Many anti-capitalist demonstrations have taken place in recent years. These are often called “anti-globalisation” protests by the media, but it is big business and the governments and institutions which support global capitalism that we oppose, and globalisation of culture should be welcomed. I took these photos in Genoa in 2001.

The G8 is composed of the world’s seven richest countries plus Russia. The 2006 G8 summit is in St Petersburg, Russia, between the 15 th and 17 th of July, and there will be another in Germany in the summer of 2007.

The main theme of the 2005 Gleneagles summit was making poverty history, due to pressure from below including a large rally in London addressed by Nelson Mandela rather than the goodwill of New Labour politicians. Indeed, Western leaders try to impose strings such as privatisation as conditions for aid or reducing debt.

I first put out a call for a worldwide general strike (with workers and students leaving their workplaces, schools, colleges and universities to attend demonstrations around the world) for the time of that summit, publicised via leaflets, the internet and my band Galaxia (see below). However, given the short timescale and reluctance of activists in Britain to support the call because they were planning to go to Gleneagles, it didn’t take off last year. Nevertheless, G8 summits are the best opportunity for coordinated strike action with the capability of threatening the domination of the world by a small number of multinationals. Such action would inspire working class people around the world to fight back, and give the impoverished masses in the so-called third world hope that there is a way out of the nightmare of famines, deaths from preventable diseases and civil wars. It would also point to a solution to poverty and other problems caused by capitalism in the West, via a world socialist revolution.

If it is only a symbolic strike on one day of the summit that would be great, but if this call for a worldwide general strike gets taken up in a big way then the whole capitalist system could be under threat. If workers such as air traffic controllers go on strike beforehand, then it may be possible to prevent some of the world leaders from travelling to St Petersburg.   If it continues, strikes could become indefinite general strikes in some countries, with the working class taking over production and distribution of goods and potentially coming to power.