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12th international meeting of communist and workers parties

Contribution from Communist Party in Denmark

The deepening systemic crisis of capitalism

We hear it every day or week: The crisis will soon be over; economy is recovering and slowly rising. But we also read the statistics on the decrease in consumption, and hear the government telling us, that the consumption soon will rise, and we hear the well paid economists in the Medias telling us that consumers’ trust in the future is growing, and all soon will be better. No it won’t. The truth about all this propaganda is, that the increase in economy is the rise of dividend for the Stock speculators, and the profits in the big banks, all paid by the taxpayers. And yes. The economical situation is fine for the wealthiest people. In our country even more so because of a new reform of income taxes with less income tax for the wealthiest people, and more tax on consumption like food, heating, electricity, water etcetera. Now they propose a new tax on food. These taxes are a heavy burden for the majority who are not wealthy.

The reason of the decline of consumption is, that of course there is a limit - also for the rich and well-to-do people - to how many cars, televisions or new bathrooms they will who are buy, and it cannot compensate for the decline in consumption from the majority of the people suffering from unemployment and stagnation in wages. The private debts are enormous, and there is a growing fear of buying on credits.

The EU policy

The result is a serious fall in consumption, which as we all know, will lead to overproduction and more unemployment. For the working people the crisis is rising and they really have a financial crisis. In Denmark, as well as in all other EU member countries, the economical policy is huge cuts on public budgets and more privatization. The two only exceptions are the military budget and the fee to the EU. They are both raising especially the fee to the EU, which among other subsidies spend money on loans to member countries, who are also members of the economical monetary union to maintain the value of the common Euro, and to dictate the policy of the loaning country. In Denmark we have a grotesque situation as the Danes overruled the EMU (Euro) and therefore are excepted from this policy of subordination to an EU-dictated limit of the state budget in relation to the BNP. Our prime minister went to a meeting in the EU and asked for a voluntary assignment to the EMU regulations. After this accepts he returned and said that it is necessary to make huge cuts in the budgets in the regions, the municipals as well as in the state budget, because this is a demand from the EU. Progressive people have gone to the court accusing the state of breaking the constitution. It is OK, but it has been tried before, and as we say, political struggles cannot be won in the bourgeois court. Never the less, the resistance against our membership of the EU and the resistance against joining the Euro is growing and growing in Denmark and no government would dare to claim for a new referendum on the Euro.

Denmark

In Denmark the system of unemployment insurance always has been organized through the trade Unions, as they started the unemployment funds. Later the state has contributed to the fee we pay the Trade Unions. In principle you should get up to 90 % of the lost income, but in fact in the last 10 years it has been 50 % in average. The problem with the state support is, that parliament then makes the laws about unemployment support. During the last 15 years you have had to work for your unemployment support after ½ a year unemployment, only you are not paid wages, but the same amount of unemployment money. It is usually in public jobs. As we say: You get back to your own job, but work for half the wages. This summer the bourgeois government decided to cut the supporting period from 4 to 2 years. Another problem is that the ideological war through the boom has had the effect that the trade unions have lost about 20 % of their members, from an organization rate of 90 % to 70 %. This is weakening the Trade Unions, but those 20 % of workers who believed in the propaganda that there always will be jobs to those who really want to work, are now just as unemployed as the organized, but they are without money. They cannot even get social support if their wife or husband have a job or gets unemployment support, or if they have a car, a summerhouse or a house or apartment, even when the Banks are the real owners because of loans.

During the last year a steadily increasing number of people therefore have had to leave their home because they cannot pay the Bank or as tenants cannot pay the rent due to unemployment. We now clearly see the contradiction of capitalism: Homeless people and many empty unsold homes.

Our party is discussing to reorganize the “Red Help” which we had in the 1930’es where people also were put out of their homes, and “Red Help” took them in again, or like we did in the 70’es where we also had empty new built houses, and we moved pensioners living in old-fashioned slum into these modern flats, where they claimed that they could only pay a rent of 15 % of their pension. The authorities didn’t dare to send the police to these old people to get them out. At that time we won and got a legislation saying that pensioners shall only pay 15 % of their pension in rent. The rest will be paid by a state support. – This legislation dos not exist anymore...

The big cuts on any kind of education are mobilizing the young generation. Education in our country is (still) free and everybody can get a state support while they are studying. Now they will reduce the support in a way that means that if you are working while studying and finish your studies later than statued, the support will stop. If you are a student from abroad, or if you live with your parents, you can’t get anything. There are big protests against this reform which will keep working class youth out of studies. 80 % of the Danes support the protests.

Unfortunately the Trade Unions are not those active – with exceptions of cause, particularly in the unions for public workers and building workers. The industrial workers are paralysed, fearing unemployment. Thousands and thousands of industrial workers are getting sacked because industry is closing down and moving to countries where the wages are lower, the working conditions worse and the social costs lower. The latest company closing and moving is “Vesta”, the first company in the world who in a great style produced wind-mills. 3000 are sacked. This company has received much money from the taxpayers to develop their production, and now they leave the bill for unemployment support to the state they leave.

Capital can establish their companies wherever they want, those are the rules of capitalism, but we demand, that when they leave our country, they should pay back all economic grants they have received from the taxpayers and pay the bill for the costs of the people they make unemployed.

Workers have to move around for jobs, and our task as communists is to stay united in solidarity and not to participate in their strategy “divide and rule”.

The struggle against NATO for peace

While the costs of societies to all expenses benefiting the people are cut, the expenses to NATO and war are rising. The decisions at the NATO summit will cost billions. The retiring strategy dos not mean retiring from Afghanistan. There will be about fifty permanent bases in Afghanistan, securing the US and NATO interests. The missile shield in Europe is provoking and extremely expensive. Wars will go on. Our minister for foreign affaires has announced that next stop is Somalia and Sudan. Our slogan to the people is: Shall we pay for weapon and war, or for life and welfare?

The huge mass demonstrations against NATO during the summit in Portugal were not mentioned by the Danish Medias at all. As you probably know, the General Secretary of NATO is the former bourgeois Prime minister in Denmark. Maybe that is the reason why the Summit got all the media attention they could wish. Never the less, as last weekend was the 9th anniversary of the government ruling together with the extreme right wing nationalist party, the medias asked the population in an opinion poll what the worst they had done in these years was. As the absolute worst the big majority answered: The war in Iraq and Afghanistan. After that: Privatization.

The scandals when some of the interpreters and later the wikileaks exposed torture of war prisoners has already cost a Minister of Defence (war) and the highest chief in the Danish military their jobs.

The struggle against war and militarism, and the struggle for a better and socially secured life for all are entirely coupled to the struggle for international solidarity with broad alliances and the struggle for socialism.

Capitalism is the problem – Socialism is the solution.