dossier
August 1, 2011 -- Monthly Review Press has kindly given permission to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal to publish "The growth imperative of capitalism", an exclusive excerpt from Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster's just released What every environmentalist needs to know about capitalism. You can download the excerpt HERE (PDF), or read it on screen below.
John Bellamy Foster will be a featured international guest at the second World at a Crossroads: Climate Change – Social Change Conference, Friday, September 30 – Monday, October 3, 2011, Melbourne University.
Greece: 20 popular fallacies concerning the debt crisis
By the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Germany)
July 9, 2011 -- It’s that time again! Greece needs more loans and governments in Europe are arguing about whether it’s really necessary and who should foot the bill. There is widespread opinion in Germany that Greece itself is to blame for the problems it now finds itself in. It is claimed that first of all cheated its way into the eurozone, then the government spent too much and the governed worked too little, many believe.
Latently nationalistic interpretations of this kind have been nourished by German politicians and the media, who have no end of proposals for how to "solve" the crisis. For example, the Greeks should save more, work more and sell their public property – and if all of these measures do not help, then Greece will just have to leave the eurozone or declare itself bankrupt.
The stupid thing is, neither are the causes of the crisis that have been named are correct, nor will the proposed ways out of the crisis achieve their goal.
The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation has produced Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks! to explain the truth about the fallacies being spread about the causes of the Greek crisis, and who is responsible.
Pamphlet: Capitalism and workers’ struggle in China (revised edition)
[For more on China, click HERE.]
By Chris Slee
Preface to the revised edition (2011)
June 6, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- There are a number of changes in this edition compared to the first edition (Resistance Books 2010). Most of these changes merely expand on points made in the original, supplying more detail in the text and/or the footnotes. Others take account of new developments in the year since the first edition was published.
The biggest change is in the discussion of the Great Leap Forward, which has been significantly expanded and rewritten. I felt this was necessary for two reasons. First, I wanted to acknowledge that natural disasters as well as mistaken policies played a role in the reappearance of famine in 1959-61. Second, I wanted to explain in more detail what the policy errors were, and why I consider that Mao was largely responsible for them.
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Thailand: Lèse majesté, the monarchy and the military
Giles Ji Ungpakorn.
By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
Paper given to Pax et Bellum, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, University of Uppsala, Sweden
April 29, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- There is a common thread running through the political crisis in Thailand and the regional political crises that exploded earlier this year in the Middle East. In Thailand, Egypt, Tunisia and many other “developing nations”, societies had been rapidly urbanising and changing over the last 30-40 years. Yet the ruling elites and the power structures which dominatethese societies, have not changed. Different events triggered uprisings and struggles, but the underlying tensions remained the same. Another appalling common thread that links Thailand to the Middle East is the way in which ruling elites are prepared to use live ammunition against pro-democracy demonstrators in order to cling to power.
`Lenin and workers' control', by Didier Limon (1967)
May Day in St Petersburg, 1917.
By Didier Limon, translated, edited and introduced by Keith Rosenthal
December 22, 2010 -- This phenomenal, historical and analytical study by Didier Limon -- which first appeared in Autogestion: études, débats, documents, cahier no. 4, pp. 65-111 (Paris, December 1967) -- has, until now, not been translated into English. This is a shame on many levels for it stands nearly peerless in its meticulous treatment of the specific subject it takes up. That is, the debates and discussions surrounding the implementation of workers’ control of production within the first months after the October revolution of 1917 in Russia.
Australia: How Socialist Alternative misrepresents Socialist Alliance on Libya
February 22, 2011 -- Solidarity rally in Sydney with the
Libyan people in their struggle for democracy. Photo by Pip Hinman. See an article
about this action here: http://www.greenleft.org.a
[For more coverage of Libya, click HERE.]
By Nick Fredman
March 16, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Most interested observers of the public statements and activity of the Australian organisations Socialist Alternative (SAlt) and Socialist Alliance in regard to Libya would surely conclude that the two groups are in concord: a similar analysis of the pro-imperialist nature of the regime and enthusiastic support for the struggle of the workers and oppressed against dictatorship. Which makes it quite disappointing that Corey Oakley of SAlt has launched a swingeing polemic against Socialist Alliance about Libya[1]. [See Appendix 1 below]
January 26, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, with the kind permission of
