Carmarthenshire conference highlights issues facing Welsh rural economy

Cllr Cefn Campbell said around 1,000 young people per year were leaving the county, and that a large number of these were Welsh speakers from rural communities.

“De-population is an enormous challenge,” he said.

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WE REPUBLISH ONE OF OUR AFLONYDDWCH MAWR STATEMENTS ON DEPOPULATION AND WELSH ECONOMY FROM 2012

The right wing has a obsession with inward migration to Wales which it sees as the source of all problems, while always missing the main problem in Wales that of the neo liberal capitalist economy which drives many of the most able and resourceful young people into outward migration from Wales.

Wales is the second poorest country in Western Europe after Portugal with a GNP per capita that is unfavourable to that of Greece.

The focus on the immigration into Wales takes the focus away from the more fundamental question of Welsh Depopulation.

It is comparable to focusing on symptoms rather than of the main cause of illness of the patient.

In Wales the problem is the terminally ill neo liberal capitalist economy and immigration is just one of its many symptoms.

The Welsh population is ageing and the productive working population is shrinking, therefore there is an urgency to fighting depopulation in Wales which none of those parties that participate in representative democracy in Wales have so far seriously addressed.

A quarter of the Welsh population will be 65 or over by 2030, compared to 22% for the UK average.

The representative parties in Wales represent themselves.This should be no surprise and was clearly seen by the early Greek Democrats thousands of years ago, which was why they favoured direct democracy over representative democracy.

It is time for a new real democracy in Wales - Direct Democracy.

The question of an ageing population and a shrinking productive population has been tackled by some capitalist economies like the Japanese by promoting inward migration and that can only contribute to a solution to the problem on a temporary basis.

We at the Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr propose to tackle this problem by a series of economic measures to stop Welsh depopulation - a more permanent solution to the problem.

Welsh Depopulation and measures to overcome it, are at the center of the politics of the Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr 

Among the measures we recommend in the fight against depopulation is the passing of Welsh Land Act which will transform Wales from being a country with very low percentage of Welsh people owning their own land into a country like the Irish Republic where a much higher percentage of Welsh people owning their own land.

Land ownership in Wales was identified by Kevin Cahill as early as 2003 in Who Owns Britain as being one of the underlying causes of rural and urban poverty in Wales.

The Welsh Land Commission established by a Welsh Land Act would give priority to provide land for Township and Village Enterprises along the successful model of Chinese economic development.

Apart from the development of a Welsh Land Act - Welsh Economic development would require the development of a Welsh Banking system with a Welsh Community Bank at the core of the system.

It would be supported by Welsh Banks for Rural and Urban Development.

Therefore we at the Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr also call for Wales Bank Act to implement this development.

These banks would have public service mandates and be owned by the people of Wales and would not be allowed to speculate - we can learn the lessons from the Icelandic Banking collapse here to ensure a Welsh Banking system would be both transparent and accountable.

For those who think that Wales could not support its own Banking system - Iceland has its own banking system and currency with a population lower than Cardiff.

With Land and Capital in the hands of the Welsh people we have the real possibility of regeneration of the Welsh Economy in the 21st Century.

Land and Capital should be made available to resource processing industries in rural areas rather than just seasonal tourism as a way of combating depopulation.

Norway or example has high energy processing projects in the countryside which we could study.

There have been various successful schemes against depopulation in Europe but they have relied heavily on tax concessions and seasonal promotion of tourism, we want to put the emphasis on processing raw materials from Wales to lessen the historic colonial relationship with England which has seen Wales a source of raw materials to be processed in England.

We want to establish relations of equality with the English Nation and this calls for a restructuring of the economic relationship between Wales and England.We want a relationship based on mutual benefit with the working people of England not one based on an unequal colonial or imperial relationship.

With the tools of a Wales Land Act and a Wales Bank Act - Land and Capital combined with the Labour of the Welsh people would arrest Welsh national decline and start the Renaissance of a new democratic Wales,

A Welsh Socialist Republic