"Why We Are Against Capitalism"

Letter published in last Friday's South London Press in reply to Trotskyist Steve McNally's in the previous week's issue :

Why we are against capitalism

Steve Nally (Letters, South London Press, December 8) is right. Local services and amenities are being cut and people shouldn't put up with this, but this is the fault of the capitalist profit system as it goes through one of its economic crises. So, it is misleading to blame those who administer this system at local level, as he does, rather than the system itself. In calling on Lambeth council to adopt an alternative budget without cuts, he is encouraging the illusion that things could be different under capitalism if only there were militant leftwingers in charge. But the only way capitalism can get out of a crisis is by cutting living standards.

This is why Socialists should be campaigning for the abolition of capitalism, not for a change in the people running it or trying to make it work in a way it just cannot. We, too, will be standing in some wards in the Lambeth council elections in 2014, just as we did in 2010.
Adam Buick The Socialist Party, Clapham High Street

They chose the title (which is not bad). The only change they made was to replace "Militant" (with a capital M) by "militant" (without one). Perhaps the capital M was too subtle -- or too unsubtle.