Subjects Archives: Inequality

A recent report by the International Labour Organisation shows that the total global labour force is now measured at 3.5 billion workers. This is the largest size of the global labour force in recorded history. Talk of the demise of workers is utterly premature when confronted with the weight of this data.

In a scandal that threatens to lose Justin Trudeau the next election, several pictures of Canadian prime minister doing blackface have emerged. Margaret Kimberley of Black Agenda Report explains why the recent scandal highlights the trouble with the idea that Canada is somehow a more benign version of the U.S.

In recent years, the reactionary, authoritarian and/or fascist extreme right wing has been in the ascendant all over the world: it already governs half of the world’s countries. Among the best-known examples are: Trump (United States), Modi (India), Orbán (Hungary), Erdoğan (Turkey), Daesh (Islamic State), Salvini (Italy), Duterte (Philippines), and now Bolsonaro (Brazil).

Russian oil giant Rosneft blasted threats of U.S. sanctions as “unfair competition.”

It is very common for leftist commentators to use the term ‘neoliberalism’ in their analysis of a political situation or social struggle. The term is frequently used in socialist political economy, cultural studies, and even mainstream liberal newspapers.

A Review of Ancient Irrigation Systems of the Aral Sea Area: The History, Origin, and Development of Irrigated Agriculture by Boris V. Andrianov, and Soviet Archaeology: Schools, Trends, and History by Leo S. Klejn

During the debate about the global poverty numbers that unfolded earlier this year, the Bloomberg opinion columnist Noah Smith wrote a piece discussing some of my claims. In the months since a number of people have asked me to respond.

The latest statistics released by the UN show that some 23,000 young Blacks die violently every year in Brazil, equivalent to one every 23 minutes.

Extractivist governments are stoking destruction in the Amazon and beyond. International alliances and Indigenous technologies can help protect the biome and support its 30 million inhabitants.

Elizabeth Warren is seen as a counter Bernie Sanders, but she will melt (like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris) if she stops raising Democrats’ expectations to bust corporate power.

In an audio recording obtained by The Intercept, the group concedes that it has been playing a role behind the scenes in crafting laws recently passed in states across the country to criminalize oil and gas pipeline protests, in response to protests over the Dakota Access pipeline.

If we have little interest in the scholasticism and the baroque arcana of contemporary marxist theoretical debates, the wealth of marxist theory can be neither dismissed nor ignored. And debates around marxist inspired feminism are a case in point.

The main conflict here – since the 1940s – has been between India and Pakistan. Disagreements are deeply rooted in the political culture of each country. The rise of the far right in India has only inflamed the conflict further.

The multifaceted crisis we face today is significantly different from the crisis activists faced in the first years of the Great Depression. But there is no question that, much like then, we will need to build a powerful, mass-movement for change if we hope to harness state power to advance a Green New Deal.

Before the Berlin Wall was torn down we all made sarcastic jokes about its official designation by East German (GDR) party leaders as “anti-fascist protective barrier”. But hearing racist ranting by AfD leaders now hoping for victories and seeing gangs of marching thugs with barely–paraphrased Nazi slogans we must wonder if perhaps that scorned terminology also contained just a bit of truth.

The partisan condemnation of white supremacy that has taken shape during the Trump era has reduced anti-racist critique to political theater.

The ship was seized in the Panama canal according to the Venezuela government.

It is often claimed that disabled persons are invisible, disregarded by mainstream society, and irrelevant to the workings of society.

U.S. police agencies, including the FBI, are incapable of mounting an effective offensive against their soul mates in the armed white right.

The latest report about kidnappings, rendition, ‘black sites’ and torture is a remarkable piece of investigative work. It provides us with nothing less than a litany of shocking evidence and testimony and at 403 pages it makes for truly grim reading. This article is made up of a very brief set of extracts from the just-released  CIA Torture Unredacted report.