I will not spend much time on this topic because it is so ridiculous. But the notion that the UK can become a ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ seems to underlie some Brexit fantasies. Do these have any foundation? – Tony Norfield
Geography Archives: Eastern Europe
New Article Published: Does socialism really lead to economic failure? The USSR and COMECON Eastern Europe before 1989
Based on important new figures from the Maddison Project Database, it refutes the claim that the countries of Eastern Europe were economic failures when they were still ruled by (ostensibly) communist regimes.
Capitalism and punishment
David Russio takes a look into the punishments (deaths) that come from capitalism. For is it really bringing balance to the destruction that it causes. That seems to be the loaded question we all know the answer to.
![The rule of the market in East-Central Europe is absolute [Interview].](https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Gaspár-M.-Tamás--200x200.jpg "The rule of the market in East-Central Europe is absolute")
The rule of the market in East-Central Europe is absolute
Nobody can say that liberal democracy has not liberated some people and that some kinds of servitude have not been obliterated. But the current system has run into a number of contradictions.
Europe Between the Pit and the Pendulum
If you have ever read Edgar Allen Poe‘s gruesome stories you may recall feelings of horror like those which made me, still a youngster, cringe and shudder. I have similar feelings when I hear of bloodthirsty, barely-hidden “concerts” by German Neo-Nazis, which too often lead to violence against subjects of their hatred: hippy-type leftist youngsters […]
The “Brown International” of the European Far Right
In the lead-up to the international day of action against fascism on 22 March, Thanasis Kampagiannis, writing in the latest issue of Σοσιαλισμός από Κάτω (Socialism From Below), the theoretical journal of the Greek Socialist Workers Party (SEK), looks at the danger of a major far Right breakthrough in May’s European Parliament elections and […]
Greece at a Crossroads: Crisis and Radicalization in the Southern European Semi-periphery
Introduction The Greek crisis represents the deepening of a long systemic contradiction whose origins lie in the 1960s, in the stagnation of monopoly capitalism and the emergence of the South. The industrial centers of the world economy were struck by a crisis of profitability, which was displaced outward in space and forward in time by […]
Democracy Instead of the Fiscal Treaty! We Need a Different Approach to Tackle the Crisis, and a Different Europe
Spring 2012. Merkel and Sarkozy rush from summit meeting to summit meeting, in order to save the euro. The yellow press smears the people of Greece. The struggle over a solution to the crisis is intensifying dramatically: by early 2013, an authoritarian-neoliberal alliance of business lobby groups, the financial industry, the EU Commission, the […]
Latin American Lessons for the European Crisis: Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz
Michael A. Lebowitz will deliver the Fourth Annual Lecture in Memory of Nicos Poulantzas (“Building Socialism of the 21st Century: The Logic of the State”) on Wednesday, 8 December 2010, 7 PM, at the auditorium of the Goethe Institute (Omirou St. 14-16) in Athens, Greece. Mr. Lebowitz, is Marxism still relevant today? I ask […]
Squeezing Iran: The European Connection
Negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program are due to start again shortly, and once again the European Union is called upon as a “mediator.” This is no minor challenge. With Iran insisting on discussing Israel’s nuclear capacity and the United States preparing a tougher uranium swap agreement, a deal seems as far away as ever. Nevertheless, […]
Beijing’s Europe
The European tour of Wen Jiabao is taking place while the conflict between the US and China over the yuan/dollar exchange rate is getting worse. At the same time, a similar if less noisy clash exists between China and the Eurozone countries. Last but not least, tensions have also arisen in the Sino-Japanese relations following […]
Sanctions and Iran’s Regional and “Eastern” Options
We noticed a small news item, reported from Tehran, which we think deserves more media attention and reflection in the West than it received. According to the story, Chinese Transport Minister Liu Zhijun is expected to visit Iran Sunday to sign a $2 billion contract to build a 360-mile-long railway linking key Iranian destinations that […]
Europe in Crisis
Part 1: The German Space of Accumulation The present state of affairs in the Eurozone and in the EU reflects the partition of the European Union into three groups. The first is a group of neomercantilist countries centred on Germany and formed by Holland, Belgium, Austria and Scandinavia. Their neomercantilism can be defined as a […]
United against Us, Divided among Themselves: Toronto and European Assault on Living Standards
Martin Wolf described it as “a bloodbath.” The Financial Times editorial called it a “chilling read.” Britain’s budget is one of austerity, the likes of which has not been seen in generations. A 25 per cent cut in public spending; a quarter of a million or more public sector jobs to be slashed. It […]
Europe Is Failing Its Muslims
Thank you. Thank you for the invitation, and, as we don’t have much time, let me go straight to some of the main points supporting this motion “Europe is failing its Muslims.” Let me start by saying that we are living in a difficult situation. If you listen to what is said in the European […]
The Left and Marxism in Eastern Europe
You now describe yourself as a Marxist, with plans for a Marxist theory group in Hungary in addition to your ongoing work as a writer and political commentator from the Left. Why Marx now? In Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, Marxist ideas and theories were hard-pressed to survive their connection to state socialism […]
Latvia Shows the Damage That Far-Right Economic Policy Can Do — with Support from the European Union and IMF
The signs of recession are more noticeable to those who live here — restaurants and coffee shops have lost most of their customers, and construction has practically ground to a halt. Emigration has soared. Latvia has set a world-historical record by losing more than 24 percent of its economy in just two years. The International […]
The Impact of the Crisis on Women in Central and Eastern Europe
1. Impact on Women in Different Social Groups Financial and economic crises and a rapid loss of existential security are nothing new for women and men in the former socialist bloc countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). These crises have been a permanent condition of everyday life for the majority of populations in […]
Queerness as Europeanness: Immigration, Orientialist Visions and Racialized Encounters in Israel/Palestine
Over the last 15 years more than a million people have immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union, welcomed by the Israeli ‘Law of Return’ that grants immediate citizenship and financial support to all Jews and their family members. My last research1focused on the queers among them, looking at the ways sexuality and nationhood […]
Immigration Past, Immigration Present: Confronting the Internal “Other” in Europe
Oliver Grant. Migration and Inequality in Germany. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. 416 pp. $190.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-927656-1. Leo Lucassen. The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. 296 pp. $25.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-252-07294-9. Elia Morandi. Italiener in Hamburg: Migration, Arbeit und […]
