11) "WE DO NOT ACCEPT THAT A MINORITY KEEPS GETTING RICHER"

Excerpts from an interview by Solidaire, with Peter Mertens, chair of the Workers' Party of Belgium (PTB)

The PTB made important gains in municipal and provincial council elections held in October 2012. What is the membership of the PTB?

Peter Mertens: We have now reached 6,811 members. In 2012 more than two thousand members joined, the largest increase in our history. Also many new branches were started. This has led to unbelievably much more energy and experience in the party. We have an enormous challenge to give everyone a place within the party, to keep the party active, to keep the party Marxist, but also to cope with the challenges of the crisis.

     Since the government has already adjusted its planning to a growth figure of almost zero. It is expected that the closure of Ford Genk and ArcelorMittal Liege is only the beginning of a new wave of layoffs and restructurings. (NOTE: Since the interview, Caterpillar Gosselies has fired another 1400 Belgian workers). At the same time, the government takes measures to further decrease social protection, social security and public services, at a moment when more and more people need them because of the crisis.

This means there is a task for the PTB here.

Peter Mertens: Yes, in 2013 we want to strengthen the social struggle movement with all our sections. The crisis is used by the establishment to drive back the working class: socially, economically, democratically, but also morally. We have to build new power relations. And that means that we work everywhere to have debate and discussion. That means that we also help people to organize, from within small subcontractors up to big enterprises and offices, from abandoned neighbourhoods to the bustling city life.

     People should have the courage to say "no", that is the first act of opposition. "No" to cutbacks of post offices, social housing, neighbourhood libraries or public space. "No" to the attack on purchasing power, to wage freezes, hyper-flexibility and underpaid jobs. We need a large counter-movement which exerts pressure from below to steer society in another direction.

Other parties sometimes say: with the crisis, it is not difficult for the PTB to attract so many new members. Is this a valid argument?

Peter Mertens: I am not so sure about this. Take a look at Germany. The German model of low wages and hyper-flexible jobs is not automatically pushing the whole working class to the Left, is it? Whether the Left will grow stronger as a result of the disagreement about neoliberal policies, depends on the activity of the Marxist party. Is it working well? Is it succeeding in informing and organizing the people? That is the most important issue.

     Well yes, a lot of people see that the SP.A and PS (Flemish and Walloon social‑democratic parties) in the present government are taking measures against the workers' movement. Less people still feel themselves at ease with these parties. When prime minister Di Rupo is promoting (extra tax reductions for enterprises) at the World Economic Forum in Davos, while one of the biggest profiteers of that system, ArcelorMittal, is planning to shut down in Liege part of a modern steel plant, this does not need much further explanation.

     Also more and more volunteers and members of the large Christian workers' movement are turning to us. They observe that participation in the capitalist logic of the big banks has eaten away their cooperative savings...

The party is growing, more members are joining. Is the PTB able to immediately give all these new forces a place?

Peter Mertens: This growth is absolutely necessary for us. If we want to go against the increasing turn to the Right, then we need a strong force, a well‑based party. The party had to innovate and look for renewed sources, no one can deny this. We have the duty to be not a bystander but an actor in society, a living party that can exercise influence on what is happening.

     But OK, the people now joining the PTB do not automatically know our party program or vision, let alone that all of them would have a profound knowledge of today's Marxism. For this reason we will take the necessary time in 2013 to strengthen the education at all levels, to reinforce the backbone of our party. You can be tactical and flexible, but you need a backbone. Or else your flexibility will be that of a rag doll. We continue with the enlargement of the PTB, but on the other hand we want to give much time to the guidance and education of new members who want to further develop as active members of the PTB.

In the media the success of the PTB is sometimes compared to foreign examples: the SP in the Netherlands, Syriza in Greece, Melenchon in France. Is any comparison possible?

Peter Mertens: It seems logical to me that in this time of crisis, there is some space created to the left of social democracy, for social democracy in Europe has totally sold itself to capitalism and has no longer any ambition to build a socialist society. That is already the case for quite a long time. Now this space can be filled by many different ways. Naturally, our way of organizing the opposition and our vision of society is closer to, say, the Communist Party of Portugal than to certain other parties. That is a fact. But that does not mean that there are no areas in which we can cooperate with them, or learn from them.

At the World Economic Forum, CEOs, bankers and heads of government said the huge gap between rich and poor has grown "problematic". The OECD states that multinationals evade too many taxes. Are these signs that capitalists are coming to the understanding that matters cannot continue the way they do?

Peter Mertens: No. Naming a problem does not mean that you want to solve it. I think they have been forced to name it because by now they are about the very last on earth to recognize the problem.

     They declare they want to reduce this contrast, then they take a number of symbolic measures, but in the meantime they strengthen all fundamental mechanisms leading to this gigantic gap. Take for instance fiscal measures. All around the world the highest tax rates are being lowered, and under the pressure of the multinationals, corporate taxes are being reduced. Luc Bertrand, CEO of Ackermans & van Haaren, is allowed to say that we have a "Marxist government" in our country, but his enterprise only pays 0.002 percent in taxes. And even that is considered too much. Each year, the government loses billions of euros as a result of this neoliberal fiscal revolution, money that gets saved from public services. Social houses are no longer renovated, bus lines are abolished, the waiting lists for care are getting longer.

     We are facing a systemic problem, a problem of capitalism itself. The mechanism of competition requires ever higher productivity, and a greater share of the market, which leads to an attack on wages and on labour conditions, and causes a decrease of the people's purchasing power.

So what is the purpose of those symbolic measures capitalists want to carry out?

Peter Mertens: In government circles it is clearly said: we are forced to take a number of symbolic measures to keep the population satisfied. Many economists have said in financial papers that they do not understand why the population remains so calm under such draconian measures. There is a real fear of social unrest on a large scale. And with reason, when you look at what is happening in Europe. After five years of economic crisis, in 2013 we will once again go into a recession. 26 million people in the European Union are now jobless. Entire population groups are condemned to poverty. One out of four young people has no job. And for those with a job, conditions are often not much better. 8.7 percent of Europeans with a job cannot make ends meet. Those are working poor. In Germany this number even reaches 22 percent, one out of five!

     On the other side you have an awesome accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few people. Someone like Bernard Arnault (the richest man of Europe) was able to add $8.1 billion to his account last year. He has a personal fortune of $28.8 billion. This situation, where a minority of a minority is allowed to enrich themselves, causing huge damage to the common interest, is not democratic. That is no democracy, but an oligarchy, where wealth means power.

Against that accumulation of capital, the PTB proposes a millionaire's tax. Is that the miracle solution?

Peter Mertens: No. We have our vision of the future society, but you also need political levers to go in that direction. Bruno Tobback (chair of the Flemish social‑democratic party) said: "Mister Mertens wants to introduce the millionaire's tax in order to solve the crisis." Well, nothing is farther from the truth. The millionaire's tax will not solve the crisis, but the millionaire's tax is needed more than ever for other reasons, in order to lower a bit the over‑enrichment of the 200 richest families in our country. Their fortune grew by a third over the last two years. On families as de Spoelberch (InBev) or Frere (financial and industrial capital), which control our country and take the lion's share of the wealth, we can impose a kind of refunding tax.

     The millionaire's tax yields 9 billion euros a year, with which you can create new jobs. Necessary projects which are not carried out now, such as the construction of schools, the employment of new teachers and nurses, the development of public transport... With that 9 billion euros, 100,000 new stable jobs could be created. So the standard would be stable jobs, instead of underpaid hyperflexible mini‑jobs, as in Germany. Those 200 richest families would not even miss anything. Therefore it is no exaggerated measure. The alternative is that the ordinary working people - working, unemployed and undocumented people - will have to bring in everything to pay for the crisis.

The reactions from other parties are unanimous: the millionaire's tax is unrealistic.

Peter Mertens: Here we see two visions clashing: the realism of one side is not the realism of the other side. We consider as unrealistic the fact that people who have worked their whole life have to manage now with a tiny pension. We deem it unrealistic that people who are fired by Opel, Crown Cork, Ford, ArcelorMittal or elsewhere are pushed under the poverty threshold. We consider as unrealistic a wage freeze, while the multinationals' profits are skyrocketing...

     Every poll concerning this question shows that between 75 and 80 percent of the Belgian population supports the idea of a millionaire's tax. So there is a large support base, but it is not to be found in parliament. But that does not matter. For the ban on child labour there was no support base in parliament either. And yet it has become reality. Why? Support did exist among the working population, putting enormous pressure from below. So we will have to act this way again for the millionaire's tax.

     (We will publish further excerpts from this interview in our next issue.)

(The above article is from the April 16-30, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)