The usual platitudes about protecting workers’ rights, labour peace, the widening gap in incomes and ruthlessness of the markets were recycled by the political parties for their May 1 messages. It was the type of rhetoric used in the 1950s when workers were paid subsistence wages, worked long hours, six days a week, had no job security, and small pensions when they retired.

The standard of living and quality of life of workers in Western societies has improved dramatically since the 50s and 60s. The age expectancy has increased significantly, the majority holidays abroad, eats out frequently and can afford all the household equipment that make daily living easier. Workers in the West live a life of luxury compared to workers in the third world and many developing countries, which makes the Labour Day laments of our parties and unions uncalled for.

The Green party, for example, said that we are living in the “era of absolute dominance of capital and the markets,” while Akel chief Stefanos Stefanou offered some Marxist rhetoric in addressing a Labour Day gathering in Nicosia. Nothing could be certain for workers as long as the “social system is based on the exploitation of man by man, as long as the struggle between capital and labour determines conditions,” he said. Was he proposing we adopted the command economy model of the former socialist states in which the unexploited workers were condemned to a life of abject poverty and repression?

It is thanks to the alleged ruthlessness of the markets and the struggle between capital and labour that workers in the countries of the West have seen their standard of living and age expectancy progressively rise in the last 50 or 60 years. There have been times of recession and difficulty, but over the long term capitalism has served workers much better than any socialist system has. Now, in Cyprus, everyone is protesting about the rate of inflation which is eroding living standards of workers and demanding state intervention to protect incomes.

Nobody dares mention that once again it is the market that will eventually solve the problem and not the state, which could prolong the inflationary period by measures to support incomes. There will be hardship for low-income earners, who could have been supported by the state if it did not waste most of its money maintaining the super-privileges of the public sector labour aristocracy. Interestingly, none of the parties and unions that issued Labour Day declarations mentioned the fact that in Cyprus we have created a class of workers that systematically abuse workers’ rights for their personal benefit at the expense of the rest of society. Perhaps we should blame capitalism for this as well.