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Super Marx!
SocialismFew people in history have had the kind of global impact that Karl Marx has had and continues to have. 200 years after his birth, Marx’ intriguing critiques of capitalism continue to influence economic and political philosophies around the world, with a renewed popularity and zest in the United States. In The Contributions of Karl Marx, Richard D. Wolff dives into how Marx’ life and theories have influenced political and social movements over the past two centuries.
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The Real War for Syria is Taking Place in Its Skies
War ZonesThe hidden battle in Syria – the one that rarely appears on our television screens – has been raging for years between Israel and a coalition comprising the Syrian government, Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Watching over the proceedings without directly intervening has been Russia, although that might be about to change. The prize is control over Syrian territory but the battlefield is Syria’s skies.
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Israel: Arms embargo needed as military unlawfully kills and maims Gaza protesters
Human RightsIsrael is carrying out a murderous assault against protesting Palestinians, with its armed forces killing and maiming demonstrators who pose no imminent threat to them, Amnesty International revealed today, based on its latest research, as the “Great March of Return” protests continued in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has killed 35 Palestinians and injured more than 5,500 others – some with what appear to be deliberately inflicted life-changing injuries.
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May Day: Workers’ Struggles, International Solidarity, Political Aspirations
SocialismMay Day symbolizes common struggles of workers around the globe. Why is it largely ignored in North America? The answer lies in part in American labour’s long repression of its own radical past, out of which international May Day was actually born a century ago. It is more important than ever that the North American labour movement reconnect with this history and forge linkages with the international labour movement in the remaking of a socialism for our times.
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Professional Sport as Sacrifice
CultureAthletic labour provides an important part, although not the only part, of the emotional sustenance fans need. There is a tremendous cost to the athlete who performs this social reproductive labour. The body becomes so damaged that it is unlikely to ever fully recover its former capacities. The toll is also mental/emotional, for the loss of the physical capabilities that once served as the foundation for the athlete’s identity is profoundly dispiriting.
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From May 1968 to May 2018: Politics and Student Strikes
Social MovementsLike the nostalgia for the Cold War, the media is going back to what took place in the United States at a time when prestigious universities like Columbia and the University of California at Berkeley were shut down. Strikes by various unions accompanied and accompany the strikes in France so that, on the surface, comparisons between the late 1960s in the U.S. and 2018 in France seem to have some validity.
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Revolution in a Warming World: Lessons from the Russian to the Syrian Revolutions
SocialismCan the climate movement grow by several orders of magnitude, gather progressive forces around it and develop some viable strategy for projecting its aims through the state – all within a relevant time frame in this rapidly warming world? It is a tall order, to say the least. But in the words of Daniel Bensaïd, perhaps the most brilliant theorist of revolutionary strategy in the late twentieth century, ‘any doubt bears on the possibility of succeeding, not on the necessity of trying.’
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Europe’s biggest bank retreats from the oilsands
Economic CrisisEurope’s largest bank has joined the list of global investors retreating from new financial commitments in the fossil fuel industry, including investments in oil-rich Alberta. HSBC, whose global assets total more than $2 trillion, announced Friday that as the climate change crisis deepens, it will no longer finance new coal-fired power plants (with a few targeted exceptions), Arctic drilling or new oilsands projects, including pipelines.
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Syria is the dam against more bloody chaos
Middle EastWe know the consequences of this policy: massive sectarian bloodspilling, huge internal population displacement and the creation of waves of refugees who head towards the relative stability of Europe, the seizure and dispersal of military arsenals that spur yet more fighting, and the inspiration of more militant and reactionary ideologies like that of ISIS. If Syria falls, it will not become Switzerland. And if it falls, it will not be the end of the “war on terror”.
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The Mirage of Pension-Fund Activism
Despite the title’s grandiose claims, the book’s argument at times retreats to the far more modest position that large pension funds are an established fact, so we need to engage with them. It’s true that unions must and will continue to defend the pensions they have won. All workers deserve good pensions, but to win these, workers’ power will have to be built to take on the existing system of inequality and insecurity.
