Total Shutdown in South Africa; Euro Left and Migration; Activism Under Duterte; Argentina vs IMF; Reproductive Rights Victories; Young Activists Go Electoral
(Interview with David Edgar)
London Review of Books
Tariq Ali, a key figure in the British New Left of the 1960s and a well-regarded Marxist writer and activist, offers an extended take on the politics and culture of the1968 anticapitalist movements and their echoes in today’s resistance worldwide.
Reader Comments: Nation Demands Gun Control - Parkland Student Manifesto; Youth of Color Demand to be Heard; 2018 Elections; Bolton and War Preparations; Vietnam War; Puerto Rico; Unions: What Now; Europe-Lessons from Center-Left Collapse; May Day in Chicago; Announcements; and more...
Voters can't tell the difference between the center left and the center right, and they don't want either. As the center-left accommodated itself to capital, it eroded its trade union base. Where center-left parties embraced unabashedly progressive policies, on the other hand, voters supported them
Movements from below challenging the status quo are nothing new, reflecting eons of class conflict and class formation. The book under review traces the common threads of resistance through the Middle Ages in Europe and into the modern age.
Only a handful of European states are currently governed by left-wing governments, and several of the traditionally largest left-wing parties, such as the Socialist Party in France, have experienced substantial drops in support. Jan Rovny argues that while many commentators have linked the left’s decline to the late-2000s financial crisis, the weakening of Europe’s left reflects deep structural and technological changes that have reshaped European society, leaving left-wing parties out in the cold.
The impasse in forming a government in Germany has dragged on since election day, September 24th – often like a traffic gridlock, hardly moving forward. But Germany is Europe’s main central power – and with no proper government! Angela Merkel still acts as boss, the old ruling cabinet holds on as caretakers, but it’s all on borrowed time, with no legitimacy.
Retail work does not have to pay poverty wages. New study compares work in Europe and the U.S. For all the power of market forces, from automation taking over routine tasks to globalization squeezing retailers’ margins, there is nothing inevitable about low-quality retail jobs. Social norms and political institutions can make them better, or worse.
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