'There is never a crisis that capitalism is incapable of resolving...

...providing it is at liberty to impose the conditions on the working class necessary for its solution'

From The politics of fightback: Capitalism's crisis and our response, part 3

The central political issue thrown up by the crisis is “who will be made to pay for it -capital or labour?” In this regard the two options that capitalist governments have been debating — market forces or interventionism — are no different. They are both designed to make the working class pay and give capitalism a new lease of life.
This does not mean, however, that the immediate impact of the two options on the working class are the same or that the opportunities that each presents for building a fight back are the same.
From this point of view socialists should welcome the 'New Deal' interventionist approach in as far as it saves some industries, saves some jobs, and gives some relief to the working class in the depth of a crisis of the system. It does of course raise as many questions as it answers. We have to demand that it goes much further than Obama or Brown, or any of the others, are prepared to go. We have to demand programmes of public works which can employ and reemploy millions of workers. It can be done. If trillions of pounds can be given to the banks the same can be done for programmes of public works. Why not? And we have to demand that such public works are directed towards establishing a more sustainable society for the future, in order that the ecological crisis is tackled at the same time.

We should welcome this approach, as opposed to that of market forces which would send the weakest to the wall and many more millions on the dole, not only because it creates the best immediate conditions for the working class but because it creates the space in which to build a fight back. The more workers are thrown into unemployment and atomised as individuals the more difficult it will be to begin to organise. On the other hand if workers remain employed or are taken on for public infrastructure work they are in a far stronger position.

8) Nationalisation

The key to developing a socialist approach to this crisis is nationalisation. It also takes the issue to the political level and there is a big opportunity in this. The perception of nationalisation, which was discredited by Labour in the 1970s and 1980s and demonised by the Tories in the same period has been transformed in the course of this crisis out of all recognition. It has gone from an issue discussed in socialist circles to a part of the mainstream debate on the response to the crisis. When leading members of the US government (first the Bush regime and now Obama) discuss how much of banking and even of industry to nationalise it's clear that something has changed.

This opens up a space for the left which to which it has a responsibility to respond. It gives the opportunity not only to demand that governments intervene into the crisis but that the framework for their intervention should be nationalisation. Nationalisation does not equal socialism, of course, but it does open a space in which socialist ideas and a wider socialist programme can be developed.

There are many things wrong with recent nationalisations of course. They are the nationalisation of bankrupt companies, carried out in order to socialise risk and bail out debt, and with the intention of handing them back at a later date. Many of them are not nationalisations in the formal sense but simply government majority shareholdings, which can be sold off at any time. Moreover there is very little control exercised over these institutions but Brown is making it clear that he does not want to exercise control if he can possibly avoid it.

It would be a big mistake, however, in the current circumstances, for socialists to say either that such nationalisations are irrelevant or that they are unsupportable. Rather socialists should welcome the nationalisation of financial and other institutions as far as they go, whatever form they take, as better than the alternative — which is to leave it to market forces. At the same time socialists should strongly oppose any adverse conditions imposed on the workforce in the course of the takeover and vigorously demand that the initial takeover is replaced by full nationalisation under democratic control.

The arguments for full nationalisation under democratic control are overwhelming and extremely popular. There has been a wide-ranging debate in the mainstream media about it. It has been a popular move. If huge sums of money are being injected into bankrupted companies it makes no sense at all to do it without full democratic control of the process and of the future development of those industries. Socialists need to put themselves at the centre of this debate. A year ago it didn't exist.

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