This article, which was published in June 2023, has been confirmed in all essentials by events. Since it was written, world debt has broken new records, the American and Chinese economies have continued to slow down, and European industry has been devastated.

50 years ago, after the long postwar boom, the world economy experienced its first truly global crisis. Falling output and spiralling inflation combined to devastate the working class. Today, capitalism faces similar turmoil. It must be overthrown.

“War is a terrible thing? Yes, but it is a terribly profitablething,” Lenin once remarked. The ongoing aggravation of inter-imperialist conflicts and proxy wars is once again proving Lenin entirely right. As thousands are being butchered in Gaza, Ukraine, Congo, Sudan and elsewhere, and as defence spending is rocketing globally, a handful of capitalists are lining their pockets. The working class is having to foot the bill for this deadly spending spree.

This week, stock markets fell as speculators grappled with the latest employment data coming out of the US. On the surface, the data doesn’t seem all that alarming, and stocks have recovered – for now. But the markets are right to be concerned.

With uncertainty and instability rocking the real economy globally, gambling investors are once again turning to speculation in search of a quick buck. But the whole of capitalism is a casino. It’s time to overthrow this bankrupt system.

The latest report by Oxfam, titled Inequality Inc., reveals that the world’s five richest men have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, while the vast majority of humanity is sinking deeper and deeper into squalor. Fearing for their system, a group of 250 “mega-rich,” calling themselves “Patriotic Millionaires,” are asking for a portion of their wealth to be taxed to fund social services. We say: we must take alltheir

By the end of this century, the global population is predicted to fall for the first time since the Black Death. In every continent the pitter-patter of babies’ feet is being replaced by the clanging of walking sticks as family size shrinks under the immense pressures of working life. Faced with a shortage of workers and a growing pension-age population, the ruling class are worried about what they are calling the ‘demographic transition’.

When I get up in the morning, put on my shoes and tie up the laces, I often ask myself: “who made those shoes?” Likewise, when I sit at the table to have breakfast, I wonder, “who made the table and who worked on the farm that produced the oats in my porridge?” When I go for my annual check-up at my local doctor’s surgery, I wonder: “to what class does the nurse belong?” You may be wondering why I ask myself these questions. Well, it is because we are bombarded by the idea, apparently in defiance of my experience, that the working class no longer exists; that it has been dissolved and now we are all mostly ‘middle class’.

Recent data has caused alarm amongst the ruling class, suggesting that inflation has become entrenched. In response, central bankers are looking to provoke a slump in the hope of quelling price rises. The only solution is socialist revolution.

Countries, businesses, and households across the world are drowning in debt. As interest rates rise, the danger of default looms. To avoid a catastrophe, calls for debt cancellation are not enough. Instead, we must fight for revolution.

A bankruptcy crisis is looming over the world. The New York Times has called it “a debt crisis unlike anything we have seen”. This isn’t the threat of a handful of banking behemoths going under, however, but rather of entire national economies. Some 54 low and middle-income countries are today teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

As the rate of inflation continues to cut into the living standards of workers, some businesses are posting record profits. Some have pointed the finger at price gouging and the excess profits of big business as the cause. This phenomenon has been dubbed by trade unions and commentators as ‘greedflation’.

A new study by the London-based charity War On Want finds that, even though the global food system produces more than 2.6 times the average person’s caloric needs, 2.3 billion people lack secure access to healthy and nutritious food. How is this criminal contradiction to be explained?

The situation has gone from bad to worse for the world’s financial markets. After three bank collapses in the US and one in Switzerland, the markets are looking for the next weak link.

The takeover of Credit Suisse (CS) by UBS exposes the massive instability of the global financial market. It is an expression of the rottenness of the world capitalist system. As always, while the bankers gamble away, the working class has to pay.