Britain could be heading for a triple dip recession, Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable declared last week. His Tory coalition partners immediately condemned him.
They want us to fall for the idea that the economy will grow if only we will accept more austerity. But the economy isn’t growing. It’s shrinking. New figures show that industrial output is at its lowest for 20 years.
All the predictions chancellor George Osborne has made over the last year have been based on the eurozone coming out of crisis. But it too is still shrinking with no prospect of recovery in the near future.
The crisis wasn’t caused by people on benefits or public sector workers. It won’t be solved by attacking them. The crisis is rooted in the chaos of a system where the drive for profits dictates all priorities.
So the Tories and their friends in big business and the banks are only concerned with one thing—how to get their profits back up. They don’t care about how ordinary people are suffering. That’s why even in an economic upturn workers will not automatically see the cuts reversed and wages rising.
Cable admitted as much when he said, “Even the recovery is going to be very painful.” If we are going to stop this cycle of crisis and recession and booms that only benefit the rich we are going to have to get rid of the system which breeds them.
Israel was born out of colonial and racist violence
Imperialism, and climate change are symptoms of the same toxic system
