The capitalist system in Britain continues to reveal its inherent contradictions as Carpetright, one of the UK's leading flooring and bed retailers, has announced significant job cuts despite a ‘rescue deal’ with rival Tapi [1].
In an attempt to save the company from insolvency, Carpetright was put into administration by PwC, the global professional services firm, and then sold in a 'rescue deal' to Tapi, which acquired the Carpetright brand name, the company's intellectual property, two warehouses, 54 stores and just 308 of its 1,800 employees.
As always, the burden of capitalist economic crisis and corporate mismanagement falls on the working class, who are thrown into the army of the unemployed, who serve to drive down wages and compete with each other for new jobs.
The so-called 'rival', Tapi, was actually founded by Lord Harris of Peckham, the original owner of Carpetright and a member of the House of Lords, the upper house of the UK parliament. In 2014, following the decline of Carpetright, he stepped down from its leadership, and the following year launched the rival Tapi with his son [2].
Lord Harris, who is worth an estimated £285 million, stands to gain in all situations: if his old business fails, he can sell his shares, freeing himself from the burden of debt and earning money in the process. And again when he is allowed to buy it back in a 'rescue' deal, using it to 'restructure' the business to make it profitable, sacrificing the livelihoods of hundreds of workers in the process.
Workers, unlike Lord Harris, have no capitalist private property to sell when times are hard, nor any position in the capitalist state to influence policy to their advantage. All that workers possess is their ability to work (i.e. no private property) and the 'privilege' of allowing a capitalist to extract a surplus from their day's labour in return for wages that are often barely enough to meet their needs.
The capitalist system has completed its historically progressive task, it has socialised and advanced production, virtually all modern products are the result of the labour of thousands of people around the world, yet the fruits of our labour are appropriated by a handful of capitalists who realise the reward by selling them on a market. Now it serves only as a brake on all economic and social progress.
In order to secure a future capable of giving all workers a dignified, stable and happy life, we must bring the relations of production into line with the social, large-scale and planned character of modern production. This means abolishing private capitalist property and replacing it with common ownership of the means of production. Only then can we rationally plan production for the benefit of the many of us who live by means of work and struggle to get by, not the few who live decadently off the value created by others.
To do this, the working class movement needs its own independent organisation, made up of workers armed with the most advanced theory, that reflects their objective interests to the fullest extent; Marxism-Leninism.
At present there is no such party in Britain, we are working to train the future cadres of such an organisation as well as towards the formation of such a party itself. Join us
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