["Unless there is a change of course, there…]

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"Unless there is a change of course, there could be a depression that would make the great crash of 1929 look like a 'technical correction of the market?"

So said Tory MP Geoffrey Rippon in Parliament a few days ago. But he was already behind the times. Tne depression unleashed by Thatcher in 1980 is already greater than that of 1929-31!

The latest CBI survey, published in last : Monday's Financial Times shows that output is expected to fall this year by no less than 9.3%, followed by a further catastrophic 4.7% next year.

This gives a total fall in output of 14% in two years well above the drop of only 11% in 1929-31, and far greater in real terms, given the overall increases in industrial output that have taken place since the 1930s.

This parade of closures and cutbacks takes place at a time of growing poverty not only in Britain but even more so in the underdeveloped economies of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Capitalism is now shutting up shop becayse its own exploi. tation has left a majority of the world's population too poor to buy even the bare necessities of life at a price which will offer the employers a protit.

But the fall in sales, the growth of unemployment and the policies of the Thatcher government, are themselves now acting as a further powerful squeeze on industrial profits.

Competition between rival firms for a share of a dwindling market means that there is pressure on every manufacturer to hold down or even cut prices.

While Thatcher has rushed to hail this situation as the beginning of a fall in intlation, tew big employers see the situation through the same blue-tinted blinkers.

The CBI report shows that 15% of the 1,800 companies surveyed are. planning to cut their prices in the next four months.

Only 26% of firms expected to increase their prices in the next period. At a time when inflation is still at 15% such measures are a sign of desperation.

They mean' that more and more firms are being driven to the very edge of bankruptcy in the cut-throat struggle for sales. This struggle is the inevitable outcome of an unplanned, anarchic capitalist economy.

As the Financial Times points out to its business Minister for Closures: Joseph readers, in manufacturing industry-particularly metal manufacturing:

"profit margins are being squeezed, and, in a growing number of cases, eliminated."

But as long as the capitalist system remains intact, profit wil remain the only motive for production. When profit dries up, factories close and workers are thrown onto the dole queues. It is happening all around us.

Only a fight to defend the independent interests of the working class-and thus to challenge the continued existence of capitalism, and point to the need for a planned, socialist economy-càn stop the runaway Tory steamroller crushing still more jobs and whole industries -increasing mass poverty in Britain and on a world scale in defence of the riches of a handful of employers.

Mass action

That is why mass action is vital now to resist each and every redundancy and closure, by occupying threatened factories, and fighting tooth and nail for supporting strike and blacking action.

The demands must be:

*No redundancies "voluntary" or compulsory!

*For work sharing for the whole workforce without loss of pay!

*Open the boaks of the employers-expose the profits made by suppliers, "subsidiaries" distributors the tories!

uuWl Demand a workers' government that will nationalise industry and banks without compensation under workers management as the basis of a planned, socialist economy!

In just three monthsJuly-September 1980, 350,000 jobs disappeared in the UK.

This was a marked increase in the speed of redundancies. No more than 400,000 jobs had been lost in the preceding 12 months. Thus nearly a year's total job loss took place in only three months. And more sackings are still being announced every day.

In the last recession in the mid 1970s, only 250 000 jobs disappeared in two years. So far Thatcher has disposed of three times that figure!

But hardest. hit in this decline in employment are women workers. They are heavily dependent upon industries where the biggest cutbacks have taken place; they are generally the first to be made redundant; and they are often in unorganised, insecure part-time jobs.

Nor are married women eligible for unemployment benefits. Once out of work many women therefore do not bother to sign on as unemployed, and conveniently "vanish' : from statistics.

'Disappeared'

This can be seen by comparing the employment and unemployment figures. " While

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vanishin women workers