Portside

We need to own up to is that privatization experiments, based on ideology rather than evidence, have created disruption, neglect, and harm to vital public services and infrastructure - and those effects have undermined the private sector which depends on high quality public services. We seem to have forgotten that the public sector has long created the environment and resources necessary for businesses to prosper.

Democrats like moderate Keynesianism. Republicans favour free markets unfettered. The crisis-ridden system is never challenged

The principles of democratic self-determination are hamstrung by the powerful Troika—the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission (the EU’s legislative and operational council)—which a disempowered citizenry increasingly views as an automaton that squelches democracy as it protects the interests of the power elite.

Reader Comments: Citizens United; Zimmerman Trial; Egypt; Plane Wreck at Los Gatos("Deportee"); Elizabeth Warren; Capitalism & Austerity; Voting Rights Act; American Left; Progressive Patriotism & July 4th Songs; Fracking and Greens; Announcements - Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions - New York - Jul 24 - Jewish Voice for Peace; Left Labor Project - New York - Aug 1; Call for articles on building international labor solidarity - Working USA; Paid Internship Opportunity

As long as workers could wrest gains from capitalism, the system was safe. But with production offshored, that bargain blew up.

Anyone who expects a huge uptick in investment to provide a major boost to demand is either smoking something serious or simply has never looked at the data. It hasn't happen in the last 65 years and it's not about to happen now.

Gar Alperovitz and Staughton Lynd have blueprints for an `America beyond capitalism.' Both imagine a new America that would evolve through painstaking process in which the virtues of democratic socialism would be prefigured. They offer a component of the answer to what a new New Left must do. Democracy and egalitarianism animates both visions, but neither fully imagines how the Left might gain and use state power or how to change the national or global economic rules.

Last month, thousands of people protested in Rome against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging the new government to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country out of recession. The sea of protesters waving red flags and calling for more workers' rights and better contracts. Italy is in a recession and unemployment has skyrocketed with youth unemployment at around 38 percent. "We can't wait anymore" and "We need money to live" were among slogans.

Reader Comments: NY Labor-Religion Coalition - support to people of Boston; Maduro victory - reader writes from Latin America; Capitalism; Grim jobs picture & horrible "grand bargain;" Stumble stones in Germany; Socialism; E. O. Wilson; more Announcements - 'The Bolivarian Revolution After Chávez' 4/17 & Poesîa en Abril 4/18 - Chicago; Wither the Socialist Left? - NYC - Apr 25; Today in History - Apr 15-17, 1960, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founded

Reebok drops rapper after date-rape lyrics; Justin Bieber thinks Anne Frank would have been a fan; Trayvon Martin targets used for shooting practice; Mattel won’t make Black Barbie party supplies; Robot warriors coming soon; Indians leave the rez for unhappy city life; Americans still love libraries; Asians shouldn’t start to eat like Americans; The Nordic countries are reinventing their model of capitalism: Discuss!