The biggest financial crisis for 79 years, followed by the most expensive nationalisation of all time; a combination of recession and inflation with completely unpredictable effects; a new explosive flashpoint of international tension, this time on the Black Sea midway… Continue Reading
The following statement was issued by the Coordination of the International Socialist Tendency on 13 October 2008. The extraordinary waves of panic that have swept through global financial markets in the past few weeks have filled ordinary working people around… Continue Reading
For the past two or more years, especially since the September 2006 coup, Thai society has been hypnotised into forgetting about the real social and political issues. Instead, the whole of society and, most tragically, the social movements have been… Continue Reading
At some point, quite early on in our revolutionary “careers”, Jewish students of the 1968 generation had to confront On the Jewish Question written by the young Karl Marx in 1843. This was an awesome moment—almost a political virility test.… Continue Reading
A review of Esther Leslie, Walter Benjamin (Reaktion, 2007), £10.95 There has been a growing fascination on the left for the often cryptic work of Walter Benjamin ever since he was first widely published in the 1960s. In 1968 Berlin… Continue Reading
One striking feature of Zimbabwe’s crisis has been the vocal support of the British and US governments for “democratic change”. In April, George Bush’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, undertook a whirlwind “democracy tour” to support… Continue Reading
The riots and protests in Tibet earlier this year were the most significant since China’s takeover in the 1950s. Together with the protests that have accompanied the Olympic torch relay around the world, they have shown that Tibetan nationalism remains… Continue Reading
About 20 years ago I spoke on “Marxism and religion” at the Socialist Workers Party Easter Rally in Skegness. I began, roughly, with the words, “Today, in Britain, religion—fortunately—is not a major political issue.” Unfortunately, this is no longer the… Continue Reading
The ancestor of modern cheap food policies, the repeal of the Corn Laws in Britain in 1846, was spurred by growing unrest within the swelling cities of an industrialising economy. In 1848 that unrest burst out into a series of… Continue Reading
In broad terms the story is easily told. Labour’s Ken Livingstone was defeated as Mayor of London by Conservative Boris Johnson because the Labour Party is on the slide and the right in British politics has got its act together.… Continue Reading