Earlier in February, Anticapitalistas, a revolutionary socialist organization that in 2013-4 helped to found Podemos as an electoral expression of the movement of the indignados, announced its decision to withdraw from participation in Podemos’ upcoming convention, known as the State Citizens Assembly. Anticapitalistas had concluded that it could not support […]
Analysis
Upton Sinclair and the Democrat’s dirty tricks
AFTER DECADES of asserting his independence from the two capitalist parties in the U.S., one of the best-known socialists in the country registers as a Democrat to run in the party primaries. He campaigns on a program of pro-working class policies, taxing the rich and putting the unemployed to work. […]
Whatever happened to political independence?
Every four years, you can count on a group of prominent left-of-center figures to issue a statement aimed at the broad left urging a vote for the Democratic Party presidential candidate. Whether it’s the positive case of “Progressives for Obama” or the fear-induced call to support the “lying neoliberal warmonger,” […]
Capitalist crisis, “deglobalization,” and the Left’s challenges
This speech by Manuel Garí of Anticapitalistas and the editorial board of Viento Sur in the Spanish state was presented to the national convention of International Workers Left (DEA) in Athens, Greece, last December. In it, he discusses economic and political perspectives for the world, for Europe and for the […]
México: Year I of the “Fourth Transformation”
This is an editorial marking the first year in office of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador [AMLO] published in Unidad Socialista, the publication of the Liga de Unidad Socialista, a socialist organization in México. The editorial refers to the “Fourth Transformation,” AMLO’s name for his program that seeks to […]
The Road to Prison Abolition: A Practical Solution
Seemingly overnight, politicians are tripping over themselves as they clamor for prison reform in a climate where cases of police murder and prison abuses have drawn thousands in protests onto the streets. Today, few would doubt that America’s criminal justice system is racist and unfair. Moreover, many now point to […]
Colombia’s unprecedented social explosion: a balance sheet and the movement’s challenges
Daniel Libreros Caicedo, a lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and member of the steering committee of the Movimiento Ecosocialista (Ecosocialist Movement) analyzes the ongoing mass mobilization in Colombia. On November 21 (21N), millions participated in the country’s largest strike and mass demonstrations ever. This article appeared first in […]
Latin America: conservative offensives and the return of the class war
Latin America today is a site of very powerful class conflict, repression and extremely violent attacks by reactionary forces. Franck Gaudichaud introduces our dossier addressing the situation in these countries and the dynamics of these struggles. This interview, conducted by Antoine Pelletier, originally appeared on the Web site of the New […]
Uruguay: The defeat, without extenuating circumstances, of the “governing party”
INTRODUCTION On November 29, after nearly a week of ballot recounts, Uruguay’s election authority recognized Luis Lacalle Pou, the candidate of the right-wing National Party, as the country’s next president following the second round of elections on November 24. Although the result was close, with Lacalle Pou winning over the […]
The state of the class struggle in the U.S.
When socialists look at the situation in a country, one of the first questions we ask is what is the balance of class forces? Where does the struggle between the employers and the working class stand? This article will attempt to answer that question. Unemployment The October unemployment figure was […]
Chile: The Street Hasn’t Signed Any Agreement
INTRODUCTION What began in October as a student protest over an increase in subway fares turned into a Chile-wide revolt of millions. On October 25, 1.5 million—in a country of 18 million—filled the main boulevards of Santiago, the capital, to demand a change in the political and social system inherited […]
Sweden’s ‘radical’ Meidner plan was a defeat of the workers
The Meidner Plan wasn’t a path to socialism. It wasn’t even an advance in workers’ rights within capitalism. It was a defeat for workers and an attack on their power to organise.
Bolivia: A popular uprising hijacked by the far right
Evo Morales’s attack on his own social base opened up the space for the right wing to intervene in Bolivia.
More than just a “Spring”: the Arab region’s long-term revolution
The Arab regime is immersed in a long-term revolutionary process that pits youth-led movements against authoritarian rulers and neoliberal capitalism explains Gilbert Achcar, in an interview that first appeared in ROAR magazine on November 8. When in late 2018 the people of Sudan took to the streets demanding an end […]
Black feminism and intersectionality
“Although we are in essential agreement with Marx’s theory as it applied to the very specific economic relationships he analyzed, we know that his analysis must be extended further in order for us to understand our specific economic situation as Black women.” —the Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977 1 “The […]