In the US, 263,000 jobs disappeared in August. This was far more than predicted and it sent the London City share index well below its past 5,000-plus level. Gamblers don't bet on a loser.

Here, not only are companies still slashing jobs, but their borrowings and investments are falling - meaning more job cuts to come. And the fairy tale that the housing market is back to 2008 levels is exposed as nonsense by the construction industry's warning that orders are still going down.

So much for the "recovery" hailed so loudly by the media. Politicians themselves do not seem to believe in it, otherwise why would the G20 summit have concluded that the governments' bailout of the financial sector should carry on for the foreseeable future, despite its exorbitant cost?

Politicking and guaranteed cuts

Against this backdrop, the September conference season was both an anti-climax and a telling illustration of the irrelevance of the political system.

The TUC conference should have focused on the bosses' offensive and what should be done to stop it. It certainly did expose the fact that all workers, in the private and public sector, are facing the same attacks and have plenty of reasons to fight back together. But it did not produce a single initiative to allow them to join ranks in a common protest, let alone in a real counter-offensive against the bosses.

Instead, the TUC turned itself into a platform for Brown to deliver the first speech of his election campaign. And what a speech! It was an exercise in arrogant self-satisfaction, justifying every bit of his pro-business policy and then announcing that the time had come for workers to foot the bill for the billions squandered on the finance sharks. Only, said Brown, Labour's cuts would be "humane" unlike those planned by the Tories, and that, alone, should be a good enough reason for working class voters to support him!

Brown's next speech, at the Labour party conference, was no less edifying. A significant part of it was devoted to explaining that "the markets need morals". As if this was not a contradiction in terms! What sort of "morals" can there be in a system which is based on the ruthless competition between a small number of very rich capitalists who control everything in the economy and whose only aim is to maximise their profits, at the expense of their rivals, on the back of the working class majority of the population? The only "moral" that such a system recognises is the law of the jungle, the survival of the strongest.

Towards a workers' offensive

The politicians' "caring" posture, whether Brown's or Cameron's, is pure deception. These managers of the capitalists' interests only aim to boost the bosses' profits. Brown and Cameron agree on the "need" to bailout the profit sharks, cut public expenditure and turn the screw on the most vulnerable (the disabled and long-term sick) so as to cut social security spending!

Quite evidently, no answer to the problems of the working class will come out of the ballot box. But in this capitalist jungle, where everything is a matter of relationship of forces, the working class has better weapons. Its voice has not been heard yet, due to the union leaders' failure to organise any serious fight back over jobs and conditions. But workers can still make themselves heard.

Today significant sections of the working class are already fighting: postal workers, firefighters, manual council workers... Other sections face similar threats: the civil service, engineering (Rolls-Royce), car industry (Vauxhall). However, those trying to fight back remain isolated, while others think that they cannot fight because they too, might be left on their own.

Yet, faced with a co-ordinated offensive of the capitalists and their state, shouldn't the working class respond by using its collective strength in a co-ordinated counter-offensive? Shouldn't every opportunity be used to break the sectional barriers which artificially divide workers' ranks? It's the only way to build a collective fight back, stop the bosses in their tracks, and regain lost ground.

And yes, such a counter-offensive can work, because by joining ranks across company and industrial boundaries, workers would have the means to make it far too costly, both politically and economically, for the bosses to carry on cutting jobs or wages. And to force them to share out the work available between all, without loss of pay. The capitalists are wealthy enough to foot the bill of their crisis. But they will only do it if the relationship of forces leaves them no other choice. Whether this happens or not, will depend on our coming battles.