Make those at the top take the cuts

Published: 3 February, 2011

• ANYONE who thinks this round of cuts and redundancies will be the last is mistaken. 

If the government gets away with these it will come down even harder next time. It is determined that we bear the brunt of the crisis caused by the bankers and those at the top.

A lot of people seem to think that, with the present level of debt in the country, these cuts, painful though they are, are something we just have to accept. Others, like a lot of councillors, are trying to justify the cuts but avoiding the worst cases. As a result we are getting different groups fighting each other in an effort to avoid being the ones to suffer.

The New Economics Foundation estimates that up to £100billion of public money is lost annually through tax avoided, evaded or uncollected.

This enormous amount of money is owed mainly by the transnational corporations, the bankers, other financiers, and extremely wealthy individuals. 

This world of high finance is almost incomprehensible to most working-class people. To them, someone earning around £1,000 a week is “rich”. But for the people at the top of society, this is chicken feed. While we ignore these people and put up with our lives being disrupted, they will get off scot free.

What can we do about it? Well, there’s a limit to what writing polite letters, going on peaceful demonstrations, and so on, can achieve. 

We need to take some direct action. What form that direct action takes is up to the people themselves to decide. 

What has got to be made abundantly clear is that, if cuts are to be made, they must be made at the top of society, not at the bottom. After all, where does all their wealth come from, except from the labour of those they employ? 

There is no other source of wealth.

P WAGLAND
Address supplied