Fra International Socialism Journal nr. 137 |
Forfatter: Titel |
Nr. |
Side |
Udgivet |
Om |
Contents (ISJ 137, Winter 2013) |
137 |
1 |
jan 13 |
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Alex Callinicos: Analysis: British sounds |
137 |
3 |
jan 13 |
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The dominant fact about British politics is the slow decomposition of the Conservative-Liberal coalition government. The fundamental reason for this is the failure of chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne’s deficit-cutting strategy. |
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Megan Trudell: Analysis: Why Obama won |
137 |
15 |
jan 13 |
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“The people who delivered [Obama] a second term…are those who were least likely to have benefited from his first.” Journalist Gary Younge’s comment on the re-election of Barack Obama in the United States sums up the contradiction at the heart of the election campaign. |
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Peter Alexander: Interview: South Africa after Marikana |
137 |
23 |
jan 13 |
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The massacre of 34 striking miners at Marikana, near Rustenburg in North West Province, on 16 August 2012 marked a watershed in the history of South Africa, ruled by the African National Congress (ANC) since the end of apartheid in 1994. Peter Alexander, who led a research team to the area immediately after the massacre, talked to International Socialism. |
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Phil Marfleet: “Never going back”: Egypt’s continuing revolution |
137 |
35 |
jan 13 |
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For 35 years Egypt was a laboratory for neoliberalism—a local state in which hegemonic world powers and financial institutions played out their strategies for the global economy. It was also a stage on which the United States and its allies rehearsed policy for control of key assets in the Global South. |
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Mike Gonzalez: Latin America: the tide is turning |
137 |
73 |
jan 13 |
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As 2012 nears its end a pattern is emerging in the political and economic picture of Latin America. It is surprising and contradictory, a dramatic example of the gulf that can open up between rhetoric and reality. After a decade of struggles characterised by their determination, their militancy but also their creativity, this is probably not where we expected to be. |
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Jane Hardy: New divisions of labour in the global economy |
137 |
101 |
jan 13 |
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It has become a rarely challenged commonsense assumption that, as part of the globalisation process, there is an inexorable haemorrhaging of jobs from the “Global North” to the “Global South”. |
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Alex Callinicos: The dynamics of revolution |
137 |
127 |
jan 13 |
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A review of Neil Davidson, How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? (Haymarket, 2012), £22.99 |
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Ian Birchall: The enemy’s enemy: Disraeli and working class leadership |
137 |
149 |
jan 13 |
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At the most recent Labour Party conference party leader Ed Miliband caused a certain amount of consternation by praising Benjamin Disraeli (Tory prime minister 1868 and 1874-80), and repeatedly using Disraeli’s most famous phrase “One Nation”. Just to make sure nobody had missed the point, he repeated the words 46 times. |
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Diverse: Hegemony and mass critical intellectuality |
137 |
169 |
jan 13 |
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During the past years there has been an impressive wave of student movements. What has been distinctive about them is their tendency to be more radical politically in comparison to most forms of student protest in the 1980s and 1990s. |
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Diverse: Divided they fell: the German left and the rise of Hitler |
137 |
183 |
jan 13 |
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Eighty years ago, on 30 January 1933, President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler to the position of Chancellor of the Reich. In the years preceding Hitler’s appointment the Nazis and their paramilitary units, the SA and SS, had already been engaging in a steady campaign of terror against the labour movement while the state looked the other way. On 30 January 1933 this terror was made legal. |
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Martin Empson: Climate change: it’s even worse than we thought |
137 |
195 |
jan 13 |
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Whatever else it is remembered for, 2012 is likely to go down in history as the year when climate change began noticeably to change the face of the planet. The trends we are beginning to see mean that global warming is going to get far worse, far quicker than anyone expected. |
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Denis Godard: The NPA in crisis: We have to explain because we have to start again |
137 |
201 |
jan 13 |
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We will not dwell here on signs that the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) is in crisis or on comparisons between the dynamics at its foundation with the current situation. The failure is so severe as to be undeniable. We failed. But the reasons that led us to create the NPA are still there. We have to understand why we failed, especially as we have to start again. |
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Siobhan Brown: Review: The age of Hobsbawm |
137 |
215 |
jan 13 |
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Gregory Elliott, Hobsbawm: History and Politics (Pluto, 2010), £12.99
For many, Eric Hobsbawm represented the archetypal Marxist historian. His many works on empire, class, nations and states are for many new to Marxism the first way in to understanding a history that he described as “the sweat, blood, tears and triumphs of the common people, our people”. In particular, his vast series The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire and then Age of Extremes are some of the most comprehensive contributions to Marxist historiography. |
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Jonny Jones: Review: Sweet dreams aren’t made of this |
137 |
217 |
jan 13 |
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Slavoj Žižek, The Year of Dreaming Dangerously (Verso, 2012), £7.99 Slavoj Žižek has been an important point of reference for many activists and intellectuals who were caught up in the protests of recent years, from the student revolt to the Occupy movement. In this small book he offers his take on the emancipatory potential of the events of 2011. |
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Camilla Royle: Review: Climate of conflict |
137 |
218 |
jan 13 |
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Harald Welzer, Climate Wars: What People Will be Killed for in the 21st Century (Polity, 2012), £20 In this translation of a book originally published in German in 2007, Harald Welzer makes a gloomy argument: that climate change is already causing dramatic changes to people’s lives and that violence is always an option as a response to these changes. Using examples from the Vietnam War, the Rwandan genocide, the collapse of the Easter Island civilisation, Darfur and, in particular, the Holocaust, he attempts to explain not just the causes of extreme violence but the way violence is sustained and becomes part of a “violence economy”. |
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Ross Speer: Review: The Dice Man |
137 |
220 |
jan 13 |
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Mikko Lahtinen (Gareth Griffiths & Kristina Köhli, trans.), Politics and Philosophy: Niccolò Machiavelli and Louis Althusser’s Aleatory Materialism (Haymarket, 2011) There are two mainstream interpretations of the work of Niccolò Machiavelli: he is seen either as the “the father of immoral ‘Realpolitik’” or as the “Renaissance era representative of the republican tradition” that sought to revive the political traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. |
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Alex Callinicos + Jonny Jones: This quarter’s selection |
137 |
223 |
jan 13 |
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International Socialism weekend school: Marxism and Revolution Today – New Left Review – Historical Materialism – International Socialist Review – Science and Society |
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Videos of ISJ “Marxism and Revolution Today” event |
137 |
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jan 13 |
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Video recordings of the weekend school held by International Socialism on 22 and 23 September 2012. |
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