Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
For months the media have been full of stories about the cost-of-living crisis, the climate crisis, the housing crisis, and the crisis in the health service. The Government has laid the blame on the world economy, or on supply-line issues, either as a result of the pandemic or of the […]
Lithium is the lightest known metal, for which the heaviest competition for possession may occur in the future. In the capitalist mode of production, human wants and necessities are converted into commodities: that is, use values are made to go through an exchange value system, through markets, with profit as […]
Farm vehicles blockading motorways, burning haystacks on hard shoulders, and heaps of manure at the house of parliament—these images from the farmers’ protests in the Netherlands have been broadcast around the world. The recent reports of nitrogen excesses, and the magnitude by which it needs to be reduced, have struck […]
The severe drought affecting many regions of Europe since the beginning of the year has been further expanding and worsening. Dry conditions are related to a wide and persistent lack of precipitation—rain and snow—combined with a sequence of heat waves from May onwards. The severe precipitation deficit has affected river […]
In the official ideology of the Irish state, the Industrial Development Authority comes in for special praise as one of the main agencies that helped “modernise” the Irish economy—i.e. opened it up to penetration by foreign, mostly American, capital. It has been lauded as a latter-day David that outfought Goliath […]
Recently I had the good fortune to travel to the United States for a week. It was, to say the least, an eye-opener. Among the grandeur of the superwealth that I witnessed in New York I saw sights that for me were emotionally draining and shocking. I went […]
As the cost of living grows ever higher, and more families are choosing between eating and paying bills—with some parents skipping meals so their children can eat—we continue to produce an over-abundance. We produce such an over-abundance of food that no one should be without food. Roughly a third […]
Capitalism is a system that has an innate tendency to get into a cul-de-sac of crisis, and the only way it knows for coming out of crisis is by further exploitation of the working class. The cost-of-living crisis—caused by inflation, which eats up the earnings of the working class […]
The recent announcement that the state plans to allow local councils to buy homes in order to house refugees from Ukraine is another example of the class interests responsible for the present housing “crisis.” In reality there are more than enough housing units—90,158 vacant dwellings in 2021, according to the […]
It would appear that, one way or another, humans have always been trying to find a better way to live and survive in the world, particularly from a materialist viewpoint, to meet their needs and develop their capacities—not always with success—by their own volition or as they would want it […]
Part 2 Last month I wrote an article on the importance of political theory. In that article I explained that it is not enough to read the Communist Manifesto to learn about Marxism properly but that you must examine different points of Marxism. In this article I will examine the […]
Latin America entered the twenty-first century dominated by neoliberal governments. It was the region of the world with the most neoliberal and the most radical governments. Neoliberalism arrived in Latin America through the “Chicago Boys” during the Pinochet dictatorship. As a result, it was the region where the greatest manifestations […]
The ruling class around the world have decided that the global economy must get back to normal, and that restrictions introduced to protect people in the so-called “developed world” from the covid-19 pandemic must be abandoned, despite the onset of a new wave of the virus. Governments have gone back […]
The illusion of food democracy There are many things in life that we can do without—but food is not one of them. Along with food we need water, shelter, clothes and warmth to have any chance of survival as a species. And yet we often take food for granted, and […]
Hostile architecture is familiar to most people as dramatic instances of anti-homelessness spikes, sprinkler systems, or directional speakers. These devices are placed outside shops and businesses to discourage people who sleep in the street from choosing this particular nook to shelter in, or to prevent teenagers from gathering. Egregious examples […]
Prison abolitionism is often viewed as a utopian idea, but when we examine the root causes of crime, and the victims of the legal system, it’s clear that if abolitionism is utopianism we are living in a dystopia. When a particularly heinous crime is committed it is the typical reaction […]