The 30 or so students that held the building last night woke up bright and early to get propaganda out around the university, advertising the day school today and winning support for their protest. This included teams working in shifts flyering, getting posters up and a banner drop from the University of Manchester Precinct bridge.

The day school began with a message of solidarity from lecturers.

At 1PM Jean Shaoul from the University of Manchester’s business school and the Socialist Equality Party kicked the school off with a lecture on the Cuts entitled ‘Causes of the crisis – an international socialist perspective’ arguing that the cuts are the result of neo-liberal policies enacted to deal with a crisis inherent in the way capitalism functions. She also argued that the solution was for the workers and students to unite not just against issues specific to their own interests but to struggle against capitalism world wide. She also decried the manner in which, “the government, the police and the media have responded with the gloves off” in the pursuit of defending the elites specific class interests, a very poignant point given the previous fortnights civil unrest and subsequent witch hunt of protestors in the media.

This was followed by a short talk from a member of the Pirate Party mainly about the usefulness of digital media to expand our struggle and enlightening the attendees to the measures the government is taking to encroach on peoples freedom of speech on the internet.

A lecture from Japhy Wilson, economics lecturer at Man Uni, followed covering many of the same topics as Jean’s lecture but in a manner which was much easier to engage with. Japhy emphasized that the cuts, despite what the government would argue, are not necessary. The government argues that its current levels of debt are unprecedented, currently at around 70% of GDP, yet from 1920-1960 the UK’s level of debt as a percentage of GDP ran at around 100% and the government managed to invest vast capital to create the welfare state in-between. He also pointed out that the UK has the lowest level of debt as a percentage of GDP of all the G7 countries and that the argument that the cuts are the only sensible course is fallacy as by cutting trident and implementing a 50% tax on incomes above £100,000 the debt could be cleared. He emphasized however that these measures would not put an end to economic crisis as these crises are inherent in the way capitalism functions, that capitalism is intrinsically circular and intrinsically unstable. He then went on to explain to those in attendance the basic Marxist analysis of capitalism through an analogy and explained in layman’s terms that the seemingly magical way the capitalist makes profit is actually through the exploitation of labour and natural resources. Japhy then went on to argue that the crisis had not been caused by ‘greedy bankers’ or ‘stupid poor’ people as many would have you believe but actually by financiers with ever increasing amounts of money in their pockets having to make increasingly riskier bets to return the desired rate of profit. That the banks had to be bailed out due to the stampede of banking lobbyists and that to pay for the bail outs the bankers had pushed for increased neo-liberalisation of the economy. “Socialism for the rich, hyper neo-liberalism for the poor”. He concluded by stating that in his opinion capitalism had now entered a phase of ‘cannibal capitalism’, i.e. eating itself for the goal of short term profit gains. He pointed to the cuts to higher education as an example of this as Britain is a knowledge economy and by cutting funding to education, the British economy is damaging itself in the long term.
He said that he did not have any solutions to this problem but he encouraged the people in the room to imagine, “what life could be about if capital accumulation was no longer central to it”.

A lively discussion followed that definitely made the occupation seem like the hotbed of political discussion it has the potential to be, with the point being raised that this fight was not just a student fight against the fees but also a fight against cuts across all sections of society and many in the room were arguing for the socialist alternative. In fact, when one member of the occupation argued that humans were inherently motivated only by personal gain, many in the room argued against him to the point that in the end he seemed quite alone in his position. After more debate the occupation took a fag break.

The next pressing concern was the anti-cuts meeting due to be held in Manchester University Students Union at 5PM. Many in the group had become disenchanted with the union executives handling of the occupation with its members being noticeably absent from proceedings. It was decided to send a delegation to the meeting to try and bring it over to the occupation. The delegation was successful in gaining a majority decision from the anti-cuts group to move the meeting to the occupation and once inside the meeting began. The discussion was often focused on the occupiers criticisms of the union exec and the exec defending their position and this went on for some time with a major grievance being the exec seemingly leading the march last Wednesday away from the town hall and down into Castlefield where the police wanted them. In the end it was decided that the Union would provide more support to the occupation beginning Monday. The group also decided to continue the occupation over the weekend and to build for the next national day of action on Tuesday 30 November.

As the meeting dispersed, those that were occupying over night arranged a fifth press release. Its content included the recently announce news that the occupiers would not be allowed to re-enter the occupation if they left before Monday morning, that they wouldn’t be able to receive a re-supply of food, that cigarette breaks would be denied to participants and that the heating would also be turned off over the weekend, all on new orders from university management. Clearly the university authorities are trying to starve and freeze the protesters out of occupation, but spirits remain high and many are determined to hold the lecture theater over the weekend.

Updates will be posted as and when they occur. Until then continue to express messages of support for the Roscoe occupation via facebook or twitter.

By Alfred Stevens.