Porciss for a Sliding Scale of Spending

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Г WE FORGET REFORMISM Wage cuts, cuts in manning levels throughout industry and cuts in government spending are the three principle prongs of the strategy of the Lib-Lab government for ism.

By cutting government spending, particularly on the social services, Callaghan's axe-men seek primarily to avoid imposing increasing taxation on private industry and the middle class for the finance of services largely used by workers.

Waiting Lists In fact the cuts have the added effect of forcing even some workers to resort to private medical treatmentwhere waiting lists offer only years of agonising delay in It's Poppy Day again- It's PoDDy Day againthat season of the most cynical breast-beating and biggest crocodile tears on behalf of the British bourgeoisie, and their errand boys who lead the Labour Party and the unions.

All of them cultivate a show of concern for the fate of the hundreds of thousands of British troops who were among the miltons who were Slaughtered in the course of the first imperialist world war while bankers and industrialists totted up the profits and contended against other bankers and industrialists for a lion's share of a redivided world market.

Treacherous leaders

The crucial role in enabling the 'War to End all Wars' to take place was played by the treacherous leaders of the reformist social democratic parties in each country.

Sooner than break from their position of privilege based on class collaboration with their own capitalist class these leaders voted almost to a man to support their own employers in imperialist war.

*As a result or thei be"non-urg The ( conditio ation al services forward manufaci Clive ASTMS. sabotagea implemer jent" operations. defence of jobs and ns in health, in educnd in other social is not as straightas the struggle in turing and, service enkins, leader of He has continually i the fight for the itation of the sliding scale of public spending rublic spending In other sectors the other sectors primary requirement is requirement defence of every existing job of every existing haviour, the workers' parties of these countries did not oppose. the governments' criminal conduct, but called upon the working class to identify its position with that of the imperialist governments.

The leaders of the International committed an act of treachery against socialism by voting for war credits, by reiterating the chauvinist ('patriotic') slogans of the bourgeoisies of their 'own' countries, by justifying and defending the war, by joining the bourgeois governments of the belligerent countries, and so on and so forth.

The most influential socialist leaders and the most influential organs - of the socialist press of present-day Europe hold views that are chauvinist bourgeois and liberal, and in no way socialist.

Bolshevik Resolution 'The War and Russian Social Democracy.

Descendants

It is this betrayal by social democracy that finds the most striking echo in today's situation in Britainwhere their descendants, the Labour leaders, in coalition with the bourgeois Liberal Party: is at present prepanng to use the standing army in a bid to smash the against management moves for speed-up or rationalisation involving closures.

But in the public sector it is vital that the service itself be defended, and extended and that any cutbacks are fought-whether or not jobs are cut.

The manner in which the cuts are being pressed home indicates the way the fight must be directed.

Healey's strategy has been to impose an overall reduction in budget for the social services, linked to rigid cash limits.

Magnified

In this way atively small i budget totals massively by ti inflation, W increases the ru the service whil sum is available Under such firemens' strike.

As the ceremonial parades are stood down, 12,000 troops will be mobilised in one of the biggest ever scabbing operations organised by social democracy.

Credentials

If the First World War was the first decisive means of exposing reformist leaders as recruiting sergeants for the capitalist war machine, they have ever since proved their credentials as the most dedicated servants of finance capital.

The millions of workers used as cannon-fodder in wars, the countless hundreds of thousands who have died, suffered internment, torture, and repression under tascism, and been dragooned into vicious speed up and wage cuts by "peaceful' capitalist exploitation as a result of reformist betrayals fill not 'one corner of a foreign field' but miles of ground in every country of the world.

And while it is trendy these days for liberals to criticise the "incompetence' of the First World War General Staff or the 'senselessness' of war, only revolutionaries today can pinpoint the real reasons that brought millions of brave working men needlessiy to shoot each other down in • the comparinitial cuts in are magnified he working of 'hich daily inning costs of le only a fixed for finance. a system cuts SPITAL are automatically imposed at the full rate of inflation.

Without challenging the system of cash limits, and advocating a policy that will defend the social services against the effects of inflation, no consistent, fight against the cuts is possible.

Full access

Elected committees of trade unionists-both social service workers and users of the services-must fight for those obscene trenches sixty years ago And only Marxists are able to bring those lessons into today's Now, as then, the working class has no interests in propoing up the bourgeoisie of =; capitalist state.

NOWE full access to the finance books of the administrating authorities, in order to assess the real impact of inflation and the financial needs of the service in each area.

This fight must be combined with the struggle for the abolition of cash limits, he restoration in full of all cuts and the implementation of a sliding scale of social service spending, rising in pace with increased costs in materials and increased wage Millions of war-time corpses are witness to this.

Workers have no interest in assisting that same bourgeoisie in imposing nationalist import controls, speed-up, or rationalisation.

And they have everything to gain from assisting workers in colonial countries to break free from imperialist 1003:00 The scale of these increased cost's labour and throughout the trade union movement and linked to an exposure of the profits made from the social services in the private supply and construction industries, will illustrate stli more clearly the necessity for the nationalisation of these firms under workers management, as part of a planned provision for social needs.

The Workers Socialist League has fought for the sliding scale of spending since its formation in 1974. At the ASTMS Conference in 1975 the sliding scale of Health Service spending was adopted as national policy against the opposition of the union's National Executive.

The ASTMS NEC have since taken no action whatever to carry through this policy, and sabotaged repeated' efforts to raise this betrayal at subsequent conferences.

CLASH

Meanwhile the policy has been also adopted by the Committee of London Area Stewards in the Health Service (CLASH),, which has played a key role in supporting the EGA work-in and the fight to defend the Hounsiow Hospital.

Coupled to the fight for all-out strike action to stop the cuts, the sliding scale of spending demand points the way forward for all workers in the social services, health and education.

The real enemy in each country is the capitalist cbss at home.

The fight against Inat capitalist class demands the reconstruction of the Fourth Only in this way can the slaughtered milions avenged and the capitalist system that generates wa: and destruction be swept way.

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NOUSTRIAL NEno URNALISTS REJECT Journalists lobby the NEC for added support for the Darlington strike. confrontation with the government pay limit.

The NUM Executive is still to decide on its attitude to the 12 month rule. But confusion sown by Scargill

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driving up the rate of profit in British capital-