capitalism
John Bellamy Foster on the global financial crisis
‘Nobody knows where the toxic debt is buried and how much there is’
John Bellamy Foster is editor of the Monthly Review, a prominent political journal established by the Marxist economist Paul Sweezy in the 1940s.
Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, USA. He has written widely on political economy and has established a reputation as an environmental socialist.
He has proven that Karl Marx was a radical ecologist in his book, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature.
Foster is interviewed by Peter Boyle for Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal and Green Left Weekly. It was conducted during the Climate Change Social Change conference in Sydney, April 11-13, 2008.
The written version of the interview is available at Green Left Weekly.
The labour aristocracy and opportunism in the history of Australian working-class politics
By Jonathan Strauss
The theory of the labour aristocracy argues that opportunism in the working class has a material basis. Such class-collaborationist politics express the interests of a relatively privileged stratum of workers who receive benefits supported by monopoly superprofits. Karl Marx and, especially, Frederick Engels, first developed this theory. It is most closely associated with V.I. Lenin, however, for whom it became “the pivot of the tactics in the labour movement that are dictated by the objective conditions of the imperialist era”.[1]
The prospects for socialism (or barbarism)
Not long before the European elections, in which the social democratic vote collapsed, two of the most authoritative social democratic leaders, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder, published a letter in which they formulated the principles of the so-called "new centre" (neue Mitte). These principles could be summed up as arguing that the traditional ideas of social democracy (redistribution, a mixed economy and state regulation in the spirit of Keynes) needed to be replaced by new approaches in the spirit of neo-liberalism.
True, the authors of the letter took their distance from neo-liberalism itself, stating that they did not share its illusions that all problems could be solved through market methods. At the same time, they proposed to solve the problems of world trade by liberalising it further. Instead of solidarity, they called for increased competition, and instead of job creation, for preparing young people better for life under the conditions of a constantly changing market conjuncture.
US labour and the new movement against capitalist globalisation
By Barry Sheppard
By Boris Kagarlitsky
Back to good old Marx in the brave new world of globalisation
By Dipankar Bhattacharya
'Political capitalism' and corruption in Russia
By Boris Kagarlitsky
Principles, strategies and tactics of decommodification in South Africa
By Patrick Bond
Patrick Bond is the author of two recent books: Unsustainable South Africa: Environment, Development and Social Protest and Fanon's Warning: A Civil Society Reader on the New Partnership for Africa's Development. Both are available from Africa World Press (http://www.africanworld.com). His 2001 book Against Global Apartheid: South Africa meets the World Bank, IMF and International Finance, will be republished by Zed Press this year, as will a new edition of Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa from Pluto Press.
Industrial restructuring and the working class in India
By S. Kumarswamy
S. Kumarswamy is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and working president of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions.
Contents
The new mindset and the high sales pitch
Excerpts: manifesto of All India Agricultural Labour Association
Indian work force: an overview