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African migration and the looting of Africa
There is a view that Africans are somehow “invading” Europe, even worse “swarming” into Europe. Anti-immigration rhetoric speaks of building fences and creating a Fortress Europe. It is as if there is a war, and Europeans must protect themselves against invaders. A year ago, the UN’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng…
Indonesia: from anti-Imperialism to imperialism
In August, East Timor (Timor Leste) celebrated 20 years independence from Indonesia. The 1974 left-wing coup in Portugal led to the dismantling of its colonies including what was then called Portuguese Timor. Indonesian forces commenced covert attacks, then invaded in 1975. An estimated 100,000 conflict-related deaths through the entire period 1974 to 1999, including 18,600…
Capitalism’s holy grail
Here’s an easy question – what’s your view of censorship? If you’re a socialist and a democrat, you’re probably against it. After all, you argue, the only really effective way to combat bad ideas is to bring them out in the open and put them up against good ideas, and you can’t do that if…
Dobbiamo davvero mettere Marx in soffitta?
Il nostro movimento è per il socialismo rivoluzionario, marxista. Ma se venisse meno la fondatezza della critica economica di Marx al principio di funzionamento del capitalismo, verrebbe forse meno la fondatezza delle ragioni della nostra lotta? No, per almeno tre motivi. 1. La teoria del valore-lavoro non è completamente stravolta, ha ancora una funzione per la lotta…
Africa: Can it help feed us all?
Africa’s Potential Bread Basket ‘It is people who make the world: the bush has wounds and scars.’ – a Malawian proverb Global food security is one of the most serious concerns of our time. The global food system is at the root of many environmental and health crises. Humans have made the African savanna their…
El Socialismo nunca ha sido probado
En nuestra egoísta sociedad actual, cualquier conversación sobre una sociedad basada en la solidaridad encontrará poco más que un gesto desdeñoso. “No me digas -¡otra colecta más para unos pobres diablos! Ya estoy harto de estas colectas, ya no creo en ellas”. Por tanto, cuando los socialistas tratan de explicar que una sociedad basada en…
Syriza: Greek capitalism’s repair crew
In January 2015 there was dancing in the streets of Athens as a left-wing anti-austerity party, Syriza, a ‘coalition of the radical left’, made up of various left and Green groups, Eurocommunists and some Trotskyists, had just won the Greek elections. There was rejoicing too amongst like-minded people outside Greece. The fightback against austerity was…
Coffee: the disaster of a good harvest
Two bumper harvests in Brazil have flooded the international market with so much coffee that the price farmers can get has plummeted to below $1 a pound (BBC News, 11 July). Since coffee is a cash crop that farmers sell instead of growing food they could actually eat, when the price hits the floor farmers…
Big Pharma
This is your capitalist brain on drugs Drug firm Pfizer has discovered that its own arthritis treatment drug Enbrel also seems to cut the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by up to 64 percent (New Scientist, 15 June, p7). Great, you might think. Over to Pfizer to start cranking out Enbrel by the container load. Oh…
Huawei: is it really just cybersecurity?
Competition for markets, sources of raw materials and the control of strategic routes is the lifeblood of capitalism. This competition inevitably translates into rivalry between nation states, which serve the capitalist interests within their borders. Trade wars ensue with all the skulduggery that governments can muster and can lead to bloody conflict. We have seen…