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Subjects Archives: Movements

Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

Making everyone happy

After four and a half months of haggling and recrimination and, four days past the deadline, an all-night session, the three parties had finally settled on a coalition government program—179 pages long.

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If we talk about hurting 'our' planet, who exactly is the 'we'? | Aeon Essays

The African Anthropocene

Every year, human activity moves more sediment and rock than all natural processes combined, including erosion and rivers. This might not shock you. In fact, you’ve probably seen similar soundbites circulating online, signals of the sheer scale of how we’re terraforming the planet in the era of the Anthropocene. Natural and social scientists argue passionately […]

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Economic troubles

Signs of economic trouble ahead

The current expansion has gone on for 102 months. Only the expansions from March 1991 to March 2001 (120 months) and from February 1961 to December 1969 (106 months) are longer. Unfortunately, growth during this expansion has been slow and the gains have largely gone to a very few. And there are signs of economic […]

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Let them eat crack (photo credit: Bansky)

Utopia and populism

My view is that liberal critics of populism, standing on their heads, get it wrong. If made to stand on their feet, they’d have to admit that populism actually represents the failure of liberal democracy.

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Caracas Distrito Federal Venezuela

A socialist development strategy for the 21st century (Part 1)

1. Introduction Capitalist development is based upon labour exploitation and environmental destruction. Through sexism and racism it has established second class citizens who are doubly-exploited. Democracy under capitalism is of the ‘low-intensity’ variety—where decision over economic resource generation and use are off-limits to the majority of the population, and where political systems facilitate the (mis)representation […]

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MLK Poor Peoples Campaign Poster 1968

Martin Luther King’s radical anticapitalism

In a posthumously published essay, Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out that the “black revolution” had gone beyond the “rights of Negroes.” The struggle, he said, is “forcing America to face all of its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. It is exposing the evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our […]

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Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

GROKO or NO GROKO?

It happened in Bonn last Sunday, on January 21st. There were close to 650 delegates, the gallery in the congress hall was also packed with observers. The suspense was almost visible, also among the demonstrators outside. All over Germany millions were watching closely to see if the future path of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), […]

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Utopia and the right to be lazy

Utopia and the right to be lazy

Students are much too busy to think these days. So, when a junior comes to talk with me about the possibility of my directing their senior thesis, I ask them about their topic—and then their schedule. I explain to them that, if they really want to do a good project, they’re going to have to […]

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Demonstrators in Zurich this week. While many are poised to recoil at President Trump’s arrival in Davos this week, much of the moneyed elite there are willing to overlook what they portray as the president’s rhetorical foibles in favor of the additional wealth he has delivered to their coffers. (Ennio Leanza/European Pressphoto Agency)

Dutiful dirges of Davos

Thousands of people will gather next week in Davos. Their combined wealth will reach several hundred billion dollars, perhaps even close to a trillion. Never in world history will be the amount of wealth per square foot so high. And this year, for the sixth or seventh consecutive time, what would be one of the […]

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