In the year to Q1 2023, in Europe, unit profits increased more than unit labour costs in manufacturing, construction and finance, and grew at the same rate as unit labour cost in “accommodation food and transportation”.
Analysis
A ruling class perspectives document
The Republican Party is no longer the most important political vehicle for the ruling class. The Republicans have become so involved in Trump’s intrigues, vendettas, and conspiracy theories that a considerable layer have forgotten their responsibilities to bourgeois democracy and to a stable system of capital accumulation.
June 25 elections in Greece
The June 25 elections in Greece confirmed, but also reinforced, the harsh negative features of the results of the “first round” of the May 21 election. In the new parliament, the sum of the right and the far-right parties reached 200 seats (out of a total of 300), thus creating a correlation of parliamentary forces that is unprecedented in the years following the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1974.
A different road for socialists
Our work has been devoted to essentially arguing a negative point—that it’s fundamentally wrong to see any part of the Democratic Party as the road to social change. This viewpoint obviously poses a major question: if socialists shouldn’t be supporting Democrats, then what should we be doing instead? What is our alternative course of action?
The Package King faces an uncertain summer
UPS has told management and supervisors to be at work in early August to handle a possible strike. So there may be some serious contingency planning behind the “win-win” veneer. Interestingly, UPS competitors, such as FedEx, are positioning themselves to sweep in and grab UPS customers if there is a strike.
Brandon Johnson “a very encouraging start”. Not for us!
Now that the election’s over, evidence is beginning to come in to judge the validity of the different perspectives. The Lavin interview is an important statement by a major ruling class player. It shows that those socialists who stressed the fundamental compatibility of Johnson with the Democratic Party and ruling class politics were on the right track.
A new political terrain in Greece ahead of the new elections on June 25th
The actual class balance of forces, the political balance of forces and the electoral balance of forces are different quantities and qualities to measure. They are interrelated and they influence each other, but they are not identical.
Bedford Park, IL is the place to be
Industrial strikes are rare enough today. So when two occur within a few months of one another and literally a few minutes’ walk from one another, it’s worth paying some attention. This is what’s happening in Bedford Park, an industrial suburb just south of Chicago.
The end of Trump?
2024 will become, as every national election since 2016 has, a referendum on Trump and MAGA. In that circumstance, Joe Biden—despite holding the support of only about 40 percent of the public—will have to be favored by the Democratic Party for reelection, assuming a health crisis doesn’t derail the octogenarian president.
Mini rooms, 22.4, and electric vehicles: What’s going on in the labor movement today?
The new young trade unionists desperately need the skills, knowledge, and toughness of the older generations. The old established unions need the drive, vigor, and esprit de corps of their new comrades. When these two trends merge, the labor movement will be back on the road—with a vengeance.
Greece: After the elections of May 21st
The social pillar that supported this political achievement of the Right was the mobilization of the ruling class and the affluent upper-middle classes, with their potential to pull along with them a certain broader audience.
Chile: In free fall. Reformist defeat reloaded.
On May 7, the Chilean right scored a major victory in elections to choose delegates to draft a new constitution for the country. The conservatives, who mostly want to maintain the current constitution drawn up under the Pinochet dictatorship, have more than the 60 percent support in the constitutional council they need to write the new constitution without having to offer any concessions to the left.
G7: Where is that recession?
Marxist economic theory suggests that slumps will happen when the profitability of capital starts falling; eventually leading to a fall in total profits in an economy. Those profits can further be squeezed by increases in the cost of capital i.e. interest costs on borrowing.
Strikes and social movements in France in the past 20 years: Learning from past struggles
The article is the first of a three-part series, first published in French at Tendance CLAIRE of the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) in France. The text is supported by the Clear Tendency of the NPA and the International Workers’ League.
Desperate journeys. Sick system!
There are by now an estimated 100 million people globally who have fled their homelands or become internally displaced by war, political repression or ethnic violence; by environmental destruction or economic collapse; or in many cases, by lethal combinations of these modern plagues.
