Introduction Despite the vast literature examining the link between trade liberalization and economic growth, empirical studies still fail to provide conclusive and unequivocal evidence supporting the link. What most of these studies emphasize is that openness, accompanied by a country-specific mix of appropriate complementary policies (macroeconomic and financial policies, education, infrastructure, institutional capacity and governance), […]
Will shared resources always be misused and overused? Is community ownership of land, forests, and fisheries a guaranteed road to ecological disaster? Is privatization the only way to protect the environment and end Third World poverty? Most economists and development planners will answer “yes” — and for proof they will point to the most influential […]
LA PAZ, 11 August (IPS) — A storm of opposition broke out in Bolivia against President Evo Morales, whose mandate was resoundingly ratified by more than 63 percent of the votes in the referendum according to the consensus of exit polls broadcast by the major television networks in the country. Bolivia has been shaken by […]
From the first day it appeared online, Climate and Capitalism’s masthead has carried the slogan “Ecosocialism or Barbarism: there is no third way.” We’ve been quite clear that ecosocialism is not a new theory or brand of socialism — it is socialism with Marx’s important insights on ecology restored, socialism committed to the fight against […]
With oil prices having more than doubled over the last 12 months, various reasons are being cited for the price increases. Adhip Chaudhuri, a visiting professor of economics at Georgetown University’s campus in Doha, Qatar, explains the cause and effect of high oil prices. Is the increase in oil prices plunging the global economy into […]
The decree to nationalize hydrocarbons (1 May 2006), which enjoyed 95% public approval, was the zenith of the Evo Morales government. Now it has lost the Chuquisaca Prefecture, by a narrow margin, but legally, which lets the referendums that approved the autonomy statutes in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, and Pando camouflage their illegality. It should […]
Our overall assessment is that the conference was an overwhelming success. Over 400 people from many parts of the country and Canada attended, including a bus of 44 — mostly youth — from Connecticut (see breakdown by states below*). The conference met its main objective, which was to urge united and massive mobilizations in the […]
Oil prices rise and rise. New record on Thursday: a barrel (159 liters) of oil costs more than US$145 for the first time. In the event of an attack on Iran, prices could really explode. Yesterday, the Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdallah Salem El-Badri, warned. “It would be […]
Our revolution is in the stage of negotiation and our party sees compromise as another aspect of the class struggle. The question has not yet been finalised whether the revolution will be accomplished through compromise or it will be pushed towards counter-revolution. There is an incessant and fierce struggle between two different world outlooks that […]
Introduction by Richard Fidler The following article, based on a speech given in December 2007 but only recently transcribed and published, is an important statement by a leading member of Evo Morales’ government on the political situation in Bolivia in the wake of the Constituent Assembly’s vote on a draft Political Constitution. The draft Constitution […]
The excavation of fossil fuels was a one-time bonanza: it provided cheap energy that temporarily quadrupled the earth’s carrying capacity in terms of human population. Instead of an ever tightening immiseration of the working class and overthrow of the capitalist system, as expected by Marx, the one-time gift of fossil fuels led to a standoff […]
From the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. Many of you know about this courageous group of workers, who have won incredible victories already for guestworkers and gained the support of labor, immigrant rights, and civil rights communities as well of a number of elected officials. Your contribution would go a long way in […]
Date: Wed, June 18 Time: 6pm – 8pm Place: Busboys and Poetswww.busboysandpoets.com 2021 14th St NW Washington, DC 20009 “An extraordinarily important and provocative reflection on the limitations of self-reform and reinvention within the American labor movement. The authors provide readers with a unique first-hand view of internal debates, personalities, and decision-making processes but also […]
The Right respects legality only when legality favors it. The history of our America has shown that a thousand times. The confrontation that is convulsing Bolivia today is no exception. The Santa Cruz autonomy referendum is just the tip of the iceberg. To limit the debate to a question of legal pettifoggery would be a […]
A friend tells me there is “no documented evidence” of the KKK in St. Joseph, MI, right across the river from Benton Harbor, a city that is almost entirely populated by black people. But looking at the perfect, sterile beauty of St. Joseph and the boarded-up broken promises of Benton Harbor, it’s hard not to […]
Iman Bibars. Victims and Heroines: Women, Welfare, and the Egyptian State. London: Zed Books, 2001. x + 330 pp. Bibliography, index. This sensitively written and thought-provoking book is based on the author’s fieldwork in seven poor neighborhoods within the Cairo-Alexandria conurbation. Even though a systematic survey was conducted in one of the research sites, the major […]
To Whom It May Concern: The President’s proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget eliminates funding for the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). This data source, which became fully operational in 2003, is an annual survey that provides the only available information on how Americans use their time. In the view of many social scientists, it is the […]
Abstract The global economic system has come to be dominated de facto by institutions subscribing to and enforcing the neoliberal agenda. Since the end of World War II, these institutions have sought not only to regulate but, in a manner reminiscent of classical colonialism, to control global resources facilitated by the emergence of the neoliberal […]
Venue: Palacio de Convenciones This conference celebrates the 50th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution which occurred on January 1, 1959. These are times of special importance for the destiny of humanity, given the increase in imperialist aggression and its confrontation with the resistance of peoples from all corners of the globe, who […]
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