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  • Monthly Review Essays

About Éric Toussaint

Éric Toussaint, a doctor in political science, is president of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM) Belgium. He is a co-author (with Damien Millet) of Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers (Monthly Review Press, 2010). Toussaint has been serving as the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt since April 2005.
  • From the BRICS countries to the townships: racial and social segregation continues

    From the BRICS countries to the townships: racial and social segregation continues

    Originally published: CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illitigimate Debt) on April 22, 2019 (more by CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illitigimate Debt))  |

    Over 25 years ago now the people of South Africa won the struggle to end the Apartheid regime. Nevertheless, even though it is now against the law, de facto racial segregation is still apparent.

  • The mountain of corporate debt will be the seed of the next financial crisis

    The mountain of corporate debt will be the seed of the next financial crisis

    Originally published: CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt) on April 13, 2019 (more by CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt))  |

    What have they done with the money? Have they invested in research and development, in production, in the ecological transition, in creating descent jobs, warding off climate change? Not at all!

  • (CC - Flickr - EuroCrisisExplained)

    The challenges for the European left regarding debt and the banks

    Originally published: CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt) on January 23, 2019 (more by CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt))  |

    The policy of Quantitative Easing (QE) has been implemented by the ECB since 2015 in the wake of what the Fed had done in the U.S. from 2008 to 2014. It consists of massively purchasing private and public debt securities from banks in the Eurozone and from corporations.

  • Photo by KRIS AUS67 (CC Flickr)

    Adam Smith and the Yellow Vest Movement

    Originally published: CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt) on December 23, 2018 (more by CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt))  |

    It is sad to see how completely misrepresented Adam Smith (1723-1790) is when pundits call upon him to vindicate neoliberalism and the status quo. It seems many have not really bothered to read his works.

  • EU

    Facing the left-wing challenge in the European Union

    Originally published: CADTM on November 22, 2018 (more by CADTM)  |

    One of the central and most concrete themes that the break should cover concerns the way public indebtedness is used to justify austerity policies.

  • The Challenges for the Left in Europe and the Eurozone (Photo by Rawpixel (CC))

    The challenges for the Left in Europe and the Eurozone

    Originally published: CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt) on September 20, 2018 (more by CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt))  |

    The policies dictated by the European leaders have six fundamental objectives; Bail-out the private banks with public funds, preserve the Eurozone perimeter, bring neoliberal policies to bear more heavily on Greece, reinforce a Europe-wide authoritarian form of governance and more.

  • Resistance is futile (CC - Flickr - Lily Rhoads)

    We struggle against illegitimate public and private debt which are at the core of the capitalist system

    Originally published: CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt) on April 6, 2018 (more by CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt))  |

    What we are fighting is a capitalist system that destroys nature.

  • February Revolution (1917)

    Russian debt repudiation, 100 years on

    Originally published: CADTM on February 10, 2018 (more by CADTM)  |

    One achievement of the Russian revolution that is often ignored is the fulfillment of a promise made by the Russian revolutionaries in 1905: that all debts contracted by the Tsarist regime that had been overthrown some eleven months earlier were cancelled.

  • A statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square in April 2003

    The Odious Iraqi Debt

    Originally published: Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM) on December 12, 2017 (more by Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM))  |

    This article, originally written towards the end of 2003, is now published on our website for the first time in English. The odious Iraqi debt is still under-documented today, though it is highly relevant in our research and our proposals against all illegitimate, illegal, odious and unsustainable debts. It is a rare case where a […]

  • Latin America: 200 years of the infernal cycle of debt

    Latin America: 200 years of the infernal cycle of debt

    Originally published: CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitamet Debt) on November 23, 2017 by Marie Charrel (more by CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitamet Debt))

    Venezuela is an emblematic case of the infernal cycle that Latin America has been struggling with over the last two centuries. It all began in 1810, when Simon Bolivar, a figurehead of the Spanish colonies in their fight for freedom, began borrowing from London in very unfavourable conditions to finance the wars of independence.

  • Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis

    Yanis Varoufakis’s self-incriminating account of the Greek Crisis (Part 3)

    Originally published: CADTM on September 18, 2017 (more by CADTM)  |

    [box type=”note” style=”rounded”]Part 1: Proposals Doomed to Fail Part 2: Varoufakis’s questionable account of the origins of the Greek crisis and his surprising relations with the political class Part 3: How Tsípras, with Varoufakis’s aid, turned his back on Syriza’s platform [/box] Yanis Varoufakis traces his collaboration with Alexis Tsípras and his alter ego, Nikos […]

  • Yanis Varoufakis’s self-incriminating account of the Greek Crisis (Part 2)

    Originally published: CADTM on September 1, 2017 (more by CADTM)  |

    [box type=”note” style=”rounded”] Part 1: Proposals Doomed to Fail Part 2: Varoufakis’s questionable account of the origins of the Greek crisis and his surprising relations with the political class Part 3: How Tsípras, with Varoufakis’s aid, turned his back on Syriza’s platform [/box] In his latest book Adults in the Room, Yanis Varoufakis gives us […]

  • Yanis Varoufakis (CC - Flickr - Marc Lozano)

    Yanis Varoufakis’s self-incriminating account of the Greek Crisis (Part 1)

    Originally published: Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt on August 24, 2017 (more by Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt)

    Yanis Varoufakis’s entire proposal regarding debt was and is unacceptable from a left-wing point of view because it presupposes evacuating any debate as to the legality and legitimacy of the debts whose repayment is being demanded of Greece.

  • People must self-organize and keep up the pressure on their governments if we are to bring about radical change

    Originally published: Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt on August 16, 2017 (more by Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt)

    There is still an opportunity to get out of the crisis situation and bring about social justice and structural changes that would favour the majority of the population. However if the radical majorities do not seize that opportunity, be sure that the far right will.

  • Will Capitalism Absorb the WSF?

    Éric Toussaint and Marga Tojo Gonzales and Olivier Bonfond

    From 21 January to 2 February 2010, Eric Toussaint and Olivier Bonfond — both involved in alterglobalization activism and members of the International Council of the World Social Forum, of the world coordination of social movements, and of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt 1 — participated in various events and […]

  • Developing Countries: Dangerous Times for the Internal Public Debt

    Éric Toussaint

    Since the second half of the 1990s, the internal public debt of the world’s developing countries has increased significantly.  This increase is now reaching alarming proportions in a number of middle-income countries.  While some very poor countries have not yet been affected, the historical trend indicates a continuing rise in the debt level for developing […]

  • Third World: Is Another Debt Crisis in the Offing?

    Éric Toussaint

    While taking a significant toll on public revenues,1 repayment of the public debt has, since 2004, ceased to be a major concern for most middle-revenue countries and for raw material-exporting countries in general.  In fact the majority of governments of these countries are having no trouble finding loans at historically low interest rates.  However, the […]

  • The Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks

    Damien Millet and Éric Toussaint

    Since August 2007, US and European banks have constantly made headline news concerning the deep crisis they are going through and its knock-on effect on the neoliberal economic system as a whole.  Asset depreciation for these banks currently stands at over 200 billion dollars.  Several banking research services and seasoned economists estimate that the final […]

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Books By Éric Toussaint

  • Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers August 31, 2006

Monthly Review Essays

  • The Migrant Genocide: Toward a Third World Analysis of European Class Struggle
    Iker Suarez A banner at a memorial rally for victims of the 2014 massacre of migrants at Tarajal, 2021.

    Over 10,000 people died in transit to Spain in 2024 alone.[1] On June 2022, the border fence of Melilla, one of two Spanish enclaves in Morocco, was witness to a massacre that killed or disappeared over a hundred African migrants.[2]  A recent BBC investigation revealed that Greek border guards systematically repeal immigrants already on Greek […]

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