Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials, 30 June 2008

Since January, 37,740 households have faced court action from lenders, for failing to keep up with their bills. This is a 20% increase on the same period last year and a measure of how hard the financial crisis is hurting.

A number of these court actions will lead to repossessions. Many of these households will join the 30,000 already in temporary accommodation due to homelessness. This will add to a backlog which, despite local authorities' statutory duty to find permanent rented accommodation for the homeless, has never really gone down. And it is unlikely to go down soon, since Brown's pledge to build 3 million decent affordable homes by 2020 - which will be too little too late anyway, compared to growing needs - has not even begun materialising.

This is 21st century Britain. And despite it being one of the richest countries in the world, its capitalist system is not even capable of providing a roof for everyone, let alone a decent life.

But, as we are told all too often, there is still worse to come. This week, papers say that finance companies plan to shed at least 10,000 jobs this summer, doubling the number of jobs gone in this industry. But make no mistake: these jobs are not those of over-paid financial whizz-kids, who can afford to be off pay and still enjoy a comfortable life. No, they are mostly low-paid back-office jobs, held by people who cannot afford to miss even a month's wages to pay their bills, because in this society, it is always the poorest who are the most "dispensable".

These job cuts will add to the thousands already gone in construction, in anticipation of a "hard-landing" for the housing market. Yes, in this mad society, thousands of building workers are thrown on the junk pile, when so many need a decent home to live in!

Not everyone has to worry, though. A little-known "World wealth report", published every year by two big finance companies, shows that despite the crisis, or thanks to it, the world's wealthy managed to get even richer over the past year. The 10 million individuals who own more than £500,000, increased their assets by 6%. For the first time, their collective wealth is larger than the total value produced on the planet over a whole year! And the 100,000 individuals who own more than £15m saw their assets increase by 14.5%! The richer you are, the richer you get!

But all of this means that contrary to all the nonsense we are being told, despite the present crisis, the world has not suddenly gone poor. It is just that yet more wealth is being concentrated in the hands of the same tiny parasitic minority which has caused this crisis in the first place. And if we, the working class of this country do not want to foot the bill for their crisis, it is this wealth that we will have to reclaim from the parasites!

Following Mugabe's self-"re-election", Foreign Office minister Malloch-Brown said African nations should "do whatever it takes" to get rid of him, suggesting that military intervention in Zimbabwe could be necessary.

Who do such people think they are? These trustees of British companies which rip off the poor countries' resources to boost the pickings of the wealthy here! And if that was not already too much, they also want to rule the lives of the poor in these countries, "for their own good"!

Mugabe is a dictator and the arrests, beatings and torture inflicted on political opponents are intolerable. But it has not always bothered British governments. For 20 years, they found little to object to in Mugabe's regime, though it had already killed thousands of supporters of its main political rival in the 1980s.

It was only in April 2000, that Mugabe became a target for London, when he threatened to expropriate the very rich white farmers who had controlled most of agriculture since independence. Never mind the fact that, due to the white monopoly over fertile land, millions of poor were barely surviving!

Two years later, the era of Western "sanctions" began. The international loans on which Zimbabwe, like all other poor countries, depended, dried up.

One can only be shocked by the impact of these "sanctions", with astronomical inflation paralysing most of the economy. Eating depends on finding something to barter against food. It is a hand-to-mouth existence verging on starvation for most. Yet, Brown still dares to threaten even more "sanctions" which, like the previous ones, will affect the population far more than the ruling clique around Mugabe ever could.

By a cynical irony, it is in the name of "democracy" that Brown proposes to starve the poor of Zimbabwe and others propose to bomb them. In Iraq, for the victims of the West's bombs, this "democracy" was that of the cemeteries. In Zimbabwe, bombs may not even be necessary: hunger and disease will do the job!

In Iraq, Brown's "democratic" claims only conceal the greed of British oil majors. Who will be surprised if, in Zimbabwe, his "concern" turns out to be a smokescreen for British mining groups, hoping to grab the country's platinum and other precious metals?