Burn a Banker- legitimate class anger?

ireland / britain | the left | opinion / analysis Thursday April 02, 2009 18:22 by Seam Matthews - WSM (personal capacity)

"We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning."
(Statement released by the anonymous group behind the attack.)

The outburst of condemnation from liberal commentators against the recent property damage to (British banker) Sir Fred Goodwin’s privileges is nothing new. Indeed, for once these bastards got a taste of their own medicine and is quite trivial in comparison to the violence dished out to working people every day in terms of redundancies, house evictions, police brutality and war. Let’s face it- if this property damage occurred in any working-class area, we would be lucky to hear a thing in the media never mind an investigation by the police. Class society at its cutting edge!

The question of violence is tactical one and is necessary during class struggle, as the ruling-class will never cease its power and privileges peacefully. However, there is no substitution for mass direct action such as strikes, go slows and general strikes.

Bankers, those in the upper rank in the financial sector, are not the only people to blame for the economic recession. Whenever it’s the system we live under, underpinned by capitalist exploitation of labour which is the root cause of the problem. Removing a few bad apples and passing a few token reforms only reinforces the status-quo which does not bring us closer to reaching a solution.

We must also expose and reject attempts by self-serving, corrupt and opportunist politicians to jump on the bandwagon. They must not be let off the hook by deflecting attention away from their disastrous right-wing economic polices which have created the climate for excessive profits and bonuses for the very rich in our society. We need to look no further than recent scandals from Tony McAnulty's fraudalent expenses for his second home to the partner of Home Secretary Jackie Smith using public money to watch porn films. The Belfast Telegraph also reported last Wednesday that our local politicians at Stormont are paying out over £50,000 of ‘public money’ in bonuses to their staff.

Across the world, we are witnessing the flame of class war being spread like wildfire, manifesting itself in a variety of forms and tactics, such as the kidnapping of bosses by workers in France to prevent lay-offs to workplace occupations in Ireland.

We need to channel this anger and growing social discontent towards a vibrant, confident revolutionary movement which will wipe away these parasites from the face of the earth.