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Fra International Socialism Journal nr. 122

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Contents (ISJ 122, Spring 2009)

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Contributors (ISJ 122, Spring 2009)

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Analysis: Desperate debates over desperate measures

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The United States is witnessing the “worst downturn in post-war history”; German engineering’s foreign orders are down 50 percent on a year ago, Japanese Industrial production down 30.8 percent; world trade has fallen 31 percent; 20 million Chinese workers have returned unemployed to their villages;3 392 million Africans living on less than $1 a day face a 20 percent cut in living standards. The global economy “has fallen off the cliff”, laments Warren Buffet, reputed to be the richest man in the US.

Panos Garganas: Interview: Greece after the explosion

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Panos Garganas, editor of the Greek newspaper Workers Solidarity, spoke to International Socialism about the latest developments in a country that has witnessed the emergence of powerful movements from below.

Kieran Allen: Ireland: the sick tiger

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Ireland, once hailed as the success story of neoliberalism, is undergoing a traumatic economic crash. In its wake a political earthquake is brewing that could shape its politics for decades to come.

Megan Trudell: Italy one year on

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The year since Silvio Berlusconi’s election victory over the Democratic Party (PD) in Italy has been one in which the right wing agenda of the ruling coalition has been made brutally clear. In the midst of severe economic crisis—officially Italy’s fourth recession in a decade—Berlusconi’s government has launched a series of assaults on workers, immigrants and students, has allowed the Vatican to dictate policy1 and has abandoned parliamentary democracy by pushing through a series of “emergency” decrees.

Charlie Kimber: In the balance: the class struggle in Britain

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“We found out on TV in late November that we were going to close. We just carried on as normal, and it wasn’t until we actually came out and we were all upset when we signed our last bits of paper that we thought, ‘Well, why did we go quietly?’ Why did 30,000 of us go quietly?”
—Jayne Maltman, Woolworths worker, February 2009.

John Newsinger: 1934: year of the fightback (USA)

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There was a great strike wave in the US in the aftermath of the First World War. It was beaten back with the decisive defeat of a rank and file driven campaign to organise the steel industry. Brutal repression was compounded by, at best, only half-hearted support from the American Federation of Labour (AFL).
Once the unions had been contained the employers prepared for what has been described as “a war of extermination against organised labour”.

Terry Eagleton: Culture and socialism

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All human beings are prematurely born, helpless and dependent, unable to look after themselves. This applies not just to Oxbridge dons but to the whole of the human species. Later on, if all goes well, we will achieve a degree of autonomy—but only on the basis of a continuing dependency, this time on culture rather than nature.

Alex Callinicos: Review: An apologist with insights

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A review of Martin Wolf, Fixing Global Finance: How to Curb Financial Crises in the 21st Century (Yale University, 2009), £18.99

Iain Ferguson + Michael Lavalette: Social work after “Baby P”

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In August 2007 the UK media reported the tragic death of a 17 month old boy (who became known as “Baby P”). In November 2008 two people were convicted of causing or allowing the death.

Jane Hardy: Migration, migrant workers and capitalism

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Consider these two scenarios. The first is in Ireland in December 2005 when 100,000 Irish, Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian workers demonstrated together against attempts by bosses to recruit migrant workers on worse pay and conditions than Irish workers. The second is in the UK in January 2009 with hundreds of workers taking industrial action under the slogan of “British jobs for British workers”. The former reflects the possibility of solidarity and a rejection of “divide and rule”. The latter is an alarming situation in which fearful workers turn on “foreigners” as the UK economy haemorrhages jobs and plunges into a deepening crisis.

Neil Faulkner: Feedback: From bubble to black hole: the neoliberal implosion

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“Revolutionary socialists today should not be…pontificating on the degree of damage that capitalism has done to itself, on whether we are in 1929, 1992 or whatever… We do not have a crystal ball…but we can see all too clearly what is happening now and what our responsibilities are.” So argues Chris Harman in his article in the previous issue of this journal.

Eddie Cimorelli: Feedback: Take neoliberalism seriously

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The International Socialist tradition has made some remarkable intellectual breakthroughs, above all the theories of state capitalism, the permanent arms economy and deflected permanent revolution. A strength of our tradition has been the ability to look reality in the face, no matter how unpalatable. In recent years, however, our theory has not played the same role in understanding the latest developments in capitalism, variously known as the Washington consensus or neoliberalism.

Alex Callinicos: Feedback: Revolutionary paths: a reply to Panos Garganas and François Sabado

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The responses in the previous issue of International Socialism by Panos Garganas and by François Sabado to my article “Where is the Radical Left Going?” are very welcome. As their articles bear witness, the condition of the radical left in Europe is quite diverse. Though I have disagreements with some of the things that both have to say, these differences are quite minor.

Richard Seymour: Book review: Sociology of the suicide bomber

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Alan B Krueger, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism (Princeton University, 2007), £17.95

Penny Howard: Book review: Putting “culture” into context

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Kate Crehan, Gramsci, Culture and Anthropology (Pluto, 2002), £18.99
Gramsci, Culture, and Anthropology is a welcome contribution to the revival of interest in the work of Antonio Gramsci. Kate Crehan’s clear and succinct book begins with a brief biographical summary, emphasising Gramsci’s engagement with revolutionary politics in Turin and his later imprisonment by Benito Mussolini.

Ken Muller: Book review: The history of capital

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Francisco Boldizzoni, Means and Ends: The Idea of Capital in the West, 1500-1970 (Palgrave, 2008), £45
Francesco Boldizzoni sets out in this short book (169 pages plus notes) to write the history of capital or rather “the evolution of the idea of capital” over a period of five centuries: from an end in itself to a means of producing additional wealth. However successful or otherwise he has been in this project, I have to say, unfortunately, that Boldizzoni’s book is unlikely to be widely read outside the upper reaches of academia.

Jonathan Maunder: Book review: Imperialism that runs clear

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Mark Zeitoun, Power and Water in the Middle East: The Hidden Politics of the Palestinian-Israeli Water Conflict (IB Tauris, 2008), £47.50
Water is one of the most obvious symbols of the injustice of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. In Israeli settlements water is used for swimming pools and garden sprinklers, while Palestinians largely make do with supplies for basic consumption. The recent Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip left 500,000 people without access to clean water.

Joseph Choonara: Book review: In the shadow of orthodox Trotskyism

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Emanuele Saccarelli, Gramsci and Trotsky in the Shadow of Stalinism (Routledge, 2008), £60
Books culled from doctoral theses are rarely page-turners but this work by unashamed Trotskyist Emanuele Saccarelli is better than most. Saccarelli attempts to rescue Antonio Gramsci and Leon Trotsky from the slander, misappropriation, distortion and, especially in Trotsky’s case, silencing that academia has subjected them to. The chapters that focus on this task will contain few surprises to longstanding readers of this journal—with one exception that I will return to—but they form a useful survey and are written in a pugilistic style with plenty of wit.

Elaine Graham-Leigh: Book review: Exploring the peasant crusaders

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Conor Kostick, The Social Structure of the First Crusade (Brill, 2008), £93.99
In 1095 Pope Urban II called on the faithful to retake the Holy Land for Christianity. This unleashed a crusading movement which saw hundreds of thousands of Europeans flock to the Middle East, capture Jerusalem and establish a crusader kingdom in Palestine which persisted for almost 200 years.

John Cooper: Book review: You say goodbye, I say hello

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Antonio Negri, Goodbye Mr Socialism: Radical Politics in the 21st Century (Serpent’s Tail, 2008), £8.99
This collection of interviews with Antonio Negri provides some insights into one of the most important thinkers on the anti-capitalist left.

John Baxter: Book review: “We can always shoot them later”

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The post-war period was a time of rapid reconstruction and modernisation in the Soviet Union, and science and technology were expected to play a huge part in the process. As such, the rewards and prestige for those working in Soviet science were particularly high. But the risks were great too. Whole academic disciplines could find themselves out of favour—academics might be arrested or killed if their ideas were deemed unpatriotic or “anti-Soviet”.

John Newsinger: Book review: Liberal apologists autopsied

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As I write this review, Gaza lies in ruins after the Israeli government’s most recent exercise in collective punishment. This latest atrocity has excited massive opposition in Britain (not least the widespread student occupations). But the concern of the “liberal establishment” remains, quite incredibly, how to protect Israel from further Hamas attacks and so prevent the need for any more embarrassing Israeli reprisals.

Chris Harman + Joseph Choonara: Pick of the quarter: This quarter's selection

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A regular survey of articles which readers will find useful. Some, although by no means all, are available on the web.

Seminar: Paul Blackledge on "The Ethical Critique of Capitalism" (online only)

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Paul Blackledge, author of Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History and co-editor of a recent collection of writings by Alisdair MacIntyre, will be presenting the latest in our series of seminars.