anish working people against the government's austerity program and the offensive of the capital-
This proposal was the focus of
Soren Sondergaard's speech opening the SAP congress.
"The SF and VS should join in such a front not for the sake of the SAP but for the workers, who otherwise are going to have to pay the bill....
"The workers parties should break with the bourgeois parties and work out a policy for the workers
"The SAP thinks that with such a policy something could be done here and now against the drop in real wages, joblessness, and increased armament....
"We need full and automatic cost- of-living adjustments. We need a real tax reform, which would impose sharply progressive levies on all incomes above the average worker's
"We need workers control over the companies' accounts. We need a stop to overwork, a 35-hour work week with no cut in wages and a policy of creating jobs through public production and increasing
"We need a stop to layoffs and
We need to nationalize all key sectors of the economy.
Bombs and Missiles!' "We need to stop the arms race, stop the siting of 572 new nuclear missiles, and get rid of the NATO bases and arms depots in Denmark.
"That is what a socialist policy For us it is no dream. For us, socialism is only our daily work. For us, socialism is the inevitable result of the struggle to keep the workers from bearing the burden of the economic crisis and being exposed to the threat of nuclear that we are not about to see the end of the crisis that started ten years ago. It
"The drop in the workers' real wages and Thatcher's war are only omens of greater threats ahead.
"For the student rebels of the 1960s, the boom offered the policy of good jobs, rising living standards, and individual solutions.
"Such possibilities no longer exist. The youth, the jobless, and the workers everything to win and nothing to In the May 13 issue of the SAP weekly paper, Klassekampen, Kurt Sorensen outlined the program and activities projected by the congress.
The center of a united campaign for the upcoming national contract negotiations should be the demand for a 35-hour week without any cut in wages or speed-up and the demand for full compensation
(The text of this resolution can be of increases in the cost of living.
A way to advance now is to set up open contract committees in the workplaces, in which everyone can participate, in order to assure that the union leaderships will maintain the de-
SAP members will concentrate on getting the workers organizations to join in the campaign against increased armament. The rapidly growing peace movement can be reinforced by peace committees in the workplaces and unions.
The peace movement was a central question in the three-month-long discussion that preceded the congress....
An immediate task is to mobilize for the demonstrations that will be held throughout Europe when President Reagan comes here in June.
Contingents are also being organized to go to Bonn to take part in the demonstration there.
A powerful upswing in the struggles of youth have been seen in the last year. In that period also, on the basis of experience of these struggles, Young Socialist groups were stabilized in a number of
Young members of the SAP took the initiative to set up the Young Socialist groups. And the Third Congress of the SAP voted to give increased support to building a socialist youth organization on
The SAP will also continue its work in the antinuclear power committees and the Committees for Solidarity with Soli-
The second postwar world recession
What prospects for a solution to the economic crisis by Ernest MANDEL
Like the 1974-75 recession, the present one began in the United States, where there was a net decline in industrial production and in employment over the first half of 1980.
After some fluctuations, which were wrongly called "recovery" by most experts, this decline accelerated again, bebeginning in the third quarter of 1981. It will doubtless continue for most, if not all, of 1982.
Between July 1981 and February 1982, industrial production decreased by more than 10%. The extent of the 198082 recession in the United States becomes clear above all in the light of the evolution of the rates of utilization of installed productive capacity, that is, the growth in the rates of excess capacity (see Table 1).
At the beginning of 1982, orders for durable goods received by manufacturers in the imperialist countries were 7% were in January 1981, which represents a drop of 15% in real terms.
In West Germany, the decline in industrial production began in early 1980, almost at the same time as it did in the United States. This drop continued throughout 1980 and 1981, and stopped only at the beginning of 1982.
In France, industrial production declined throughout almost all 1980 and during the first half of 1981. A slight upturn occurred during the second half of 1981 and at the beginning of 1982. But it is not clear, given the effects of the American recession, if it will continue through 1982.
While Japan has been less hard hit by the recession than its major competitors, it nonetheless experienced a decline in industrial production in the second quarter of 1981. Production dropped again in the first quarter of 1982.
### TABLE 1
Rate of Utilization of Productive Capacity in Manufacturing Industry in the United States. August 1980 72.2% December 1980 78.1% August 1981 76.0% September 1981 75.3% October 1981 74.1% November 1981 71.1% December 1981 68.9% January 1982 66.4% (Sources: Successive issues of Business Week up to March 8, 1982.) 18
In Italy, industrial production began to decline in the second quarter of 1980; this decline continued throughout 1981 and into 1982.
In Canada, industrial production went into decline in the second half of 1979. This recession continued throughout 1980. While industrial production showed an upturn during the first half of 1981, it went into a decline again in the second half of 1981, which continued into the first half of 1982.
The synchronization of this recession throughout the capitalist world is highlighted by the fact that nearly all the smaller imperialist powers were caught up in the decline of industrial production.
Industrial production dropped for the first time in Austria (in 1981, production declined by 2%; at the start of 1982, there were 150,000 unemployed). Likewise, declines occurred in Belgium (in 1980 and in 1981), in Denmark and Norway (1981), in the Netherlands (in 1980 and in 1981), in Sweden (1981), and in
The only imperialist power that seems to have escaped the recession this time is Australia, where the economy was up by a "raw materials boom." But in view of the drop in the prices of these raw materials that sharpened 1981 and the beginning of 1982, it is possible that Australia also will be hit by the recession sometime in 1982.
The experts were wrong again in predicting a general upturn in 1982. view of the worsening of the recession in the United States, there is no question of
The question that is posed is the Will the American recession deepen the downturn in most imperialist countries, thereby provoking a worsening of the economic situation interna-
Will its effects be limited to "spoiling" or delaying upturns in other imperialist countries? In any case, a general upturn is unlikely before the fourth quarter of 1982 or the beginning of 1983.
Like the recession of 1974-75, the 1980-82 recession has hit hardest the automobile industry, the building industry, steel, and petrochemicals. It has revealed the existence of excess capacities in these sectors, which have been increased by the appearance of new centers of production and exporting to the world market.
The engineering sector has suffered less from the crisis. Many subbranches have continued to prosper. It should be noted, however, that even a pace-setting branch, such as the semiconductors and microprocessors industry • has been affected by the recession. In the United States, its turnover dropped during 1981 (Sunday Times, February 28, 1982).
La general way, the onset and In continuation of the recession reflect a decline in the average rate of profit, combined with a fall in productive invest-
The monetary (deflationist) policy practiced by most imperialist governments has aggravated the downturn but did not cause it.
The shrinking of the internal market that has accompanied the decline in production, employment, and incomes of "final consumers" (adjusted or not for slight fluctuations in the rate of savings) in almost all the imperialist countries has not necessarily gone hand in hand everywhere with a shrinking of foreign outlets, although there was a 1% drop in the volume of world trade in 1981.
Some imperialist powers, first place Japan and in the second West Germany (starting in the third quarter of 1981), have increased their share of world exports at the expense of their competitors, thereby compensating for the stagnation or downturn of internal demand. Others, in particular France, are trying to regain a part of the internal market that they lost to competitors in recent years. But it is not yet certain that they will suc-
Like the 1974-75 recession, the present one has stimulated the search for substitute markets. Over the last business cycle, this function was mainly filled by the OPEC countries and the so-called socialist ones, as well as a series of semi-colonial countries. These markets were largely financed by loans, except in the case of the OPEC countries.
In this recession, the crisis of the capitalist w