-
Resistance in Egypt
On the seventh of December 2006, 3,000 female garment workers went on strike in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla, which is home to 27,000 workers working in a textile mill, shoulder to shoulder. It’s the biggest textile mill in the region. These women workers went on strike and started marching in the factory compound, […]
-
Geopolitical Chess: Background to a Mini-war in the Caucasus
The world has been witness this month to a mini-war in the Caucasus, and the rhetoric has been passionate, if largely irrelevant. Geopolitics is a gigantic series of two-player chess games, in which the players seek positional advantage. In these games, it is crucial to know the current rules that govern the moves. Knights are […]
-
The Bottom of the Barrel: A Review of Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done about It
Summary Paul Collier, in an attempt to bring development economics to a wider audience, has written a book that departs from what he calls the “grim apparatus of professional scholarship.” The result is a book that is almost entirely unverifiable. What is verifiable turns out to be an elaborate fiction. Collier’s thesis is based upon […]
-
Mass Expulsion in Pakistan:In the Shadow of the Caucasus Crisis
Russia’s response to the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia has been the central theme of the media for a week, and it’s scarcely noticed that the human tragedy in northwest Pakistan will probably be of no less great political significance. On Friday, the ninth day of a punitive military expedition against Bajaur Agency in the […]
-
Crisis of Social Partnership: Collapse of National Pay Talks in Ireland
The 21 year old social partnership pact between unions, employers and the Government in Ireland is entering one of its periodic crises as one national pay agreement Towards 2016 begins to run out and talks on a successor have collapsed. The Government is expected to attempt resuscitation in late August or early September, writes Padraig […]
-
An Antisocial Social Democrat
A former top leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has been saved from expulsion and possible disgrace, and Germany’s oldest party, founded in 1863, has huffed and puffed its way out of one more pothole. Wolfgang Clement, 68, once the powerful economics minister in the cabinet of Gerhard Schroeder, now on the board of […]
-
Russo-French Peace Plan, Georgian Demand of NATO “Assistance”
MOSCOW (AFP) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev, who ordered the end of operations against Georgia, presented on Tuesday a plan to resolve the Russian-Georgian conflict. Tbilisi for its part demanded NATO “military assistance.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov immediately warned that Russia will be forced to take further “measures” […]
-
International Capital Dominates Brazilian Agriculture
The Movement of Financial Capital In recent years, there has been an intensive, continuous process of concentration and centralization of corporations operating and controlling the entire production process of global agriculture. Concentration is the concept used in political economy to explain the movement of large corporations to combine, accumulate, and become large groups. Thus, […]
-
Cannon Fodder for the Market
Perhaps some governments are unaware of the concrete facts, and so for that reason Raúl’s message setting Cuba’s position seemed to us to be very timely. I shall be generous in the aspects that cannot be dealt with in a brief and precise official statement. The government of Georgia would never have launched its armed […]
-
Huge Stakes behind War in Caucasus
“Georgia is a sovereign nation and its territorial integrity must be respected.” Had George Bush said what he said about Georgia from Beijing about Serbia as well, this is how he would have approached the so-called independence of Kosovo. The truth, of course, is far from this. The US was the first country to recognize […]
-
Jewish International Opposition Statement against Attack on Iran
Efforts to beat the drums of war for an attack on Iran’s nuclear reactor facilities are promoted in both the USA and Israel scenes. The recent New York Times opinion piece of July 18th, written by the Israeli historian Benny Morris, serves to consolidate those political forces. The Jewish opposition here expresses our outrage in […]
-
From Black Power to Ethnic Politics: Class Contradictions of Black Nationalism
Cedric Johnson. Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Cedric Johnson‘s Revolutionaries to Race Leaders traces the ideological cooptation of one of the twentieth century’s most vibrant social movements. The Black Nationalist resurgence of the 1960s and 1970s demanded nothing short of self-determination, […]
-
The Turkish Crisis, the Generals, and the Left
For the last several months Turkey has been immersed in a major political crisis as various sections of the Turkish ruling classes openly feud. It has pitted the ruling, Islamic-influenced AKP government against sections of the Turkish military, political, and judicial elites. It is also dispute over the direction of Turkish economic restructuring as well […]
-
Toward a Nuclear Weapon-free World: Nuclear Weapon States’ Responsibility and Japan’s Role
Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I want to thank also our friends in Hokkaido for the excellent preparation for this symposium. When we heard the news of the G8 Summit taking place in Toyako, we thought that we should urge the government of Japan, as the only country that has been bombed […]
-
Making Excuses for Empire: A Reply to the Self-Appointed Defenders of the AEI
As much as we enjoy puns in titles, Stephen Zunes’ recent defense of Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) in the article “Sharp Attack Unwarranted,” doesn’t have much else going for it. Zunes spends most of his time diverting attention from the real issues: the AEI’s role in imperial projects, a role which is politically […]
-
Truth and Consequences under the Israeli Occupation
I am a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. At the age of 17, I armed myself with a camera and a pen, committed to report accurately on events in Gaza. I have filed reports as Israeli fighter jets bombed Gaza City. I have interviewed mothers as they watched their children die in hospitals unequipped to serve […]
-
Dual Crisis
“When we talk about a financial crisis, it’s really only a symptom. . . . Financial adventurism is essentially what we have been witnessing for the last thirty or forty years, exploding from time to time in the form of financial crisis. It’s really adventurist, speculative capital which has to find in some way […]
-
New Books by Marta Harnecker and Michael A. Lebowitz for Debate on Socialism
3 August 2008 — The Fundación Centro Internacional Miranda (CIM), in contribution to the necessary debate on how to build the kind of socialism we want, announces the publication of two important contributions to this debate: El camino al desarrollo humano: ¿capitalismo o socialismo? (The Road to Human Development: Capitalism or Socialism?) by Michael A. […]
-
The Distribution of Bolivia’s Most Important Natural Resources and the Autonomy Conflicts
Over the last year, there has been an escalation in the political battles between the government of President Evo Morales and a conservative opposition, based primarily in the prefectures, or provinces. The opposition groups have rallied around various issues but have recently begun to focus on “autonomy.” Some of the details of this autonomy […]
-
If Socialism Fails: The Spectre of 21st Century Barbarism
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 […]