September 2010
4 posts
The Alternative to Austerity →
An interesting piece by Tim Bending on the New Left Project, about an alternative to austerity plans.
It’s based around the idea of using the tax system to provide a fiscal stimulus, redistributing money from the rich (who save more) to the poor (who spend more).
That’s selling it a bit short, as there’s plenty more in there and it’s all worth reading. Nothing like a bit of economics in the...
A Union of Capital →
Good piece on the New Left Project.
Should the left advocate withdrawal from the EU? Is there no room for a truly leftist form of European federalism?
To be honest I find the question of the UK withdrawing from the EU a bit tiresome. It isn’t going to happen, and advocating it simply takes the political conversation in the wrong direction. I’d like to see it happen, certainly, though...
“Democracy or NeoLiberalism?” →
Atilio Boron, writing in the mid-1990s:
Though it may seem paradoxical, slave-owning Brazil and colonial Mexico were far more socially integrated than their late twentieth century capitalist successors. In those pre-capitalist systems, class exploitation demanded forms of sociability, structural integration, and inter-class relationships that are largely absent in contemporary Brazil or...
Future echoes: the seeds of globalisation’s... →
Great essay by David Wearing. Excerpt below, but please read the whole thing.
[T]he thematic threads we can trace from the history of British imperialism right up to the present day represent fundamental aspects of empire that we would prefer to believe had by now been consigned to history. Large disparities in power and wealth, the ability of a relatively narrow elite to control the major...