“Death of a legend”, “hero of trade-union movement”, “quintessence of trade-unionism” – the Sri Lankan press and trade-union movement were unanimous in the comments that followed our comrade and friend Bala Tampoe’s death on 1st September 2014. As the former Volvo trade-union leader Göte Kilden said, “had Tampoe carried out his work in one of Europe’s former colonial powers, such as France or Great Britain, his death and remembrance of his life would have been front-page news in all the main media.
The state of labour 20 years after democracy
27 January 2015, by“It was one of those great historic moments,” Ruth First wrote after 60 000 black mineworkers struck for a wage increase of 10 shillings in 1946, “that in flash of illumination educates a nation, reveals what has been hidden, destroys lies and illusions.” The strike was brutally repressed by the state, leaving 9 dead and the workers’ demands were largely unmet. But its political effects were huge.
The Politics of Mass Incarceration
22 January 2015James Kilgore is a longtime activist, writer and researcher. He currently lives in Urbana, Illinois, where has been involved in local movements to pass a Ban the Box initiative (taking questions about criminal background off employment applications) and opposing the building of a new county jail. He spent six and a half years in prison (2002-09) for his participation in political violence in the 1970s. He has published three novels, all of which were drafted while he was incarcerated. His next book is A People’s Guide to Mass Incarceration, to be published by The New Press in 2015.
The social movement for independence and the crisis of the British state
5 December 2014, byThe British state and its party structures are in crisis. What new forms of political expressions has the Scottish referendum brought into play? This article examines the social and political forces behind 2014.
The European Central Bank’s true priorities
4 December 2014, byWe have seen that since the beginning of the 2007-2008 crisis, the ECB has played a vital role in saving the big private banks, their owners and directors, while at the same time guaranteeing the continuity of their privileges. We can clearly see that without the ECB, the big banks would have sunk and that would have forced the authorities to take very severe action against them. Beyond bank bail-outs, the ECB is charged with maintaining an inflation rate of around 2%.
The big private banks run on LTRO
4 December 2014, byFrom 2012, the banks were overflowing with cash and made massive purchases of the bonds issued by their own countries. Sovereign debt securities do not require equity, as they are considered to be non-risk. [1]
South Korea : the miracle unmasked
4 December 2014, byThe supposed South Korean success story has been achieved thanks to policies that run contrary to the economic model advanced by the World Bank. Far from being a virtuous accumulation of wealth through the advantages of free-market forces, the economic development of South Korea came about by "a brutal primitive accumulation achieved by the most coercive methods, in order to produce virtue by force" (J-P Peemans). Korea has obtained its economic results under the yoke of a very repressive regime that had the support of the United States in the framework of its containment of the so called "socialist" regimes. South Korea has adopted a production-driven economic system that has little respect for the environment. The South Korean example is not to be recommended, nor is it repeatable, but it deserves to be analysed.
Theoretical lies of the World Bank
24 November 2014, byThe World Bank claims that, in order to progress, the Developing Countries [2] should rely on external borrowing and attract foreign investments. The main aim of thus running up debt is to buy basic equipment and consumer goods from the highly industrialised countries. The facts show that day after day, for decades now, the idea has been failing to bring about progress. The models which have influenced the Bank’s vision can only result in making the developing countries heavily dependent on an influx of external capital, particularly in the form of loans, which create the illusion of a certain level of self-sustained development. The lenders of public money (the governments of the industrialised countries and especially the World Bank) see loans as a powerful means of control over indebted countries. Thus the Bank’s actions should not be seen as a succession of errors or bad management. On the contrary, they are a deliberate part of a coherent, carefully thought-out, theoretical plan, taught with great application in most universities. It is distilled in hundreds of books on development economics. The World Bank has produced its own ideology of development. When facts undermine the theory, the Bank does not question the theory. Rather, it seeks to twist the facts in order to protect the dogma.
The World Bank and the IMF in Indonesia: an emblematic interference
5 November 2014, byThe World Bank’s, and the IMF’s policy on Indonesia is a textbook case in many ways. Everything is there: interference in a country’s internal affairs, support for a dictatorial regime guilty of crimes against humanity, backing for a regime responsible for an aggression against a neighbouring country (the annexation of East Timor in 1975) and the development of mega-projects which simultaneously imply massive transfers of population, the plundering of natural resources for the profit of transnational corporations and aggressions against indigenous populations.
The Kurdish Question, the PKK and the tasks of the radical Left
3 November 2014, byThe West has suddenly begun supporting various Kurdish organisations in its fight against the Islamic State. So why is the largest Kurdish organisation of all, the PKK, still outlawed? This article discusses current developments in Kurdistan and gives a brief overview of the history of the Kurdish liberation movement and the PKK’s illegal status in Germany. It argues for a radical left strategy focused on defeating the ban on the PKK.
Footnotes
[1] This situation is explained hereCe dispositif est à mettre en relation avec la pondération des actifs par le risque qu’ils représentent. J’ai expliqué cela dans http://cadtm.org/Banks-bluff-in-a-completely-legal published on 4 July 2013; http://cadtm.org/Banks-Fudged-health-report published on 6 August. See also the soon to be published book, Bankocracy, Merlin press, London 2015.
[2] The terms used to designate the countries targeted for World Bank development loans have changed through the years. At first, they were known as “backward regions”, then “under-developed countries”, and finally, “developing countries”. Some of these have gone on to be called “emerging countries”.
