils of Action would have made a class appeal to the rank and file of the army to assist the working class. A workers' government, based on the Councils of Action, could have gone on to take state power and carry through a socialist transformation of the economy.

Stalinism

THE YOUNG Communist Party, formed a few years before, was found wanting. This wasn't just through inexperience, it was under the influence of the increasingly Stalinised Communist International.

Trotsky, who at the time was isolated in Russia by Stalin, was a lone voice in the Communist International, warning that the British ruling class was preparing for a showdown.

Under Stalin's influence the Russian leadership, instead of warning the British workers against their own leaders, created illusions particularly in the left of the TUC leadership by forming an Anglo-Soviet committee.

From the beginning of the strike, the general council conspired with Samuel. He recommended big cuts in the miners' wages and all except Cook on the general council went along with this as they called off the strike.

Workers were stunned when they heard the news, the strike had won nothing for the miners, who continued their strike for another six months before being forced back to work.

The TUC did not even get a 'no victimisation' agreement, so even more rail workers, dockers and others came out again when they heard the terms of the surrender.

Power or defeat

THIS WAS more than a strike over wages and hours, which was recognised by all but the union leaders.

Trotsky had warned that inevitably an all-out general strike poses the question of who rules. Either it leads to power or becomes a severe defeat for the working class.

Marxists do not lightly raise the demand for a general strike. In periods of heightened class struggle we have called for a one-day general strike, such as during the miners' strikes in the 1980s and the pit closure crisis in 1992.

The demand for a 24-hour general strike is a means of demonstrating its own power to the working class. It sends a shot across the bow of the ruling class, that unless they back off more serious action is likely.

The 1926 general strike affected all classes and demonstrated the potential power of the working class to run society. But its failure showed the crucial need for revolutionary leadership.

Without such leadership, even the working class's most heroic efforts to rid itself of capitalism are unlikely to succeed. Without a revolutionary party, firmly rooted in the working class and its mass organisations, the reformist trade union and labour leaders will betray the movement.

We must ensure that this does not happen again by building a mass socialist revolutionary party that can play this vital role in the future.

See feature on the recent Greek general strike in The Socialist 4 May. Subscribe!

THE FOOT and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak that started on 2 February has caused a major political crisis.

The government's strategy to contain the epidemic is proving to be an economic and environmental disaster. Yet, FMD is not a modern plague. So why has the mass culling of animals been pursued instead of other strategies, including mass vaccination? TERESA MACKAY explains how the interests of capitalist agribusiness drives government policy.

Crisis On Tony's Big Business Farm

OVER ONE million animals have been identified in the UK for slaughter when only 5% have foot and mouth disease (FMD). This is a disease that is less serious than salmonella for animals and harmless to humans. So why slaughter, why not vaccinate?

The reasons are purely economic. For trade purposes a country or region is only considered disease-free if it has no cases and does not vaccinate.

The US, Japan and Canada will not accept exported meat and milk if vaccination has been used as a method of stopping FMD, though they have no problem with animals vaccinated against a range of endemic diseases.

Most British meat exports go to the European Union (EU). Current EU policy is against FMD vaccination. This policy prevents imports from Russia, much of Africa and South America, thus protecting markets for EU member states.

According to New Scientist magazine, (31/3/01): "There is a big, unspoken benefit of not vaccinating. You can ban imports from many competing countries."

Costing the earth

THE COST of the New Labour government's agribusiness-driven FMD policy will run into billions. This is at a time when public services are chronically underfunded. And all to protect the livestock industry's £570 million annual export trade.

Yet, these export earnings are almost cancelled out by food imports. Government statistics show that last year the UK imported 129,000 tonnes of sheep, lambs and mutton while simultaneously exporting 125,000 tonnes. Similarly, we imported 272,00 tonnes of pigs and pigmeat and exported 213,000 tonnes.

A strategy other than mass culling is being demanded by many within the industry, not least the Soil Association and the Federation of Veterinarians in Europe (FVE), representing over 100,000 veterinarians.

Patrick Holden, Director of the Soil Association and spokesperson for the pressure group, Farmers for Voluntary Vaccination, said:

"Maff [Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food] faces increasing public opposition to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of healthy animals but farmers who do not agree with the NFU's [National Farmers' Union] support of the mass cull have no outlet to make their opposition heard. There is a huge amount of misinformation circulating about the effectiveness of the FMD vaccine and worse still, most farmers still believe the NFU's line that vaccinated animals would be compulsorily culled afterwards. This is simply not true.

"There is no reason why meat or dairy products from the vaccinated animals should not pass into the food chain and the government should reassure both retailers and consumers that there is no risk to human health."

It would also appear that a compound, Borax, provides a natural organic protection against FMD. Anecdotal evidence during the last major outbreak in 1967 indicates that farms that used Borax escaped even when their neighbours were infected.

However, no official clinical test was ever conducted on the efficacy of homeopathic Borax. Maff is thus able to claim that because this remedy has not been officially approved it cannot be recommended.

Having positively discouraged the use of Borax, Maff now confirms that it is legal to give homeopathic preventives to uninfected livestock.

Emergency government measures to control FMD could expose people to the risk of infection from the human form of BSE ('mad cow' disease). Under new guidelines Maff has told those disposing of the carcasses to use landfill sites. These carcasses may be infected with BSE.

Before the crisis, cattle over 30 months were being sent to prescribed outlets for high temperature incineration to destroy the prion agent which causes BSE. Now there will be no distinction between the cattle.

There are increasing concerns of public health with the burying and burning of hundreds of thousands of carcasses. The pyres are often fuelled by cheap coal and railway sleepers coated in creosote. When it burns it produces eight carcinogenic compounds including dioxins.

Burying dead animals has already led to instances of ground water becoming contaminated.

Blair don't care

TONY BLAIR continues to support the agri-moguls. Recently he said: "The government plans a major reduction in the number of farms and farmers as part of the recovery package for British agriculture in the wake of the devastating foot and mouth outbreak."

By 2005 farms are expected to fall by at least 25,000 with 50,000 people forced to leave the industry. Just before the FMD crisis Maff was about to publish three 'major reports' arguing that big farms were more productive and better able to compete with their counterparts in the Argentine Pampas and American Mid-West.

In the meantime, small- and medium-sized farms that have diversified over the years in order to survive and become more sustainable are in the process of losing everything.

Favouring the rich

Undoubtedly, the intensive rearing of livestock, the globalisation of the food industry and the closure of countless abattoirs - leading to animals being transported unacceptably long distances - are all contributors to the spread of this disease. A lesson from this must be that, generally, a more locally based food production and distribution system is sensible for the sake of the environment, animal welfare and disease prevention.

During the Second World War the government had to introduce methods in order to feed the country. Food was mainly organic because pesticides were either unavailable or too expensive. As a result the diet of all improved tremendously, in spite of shortages.

Today, agriculture within the EU is dictated by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This favours producers over consumers and has led to fraud and corruption.

It is also inefficient, leading to misuse of economic resources and equity with price control supports as a form of regressive tax that consumers, including the low paid, pay for the benefit of better off producers.

Tobacco subsidies are greater than the value of the crop yet fresh fruit and vegetables receive just 7% of the value of the crop in subsidies. There is no encouragement within the EU to eat more fruit and vegetables. Instead, EU money goes to meat and dairy production and the crops grown to support them.

This results in highly saturated fatty foods and intensive meat production with little concern to animal welfare or the health of the consumers, let alone the health risks of BSE, antibiotic resistance and salmonella.

Increased growing and consumption of fruit and vegetables would prevent many illnesses and deaths and would encourage more biodiversity, decrease pollution, improve the environment and save money.

Sustainable production

The battle for food control is a strategic issue in the EU/USA trade disputes - a battle between the multinational food giants and small/medium sized producers. CAP benefits large producers engaged in intensive arable and livestock farming.

As we know by the present crisis, we are paying in health, environmental and financial terms for these policies. Cereal prices may drop but we continue to pay the same price for bread.

The present system does not produce sustainable agriculture. In general less exploitative methods, more local production and processing and organic farming are needed for the long-term benefit of the farming industry, general health and the environment.

Consumer demand for organic food has risen 55% in the last year though currently 75% of those products sold in the UK has to be met by imports. In Sweden 11.2% of farmland is organic and 10% in Austria but in Britain only 2.3% is organic.

Socialists demand wholesome, sustainable forms of food production and distribution. This can only be achieved by ending the contradiction between the drive for profits under capitalism and the health and safety of people, rather than reforming CAP.

The pursuit of profit has to be jettisoned and replaced with a democratic, socialist agriculture policy.

A socialist programme for agriculture

Agribusiness, including the pharmaceutical companies, must be taken into public ownership under democratic workers' control and management.

Nationalisation of agricultural land owned by large capitalist concerns together with the big country estates. Land could be leased out on a secure basis to those prepared to work it including groups of farm workers, existing tenants and small farmers.

The food processing industry and retail industry should also be nationalised under democratic workers' control and management to ensure standards and make sure it operates within an overall plan to supply good quality, cheap food to everyone.

A plan of sustainable food production drawn up between farmworkers' representatives, small farmers who actually work the land, and consumers.

The 'exploiters and the profiteers'

THROUGH THE Common Agricultural Policy (which forces consumers to pay more for their food than world prices) and European Union budget support, farming in Britain receives around £10 billion annually in subsidies. Or put another way, £10 billion of our taxes goes to subsidise the wealthiest farmers in Britain.

But farming today only accounts for 0.9% of GDP (national output), employing just 1.5% of the workforce. By comparison tourism, which received £35 million in government support, attracted foreign visitors to Britain in 1999 who spent £12.5 billion.

Land ownership and farming is highly concentrated. 1% of the population owns more than half the land in Britain; just 2% own three-quarters of it. Half of Scotland is now owned by 600 individuals. Fewer than 10% of farms account for 50% of farm output.

Government and EU subsidies and other finances have poured into agriculture replacing people and buying more machinery and chemicals. Since World War Two employment in farming has declined from one million workers to less than 250,000.

While workers can sympathise with small farmers whose subservience to the economic might of the big supermarkets has driven down farm incomes to miserable levels, big agribusiness has enjoyed a golden period of profits.

"The state has seldom if ever been as benevolent to farmers and landowners as it is today. Farmland is subject to no taxes or rates. It is exempt from Inheritance Tax and qualifies for all reliefs under the rules of capital gains tax (CGT). On top of this, farm businesses are now eligible for reinvestment relief.

"This means capital accrued in some other venture has only to be invested in some farming enterprise to escape CGT. This makes farming and farmland an attractive bolthole for investors." (The Killing of the Countryside, Graham Harvey, p158.)

According to Harvey, the countryside is run by "the grubbers and sprayers, the exploiters and the profiteers. We have allowed them to assault our landscapes, wage war on our wildlife and abuse our farm livestock. They have poisoned our soils and dumped millions of tons of soil into our rivers.

"They have demolished nine-tenths of our wildlife assets. Now finally, they have corrupted the purity of our food." (p165.)

A cosy club for the rich farmers

MAFF'S (MINISTRY of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) relationship with agribusiness is so close that it has been referred to as "a cosy club for rich farmers", and more contemptuously called "the political wing of the NFU" (National Farmers' Union).

Maff has consistently let agricultural workers, small farmers and consumers down in the interest of agribusiness and the chemical industry.

They refused to accept that 245-T pesticide, organo-phosphate sheep dips or BSE were a problem although the Rural and Agricultural Workers of the Transport and General Workers' Union and others campaigned vigorously over the issues.

Even today the organised workers are not part of the Government Rural Task Force looking into the FMD crisis. Needless to say the NFU and the Tory-dominated Countryside Alliance are!

Maff officials knew last year that a highly virulent form of FMD, the 'Pan-Asia' strain, was spreading rapidly in East Asia. They warned nobody and did nothing!

Maybe it was bad luck that it should arrive in the UK but years of haphazard and piecemeal checks on legal and illegal imports of meat to the UK suggest it could have happened long ago.

Apart from their solution of mass culling, which has proved disastrous, they waited three days before imposing a movement ban of all farm animals.

Maff have been guilty of much disinformation on FMD. If vaccination had been adopted at the beginning of the outbreak, the government would have been carrying out official EU scientific policy!

Many are now arguing that Maff's days are numbered. According to Ian Gilmore, media co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth: "Maff should be shot in the head, dumped in a trench, fried to a cinder, sprinkled with quicklime and buried with a stake through its heart, that's what should be done with Maff!"

The agribusiness men that brought us BSE through their industrial cultivation of meat are the ones who have long dominated the national council of the NFU. They only represent one-third of farmers, most of whom disagree with their leadership! Together with Maff they have been intent on encouraging production at any cost.

Between them they were responsible for insisting on no vaccination as well as 'closing' the countryside. Ironically, I attended the National Countryside Access Conference - New rights, new responsibilities - on 27 February where we discussed the legislation on more access to the countryside!

Koizumi's mission: impossible

AS JAPAN'S rulers struggle to extricate the economy from its decade-long morass, hopes have been placed in newly elected Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. But, as JIM HORTON explains, the populist maverick Koizumi faces a difficult task.

FIRSTLY, HE needs to restore the credibility of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) if it is to avoid certain defeat in July's elections to the upper house of the Japanese Diet (parliament). This will very much depend on his second difficulty, reviving a stagnant economy teetering on the brink of recession.

Koizumi's unexpected victory to become LDP leader has sent shock waves through the party's ruling elite. However, he received overwhelming support from the LDP's 2.3 million rank-and-file members.

Opinion polls before his election showed 55% support among floating voters. Koizumi was able to capitalise on ordinary people's frustration, summed up in the saying: "Nagatacho's common sense is the man on the street's nonsense".

Nagatacho, the LDP's old guard, underestimated the desire for change. It has dominated Japanese politics for the last 30 years and is held responsible for the economic and political crisis.

Despite having spent 30 years loyally serving one of the most conservative parties in the world, Koizumi is now described as a radical reformist, whose colourful flamboyancy contrasts favourably to the dull gerontocracy of Japan's rulers.

Reforms

A BETTER indication of Koizumi's politics are polls that show him as the first choice for foreign investors backing his pledge to privatise Japan's huge postal savings business and to introduce painful financial sector reforms.

Koizumi has his own agenda as an aggressive economic reformer and an uncompromising nationalist. He is no friend of Japan's working class.

Restoring the LDP's fortunes will not be easy. It has been the ruling party for most of the time since the second world war, temporarily losing power in 1993 following a multi-billion yen corruption scandal.

Following its re-election the LDP spent the 1990s presiding over a stagnant economy. Under Yoshiro Mori, whose resignation as LDP leader paved the way for the succession of Koizumi, LDP support plummeted.

Mori was the most unpopular prime minister for decades. He left the LDP with a popularity rating of less than 10%.

Koizumi has been quick to make some changes. He has appointed a cabinet with five women, a record for Japan, including the first female foreign minister.

He also broke with tradition by appointing only a few ministers from the LDP's largest faction.

These reforms were relatively painless to implement. Reforming the factional character of the LDP and sorting out the economic mess will prove more difficult.

Moribund economy

KOIZUMI HAS also signalled an intention to expand the role of Japan's military, requiring revision of Japan's 'peace constitution', and supports official visits to the Yasukuni Shinto shrine where Japan's war dead, including executed war criminals, are worshipped.

This will antagonise New Komei, a junior coalition partner backed by a powerful Buddhist sect opposed to government links with other religions, as well as the Left who regard the shrine as a symbol of Japan's wartime totalitarianism.

The key issue facing Koizumi is Japan's moribund economy. The Japanese economy is the second largest in the world.

Ten years ago it was held up as a model, following four decades of spectacular growth. However, increasing speculation in the 1980s led to a huge inflation in share and asset prices.

Such was the 'bubble economy' that at one stage the imperial palace grounds in Tokyo were worth as much as the whole of California. But the bubble burst in 1989, land and stock prices came crashing down, leaving the country mired in debt.

During the 1990s the ruling LDP implemented 13 separate reflationary packages in an attempt to kick-start the economy. The only lasting legacy of these failed measures is a public finance mess, with Japan's national debt now equivalent to 130% of annual output (GDP), the highest ratio of all the major economies.

Koizumi is now desperately looking to cut public expenditure, particularly on public works. He is also planning to privatise the mail service, postal savings and postal insurance.

With the failure of both reflationary packages and interest rate policies, Koizumi has decided to push through 'painful' structural reforms, curtail borrowing, clean up the banking sector and extend privatisation. This has been referred to as the shock therapy of 'creative destruction'.

Koizumi is expecting Japan's working class to pay the price for the country's economic ills. Banks will be forced to write off bad loans of up to 13 trillion yen.

This means allowing defunct companies to go to the wall, resulting in increased unemployment and poverty.

Koizumi faces an impossible task. He has only a couple of months to be seen to be turning the situation around.

If there are no indications of an economic improvement, and if the LDP is hammered in the upper house election in July, then Koizumi, Japan's eighth prime minister in as many years could find himself ousted in the LDP presidential election in September.

The Socialist 4 May 2001	A System Under Siege
Global capitalism: A System Under Siege	MILLIONS OF people protested against capitalism worldwide on May Day. According to Tony Blair many did so in London because they wanted confrontation with the police and supported "spurious causes". But, contrary to the lies of the police and the New Labour government, the vast bulk of demonstrators were not seeking violence. They were there to expose the violence and exploitation of the capitalist system which allows 20% of the world's six billion people to live on less than $2 a day...
Class struggle makes a comeback	What we think: TEN YEARS ago, after the Berlin Wall fell and Stalinist "Communism' collapsed the capitalist system's highly-paid commentators proclaimed the "end of history": the capitalist system was triumphant and class struggle was over. Yet, on May Day 2001 more people probably protested against the horrors of global capitalism than at any time in the last two decades or more. The traditions of marching against the system are being revitalised.
Police provocation resisted	HANNAH SELL, CHRIS MOORE and JOHN REID report from London's May Day anti-capitalist protests: ON ALL the demos there were many young people who'd never been on protests before. Probably over 10,000 people protested. After about 3pm as everyone converged on Oxford Circus the police penned people in. For hours people couldn't get in or out.
Public Health Not Private Profit	Stop the fat cats making a killing out of health AT A time when GPs are having to take action to protest about their workload, ROBIN CLAPP describes the state of hospital services in Bristol, a situation repeated throughout Britain. Over 17,000 people in Bristol are now waiting for treatment. At Frenchay hospital, ranked tenth worst in the country for its waiting time, someone requiring a hip replacement has to wait six months to see a consultant, then up to 18 months for treatment.
Baby Bonds: Labour's election gimmick	NEW LABOUR have launched the big idea for its second term. Now we are to get "baby bonds". At an estimated annual cost of £480 million, the government will open a trust fund for new babies of £250 to £500, depending on how 'poor' you are. Paula Mitchell
A showdown between the classes	1926 general strike: IT IS 75 years since the general strike, when four million out of the five and a half million organised workers struck for nine days in May 1926. But the last thing the TUC leaders wanted was a successful general strike. When it started they did everything to end it. Bill Mullins, Socialist Party Industrial Organiser, explains how the TUC found itself calling a general strike.
Crisis On Tony's Big Business Farm	THE FOOT and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak that started on 2 February has caused a major political crisis. The government's strategy to contain the epidemic is proving to be an economic and environmental disaster. Yet, FMD is not a modern plague. So why has the mass culling of animals been pursued instead of other strategies, including mass vaccination? TERESA MACKAY explains how the interests of capitalist agribusiness drives government policy. A socialist programme for agriculture The 'exploiters and the profiteers' A cosy club for the rich farmers
Japan: Koizumi's mission: impossible	AS JAPAN'S rulers struggle to extricate the economy from its decade-long morass, hopes have been placed in newly elected Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. But, as JIM HORTON explains, the populist maverick Koizumi faces a difficult task.

A System Under Siege

Global capitalism