Twelve months ago, we contrasted the attitude of the bourgeoisie and the working class as the effects of the capitalist crisis played out.  The bourgeois have no confidence in their own system, only seeing a dead end.  The working class, on the other hand, are beginning to realize their own strength.  In the past year, the working masses around the world have risen up and begun to challenge the status-quo.  What can revolutionaries look forward to in 2012?

Europe’s economic crisis is being transformed by the day into a deep political crisis. Italy and Greece both have new governments – governments of “national unity”, pledged to solve the economic and financial crisis that has rocked Europe to its foundations. What are these so-called technocratic governments and what do they represent?

The Canadian corporate media commentators were all united with a single opinion — the #Occupy movement would have no traction north of the border due to Canada’s “stable banks that never needed a bailout”. Despite the fact that this is a lie, thousands of ordinary Canadians showed the press just how out of touch they are. After being ignored and belittled, the movement that began in New York has taken firm root in Canada. The very notion of criticizing corporate rule and capitalism has been ridiculed in the mainstream media, so much so that large numbers were silenced. Now these people have said they will not be shut up and have burst onto the political scene.

Europe is standing on the edge of a precipice. This is the judgement, not just of the Marxists, but of the most serious strategists of Capital. Barely six weeks have passed since the latest Greek rescue package, and it is already unravelling. There is now a general crisis of confidence in the ranks of the bourgeoisie internationally. The panic, which is reflected in the wild gyrations of the stock exchanges, has spread rapidly from Europe to America. It is a kind of deadly contagion that has infected all the euro zone’s big countries.

A recent commentary piece by Matt Fodor, published in The Bullet, the e-paper of the Toronto group Socialist Project, raised an interesting issue that has been much debated within the workers’ movement—the role of taxation. Fodor argues that the manner in which the NDP is opposing the HST in BC and Ontario dovetails with the arguments of the right-wing—that taxes are evil and that this foments an “anti-tax sentiment among the general population.” Fodor argues that we should instead support the HST as a means for paying for more programs and services. Fightback believes that this is a dangerous idea that drives workers into the arms of right-wing populists.

There has been much focus on the assaults on civil liberties in Toronto during the G20 summit.  However, the summit was also a failure within the fences.  The recent G20 summit in Toronto brought to the surface all the contradictions of global capitalism. Every capitalist nation wants to climb out of the crisis at the expense of its competitors. Everyone is calling for demand to be kept up, while at the same time applying cuts in public spending at home. At the heart of this are the mountains of debt that have accumulated everywhere.

After talk of the so called "credit crunch" gave way to optimistic comments about the "green shoots" in the economy, events in Greece caught the bourgeois commentators unaware. Now the world economy has once again been plunged into chaos and uncertainty as the governments of Europe try to contain the fall-out from the near-default of Greece and it is the workers who will be presented with the bill.

In early September, Greyhound Canada announced a plan to cut its bus services in Manitoba and north-western Ontario, unless the federal government subsidized them with an additional $15 million.  Greyhound Canada already receives subsidies from the government on the condition that it services the less profitable routes. But now, the company is claiming that it is not making enough profits from running these routes. Greyhound claims that it has been hit by the crisis and needs a “bail-out.”

We are constantly bombarded with the myth that capitalism drives innovation, technology, and scientific advancement. We are told that competition, combined with the profit motive, pushes science to new frontiers and gives big corporations incentive to invent new medicines, drugs, and treatments. The free market, we are told, is the greatest motivator for human advance. But in fact, the precise opposite is true. Patents, profits, and private ownership of the means of production are actually the greatest fetters science has known in recent history. Capitalism is holding back every aspect of human development, and science and technology is no exception.

New numbers about personal debt loads have come out and they point towards an impending economic catastrophe in Canada. Many politicians and economists eagerly tell the public that Canada has come through the worst of the recession and the economy will be rebounding very soon. But, the numbers tell a different story. Canada, so far, has been hit hard by the fallout of the global recession with exports of manufactured goods plummeting, but until this point the domestic markets have remained strong. This is about to change.