Solidarity launches left response to Credit Crunch and Recession 

In a week when latest research commissioned for the BBC shows that one third of all Scottish households are “breadline poor,” Solidarity have published a new pamphlet analysing the economic crisis from a socialist perspective and calls, amongst other things, for full public ownership of the banks, utility and energy companies. 

The Bubble Bursts, written by the party’s Assistant National Secretary Steve Arnott, details the scale of the collapse of the international capitalist financial system, and pulls no punches in holding Gordon Brown and New Labour to account for their part in the creation of the housing and debt bubbles that led to the crisis. 

The figures for poverty in Scotland are contained in a new report, “Changing UK”, produced by Sheffield University, which looked at how nations and regions within Britain have altered over the past four decades.  The report confirms that even during a period of so-called economic “boom”, Scotland had the largest number of poor people in each of the last four decades, as well as the highest death rate of all 14 regions examined.  

The reports findings have been described as “a scandal” by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).  

Solidarity Co-Convenor Tommy Sheridan said; 

“The figures collated by Sheffield University on behalf of The BBC are a shameful indictment on a system that has spectacularly failed to provide for the majority of people in society. Prior to the start of the “credit crunch,” we were assured by the likes of Gordon Brown and others that we had seen the end to boom and bust economics and we were living in a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity. The myth has been exposed that it was only a small percentage of wealthy individuals who benefited whilst the majority of people, even during these so called boom times, face a daily struggle to stop themselves sinking in a sea of debt. 

Yet, events in the global economy mean that the situation will get worse for millions of ordinary people forced to pay the price for a crisis that was not of their making. Now, more than ever, we need a socialist answer to the problems facing the world.”

The Bubble Bursts is the first in a serious of pamphlets planned by Solidarity to outline their case for an independent socialist Scotland in the run up to a potential independence referendum and the next Holyrood elections in 2011.

The pamphlet outlines the case for a full-blooded socialist response to the full scale recession now hitting ordinary people like a whirlwind; turning the banks into genuine people’s banks through full scale nationalisation, democratic public ownership of the privatised utility companies, and a massive house building programme and conversion to renewable and carbon neutral methods of energy generation in an independent socialist Scotland. 

Tommy Sheridan added;

"As the biggest party of the left in Scotland, Solidarity has a duty to put forward a socialist analysis of these events, to explain the underlying causes of the crisis and offer a socialist alternative to anarchic ‘free market’ boom and bust. 

Above all, we need to explain that Gordon Brown and economic philosophy of New Labour are at the heart of this problem, and in no way its solution.  

This pamphlet does all of these things and every socialist in Scotland should read it.’"

 The pamphlet can be purchased from the website by clicking on the link to the right of this article..