Deep contradictions of capitalism laid bare
On the 14th October 2008 The Times carried what for it must have been a very troubling lead editorial under the title, "Has Capitalism Failed?" PAUL SUTTON examines the financial crisis, the gathering general crisis of capitalism and the economic doctrine of neo-liberalism.
Exactly a week later on 21st October it followed it with a full-page photograph of Karl Marx on the lead page of its magazine section bearing the caption "He's back: does the financial crisis prove that Karl Marx was right all along?" The twin spectres of 'capitalism failing' and 'Marx resurrected' measure the shock that first the financial crisis and following it the gathering general crisis of capitalism have had on the ruling classes and their economic doctrine of neo-liberalism. Its speed, its generality and its depth pose for the first time in more than a generation in the advanced capitalist countries of the world the prospect for early progressive change and the opening of new lines of revolutionary struggle to end capitalism.
Workers of all countries Unite!
More than I60 years ago the Communist Manifesto was written. PAT TURNBULL outlines why that brilliant work by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels is still as relevant today.
1848 was a year of revolutions in Europe. The Communist League, an international association of workers meeting in November 1847 in London, commissioned Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to write the Manifesto. In the Communist Manifesto the two great classes of capitalism face each other: the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class) and the proletariat (the working class). Marx and Engels trace their history and describe their nature. First the capitalists: '...the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange'.
Gideon's Gaffe - the real error of George Osborne
What have a Russian oligarch (Oleg Deripaska), a British financier (Nathaniel Rothschild), the then European Union Trade Commissioner (Peter Mandelson) and the Tory Shadow Chancellor (George Osborne) got in common? QUESTOR looks into what went on when the four men met on the Greek island of Corfu.
Some may say that they holiday together in Corfu. Correct! But, why should they, is the real question? Was it about money for the Tory Party? Or, preferential trade tariffs for one of the oligarch's industries? It may have been all of those things. However, the main reason is that they all have one thing in common: a deep, personal and common interest in capitalism and its preservation. The issue began with a leak to the media that Mandelson had bad-mouthed Prime Minister Brown to a senior Tory while on holiday. It turned out the senior Tory was the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne. Then, retaliation in the form of a letter from Nathaniel Rothschild to The Times, indicating that Osborne had, with the main Tory fund-raiser present, been trying to solicit funds from the Russian oligarch for the Tory party.
Credit crunch delayed Brown's downfall
In the last issue of The Socialist Correspondent (No.3 Autumn 2008) I hinted strongly that Gordon Brown's tenure as leader of the Labour Party could be in jeopardy. JAMES THOMSON returns to the same theme and argues that the economic crisis has helped Mr Brown survive.
My prediction was made well before Labour's annual conference in Manchester at the end of September, and a couple of months before the Glenrothes by-election on 6 November. The Manchester conference was where and when Brown started turning things around and put his cabinet contenders and his opponents in the party on the defensive. Manchester was almost only about Brown dealing with his enemies in the party. In the party at large and especially among delegates at Manchester, the prevailing mood and desire was for all the plotting and in-fighting to end. For the sake of party unity and future party success, criticism of Brown at Manchester was frowned upon and suppressed. That's why David Miliband metamorphosed in a matter of days from being a leader-in-waiting to an incoherent novice.
Vince was a good and loyal comrade
I met him back in about 1975. I was secretary of the Communist Party's Hammersmith Borough Committee, and for some reason - selling the Morning Star, or collecting signatures for some campaign - I was out in North End Road.
GINA NICHOLSON pays a personal tribute to Jamaican-born communist, Vince Lawrence (1935-2008).
A very tall black man approached me, his hair long and Afro, spreading out round his head like a dark halo. I could understand perhaps one word in five, his Jamaican accent the stronger the more upset he became. Eventually I gathered that he was a local communist who had been refused a new card by the branch secretary for bad reasons. I remembered his name, Vince Lawrence, and remarked that the secretary had said he was a Maoist. This he vehemently denied. "I, a Maoist? Ask anyone!" 'Anyone' had acquired an aspirate. On inquiry, the secretary enlarged a little on her opinion of him, without withdrawing the Maoist label. She said he wasn't very nice to his wife. I said I didn't think, even if it were true, that was a reason for refusing to recard someone.
Global finance and the 'New Cold War'
The defeat of the US-sponsored Georgian invasion of South Ossetia at the hands of the Russian Army signals the end of the post-Cold War era: an era in which national sovereignty and international law were violated with greater frequency than at any time since World War Two. URI COHEN studies the connections between global finance and what he says is the 'New Cold War'. First published by www.21stcenturysocialism.com
Since the defeat of communism, de-regulated corporate capitalism and the financial markets have triumphed over organised labour and lorded over most governments. This has been the era of United States imperial supremacy. In Iraq and Afghanistan, one could no longer distinguish between the US army of occupation and the mercenary armies of the 'security industry'; allied to the more traditional transnational capitalist enterprises in Oil and Gas, Finance, and 'Reconstruction'. Under overall US command, the Western world morphed into a rolling privatisation, corporate plunder and military intervention machine. However, since the opening of the 21st Century, the US Empire has had to face two worrying challenges: the gradual re-emergence of multi-polarity in state power relations, mainly with rising China and resurgent Russia; secondly, the eruption of class war and social revolution in Latin America.
Speculation, inflation, contagion: the connection
An economy is a system. So it should be obvious that one thing leads to another. But all too often the straightforward explanations are overlooked. To be sure, there is no lack of opinions regarding the current crisis. They range from lax lending by the banks and mortgage lenders to government mismanagement. GREG KASER argues that financial speculation is the common factor and proposes 'Tobin Taxes' to limit this speculation.
Our difficulty lies in sifting the plausible theories from the inadequate or downright misleading ones. We need an explanation that is comprehensive and consistent. In a nutshell, the acceleration of inflation in food and fuel prices, coming soon after a long trend of rising house prices and a stock market boom, have a common origin in the activities of financial speculators. More than a year after the start of the 'credit crunch' crisis, BBC Radio 4 interviewed former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. In an aside, Dr. Summers pointed out that over the last twenty years, the world had experienced a major financial crisis every two years or so. He mused that this looked like a structural problem within capitalism rather than being a coincidence.
South Africa: another turning point?
In 1994 the first democratic election in South Africa's history led to the ending of apartheid and marked a historic turning point. ALEX DAVIDSON asks, "Are we at another turning point in South Africa's history?"
The African National Congress Conference at Polokwane in December 2007 elected Jacob Zuma as its President defeating the incumbent, Thabo Mbeki. The other 5 officers were all elected from the "Zuma" slate and virtually all of those associated with the Mbeki government failed to get elected to the National Executive Committee with some notable exceptions. This reflected a growing discontent with the Mbeki government and leadership.
The Philippines and the prospects for left unity
A review of the history of the left in the Philippines by the late WILLIAM J POMEROY. First published in the Socialist History Society Newsletter, April 2008. Prior to his death in January 2009, aged 92, Bill agreed to his article being reprinted in The Socialist Correspondent.
In 1938 the leaders of the Left parties in the Philippines met and agreed a merger of two parties, the Partido Kommunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) and the Socialist Party. The PKP had been formed in 1930 out of the trade unions and peasants' movements. The Socialist Party had been founded by Pedro Abad Santos, who came from a big landlord family but had developed sympathy with socialism. He built around himself a militant organisation of young people which became the terror of the landlords.
Woody's words ring out at Obama inauguration
Two days before the main event, half a million people, including Barack Obama, stood in the cold at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday 18 January 2009 to attend a concert to celebrate the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America. At the end of that concert, Bruce Springsteen and 89 year old Pete Seeger sang Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land, the way that Woody wrote it back in the 1940s as a rejoinder to the jingoistic 'God Bless America.' Pete, who met Woody at a migrant workers' benefit concert in March 1940, had the crowd sing the song as it was actually written, as not only a celebration of America, but as a demand for workers' and people's rights. "You sing it with us. We’ll give you the words," said Pete. That is, he restored the verses that have been censored from the song over the years to make it less political. These included lines that refer to "the relief office"; "private property"; "stood there hungry;" and "freedom highway2."
