http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/pers-j22.shtmlThe past several months have witnessed a shift in social policy by the international bourgeoisie even further to the right, marked by a turn from economic stimulus policies to brutal austerity measures. In the name of deficit reduction, the ruling classes of all the major capitalist countries are carrying out a frontal assault on the past social gains of the working class.
The long-term aim of these policies is to eliminate the welfare state, reestablishing the competitiveness of the older capitalist powers by slashing workers’ living standards to the level of their impoverished counterparts in emerging economies like India and China. That the living standards of the world’s people are to be equalized downward, rather than upward, is an indictment of the capitalist system.
The “Big Society” speech delivered Monday by British Prime Minister David Cameron exemplified this shift. It was a manifesto for a return to Dickensian conditions of working class poverty.
Seeking to camouflage the brutal implications of his plan to impose between 85 and 100 billion pounds in social cuts over the next four years, Cameron described his “Big Society” as a “huge cultural change” that will “empower” and “liberate” people. It will supposedly achieve this by privatizing and gutting government-run social services.
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