REMOTE WORKING, or working from home, is not something new. It has existed and been used at different stages of capitalist development and innovation, reflecting the state of technological development at that time and the cost-benefit to profit creation. Today it’s the same factors, considerations and driving forces as before. Take weaving and the manufacture of clothes as an example.
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World’s poor left at the mercy of Covid
As 2020 comes to an end—a year that many would like to forget— sadly, despite the world pandemic, there is no good will from global capitalism towards the peoples of the global south in their battle against covid-19.
The TRIPS Council of the World Trade Organization, which deals with intellectual property rights, debated a proposal tabled by India and South Africa, supported by Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and Kenya,
O’Donnell Forum weekend of webinar to celebrate “War for Independence”
For anyone interested in politics, the last weekend in November’s online festival, organised by the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum, offered a wide range of views…
Enduring the most: The death of Terence MacSwiney
The death of Terence MacSwiney on hunger strike, after seventy-four days, was not the first nor the last of that of Irish martyrs who died because of the intransigence of British imperialism. Originally a tactic used by suffragists, the hunger strike has become synonymous with Irish anti-imperialism, in part thanks […]
From the Plough to the stars
■ From the Plough to the Stars: An Anthology of Working People’s Prose from Contemporary Ireland “The cooks, the cleaners, the porters: Unsung heroes on the frontline,” the Irish Times declared in early May 2020, suddenly recognising that a society cannot function without the working class, for just a brief […]
Imperialists promote subversion in Cuba
The farce of San Isidro in Havana, a new attempt – FAILED – of political destabilization and interference by the United States Government against Cuba Dear Friends, In recent days, social networks, essentially through Facebook, and western media have tried to make news of an artificial event that occurred in […]
Beethoven and the Ode to Joy
Like few other composers, Beethoven expresses the will for freedom, the democratic longing of the people. His music is the continuation of the French Revolution through the means of art; his Ninth Symphony is a hymn to the humanist utopia of the equality of all humankind. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony The […]
A programme for the 21st century
Over recent years a discernible pattern has been emerging in many of those countries that the BBC likes to describe as “parliamentary democracies.” Long-established precedents are being flouted by elected power-brokers in the leading capitalist states. While those who govern on behalf of capitalism have never been reluctant to subvert […]
The left, human rights, and class
During the second half of the twentieth century there was an ideological shift within the left in the West, namely from being the organised expression of the working class to seeing the working class as one among a variety of interest groups to be defended. The interests of any collective […]
Who said that?
“We’ve never had this dilemma between health and the economy. Obviously, the restrictive measures we’ve adopted . . . have had an economic impact but there’s no room for doubt that health comes first.”—Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuban minister of economy and planning. “We are used to financial institutions making honest efforts to […]
Examining the contours of a developing crisis
Visible manifestations of social unrest have decreased considerably during the pandemic as people are unable to meet, organise or travel. This is shown by research conducted by the IMF in Figure 1 comparing major social unrest events with mobility data. Normality may be suspended to a large degree, but the […]
In America, political fantasies warn us of what the new decade may bring
“The people who run this country have run out of workable myths with which to distract the public, and in a moment of extreme crisis have chosen to stoke civil war and defame the rest of us—black and white—rather than admit to a generation of corruption, betrayal, and mismanagement.” Matt […]
Take the money – and hide it! or Socialism for all? Not quite.
About 66,500 companies received a total of €2. 9 billion from the now-expired temporary wage subsidy scheme. The state paid out €2.9 billion of public money to mostly private companies to pay the wages of 664,000 employees; and that extraordinary news made the headlines for about eighteen hours. After that […]
UBI: A Trojan horse
The outbreak of covid-19 has exposed the glaring inequality in housing, health, education and work in Ireland and around the so-called “developed world.” This has led to renewed calls from some quarters for a universal basic income for all citizens. Some of those proposing this are well intentioned and believe […]
Victory in Bolivia gives renewed hope
THE VICTORY of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in the Bolivian general election in October is a great result for the popular forces in Bolivia as well as anti-imperialist forces in Latin America and around the world.
Following the coup and the exile of President Evo Morales in November of 2019, the attempts by the regime of Jeanine Áñez to criminalise the struggles of the working class and Indigenous peoples of Bolivia has failed to defeat the MAS electorally.
Dreaming of “liberal socialism”
IN SEPTEMBER the former Greek minister of finance and self-described “libertarian Marxist” Yanis Varoufakis published his vision of a post-capitalist world in his new book, Another Now. He has explained that his motivation for writing the book stems from his belief that Marxists have yet to set out a detailed plan for how a socialist economy and society might function,