Arkivet – Nummervisning

Fra International Socialism Journal nr. 136

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Contents (ISJ 136, Autumn 2012)

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Alex Callinicos: Analysis: Narrowing the bounds of the possible: the US election

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In November 2008, after Barack Obama had won in the presidential election in the US, Slavoj Žižek wrote one of his very best pieces: “The reason Obama’s victory generated such enthusiasm is not only that, against all odds, it really happened: it demonstrated the possibility of such a thing happening.”

Esme Choonara + Yuri Prasad: The crisis of black leadership

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Nothing illustrates the weakness of black political leadership today more starkly than a comparison between responses to the Tottenham riots of 1985 and the wave of rioting that began in Tottenham in 2011. On both occasions it was the death of a black person unfortunate enough to have had contact with the police that was the spark for major disturbances.

Donny Gluckstein: Democracy: fact and fetish

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Democracy is one of the most popular yet disputed ideas around. Invoked by the US to justify invasions, it is also the stated aim of the Arab revolutions. Israel claims democratic elections give it the right to murder Palestinians, while they themselves struggle for the democratic right of self-determination. Even on the left democracy is sometimes controversial.

Adam Fabry + Alex Anievas + Robert Knox: Back to “normality”? US foreign policy under Obama

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“Change we can believe in”. We all remember the hope-laden slogans of the brilliantly executed Obama 2008 presidential campaign. This was much less a promise of change than a return to “normality” after the deviant years of the Bush-Cheney regime. Or so many on the liberal left believed. What a difference three years make.

Paul Blackledge: In perspective: John Holloway

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John Holloway’s Change the World Without Taking Power (2002), like that other key text of autonomist post-Marxism, Michael Hardt and Toni Negri’s Empire (2000), cut with the grain of the global anti-capitalist mood at the beginning of the millennium. More than this, Holloway’s book was the focus for important debates on the international left and deserves praise both for emphasising the link between socialism and human self-activity and for criticising the idea that the capitalist state can be used to bring about socialist change.

Nicola Ginsburgh: “Chavs”, class and representation

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A review of Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class (Verso, 2011), £9.99
Owen Jones’s best-selling Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class has deservedly been praised as an accessible and refreshing engagement with the issues of class in modern Britain.

Guglielmo Carchedi: Could Keynes end the slump? Introducing the Marxist multiplier

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For Marx, the proximate cause of crises is the fall in the average rate of profit (ARP). An increasing number of studies has shown that this thesis not only is logically consistent but is also supported by a robust and growing empirical material. If falling profitability is the cause of the slump, the slump will end only if the economy’s profitability sets off on a path of sustained growth. Then the relevant question is: can Keynesian policies restore the economy’s profitability? Can they end the slump?

Sebastian Zehetmair + John Rose: Germany’s lost Bolshevik: Paul Levi revisited

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A review of David Fernbach (ed), In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Writings by Paul Levi (Brill, 2011), €99

Amy Leather: The Bradford riots: responses to a rebellion

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A review of Janet Bujra and Jenny Pearce, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning: The 2001 Bradford Riots and Beyond (Vertical Editions, 2011), £13.99

Laura Cooke: The impact of the crisis on the working class in Britain

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Throughout the crisis sensationalist claims have emerged on both the right and the left that the crisis would lead to a catastrophic and immediate rise in joblessness or, conversely, that it is really not that bad. This article examines exactly what has, and what hasn’t, happened to the labour market during the latest recession and how this compares to the labour market impact of previous crises.

Joseph Choonara: Round-up on political economy

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The global capitalist crisis has now reached its half-decade point, and the months leading up to this unhappy anniversary saw the publication of a number of interesting papers on Marxist political economy. Here I will briefly survey some of them, focusing on those dealing with themes that have featured prominently in International Socialism.

Richard Seymour: A comment on Greece and Syriza

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The “strategic perplexity” of the left confronted with the gravest crisis of capitalism in generations has been hard to miss. Social democracy continues down the road of social liberalism. The far left has struggled to take advantage of ruling class disarray. Radical left formations have tended to stagnate at best. Two exceptions to this pattern are the Front de Gauche in France and Syriza in Greece.

Panos Garganas: Greece after the elections

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Less than three months into its term, the new Greek government is faced with a “hot autumn” of resistance. Helena Smith predicted this in the Guardian in early August and by the end of the month it was more of a reality than a prophecy.

Jeffery R Webber: Emancipation by dispossession? A rejoinder to Federico Fuentes

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In his response to my recent article on the TIPNIS conflict in Bolivia, Federico Fuentes characteristically positions himself well to the right of Uruguayan social democrat and prominent political ecologist Eduardo Gudynas.

Nick Evans: Review: After Carthage was destroyed

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Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (Penguin, 2009), £14.99; Peter Sarris, Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500-700 (Oxford University Press, 2011), £35

Sadie Robinson: Review: The trouble with tribunals

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David Renton, Struck Out: Why Employment Tribunals Fail Workers and What Can be Done (Pluto, 2012), £19.99

Sean Sayers: Review: A question of ethics

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Paul Blackledge, Marxism and Ethics: Freedom, Desire and Revolution (SUNY, 2012), $80
Ethics has been a problematic area for Marxism ever since its beginnings. Marx himself wrote very little on the topic, and what he did write seems paradoxical.

Dave Sewell: Review: Cuba Libre?

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Sam Farber, Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment (Haymarket, 2011), $24
Discussions around Cuba have an unfortunate tendency to generate more heat than light, particularly on the left. Sam Farber’s new book, in the same spirit as Jeffery Webber’s recent works on Bolivia, provides much-needed clarity.

Alex Callinicos + Jonny Jones: This quarter’s selection

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Historical Materialism – New Left Review – Revolutionary History – Against the Current – Socialism and Democracy

Videos of ISJ “Marxism and Revolution Today” event

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Video recordings of the weekend school held by International Socialism on 22 and 23 September 2012.