International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.
While various polls for 2024 predicted a landslide victory for the Conservative Party of Canada, the last federal election gave the Liberal Party of Canada a fourth term. The election campaign was dominated by widespread public apprehension over the trade war and Donald Trump’s threats of annexation of Canada. These fears weighed heavily on voting intentions.
read article...The casualty figures for Gaza have disappeared from the news, while the death toll continues to mount. Some people are used to it, or have been indifferent from the start. Others know that this information alone can no longer transform public opinion, let alone the actions of complicit leaders.
read article...Germany’s latest variant of the GroKo (Grosse Koalition, Grand Coalition), with Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU) as Chancellor and Lars Klingbeil (SPD) as Vice-Chair, aims, according to the coalition agreement, to represent “responsibility for Germany”. Translated from political newspeak, this means that the amount of profits is untouchable.
read article...“The anti-capitalist left has not renewed its strategies after the October and June uprisings either. Its atomization and lack of material and intellectual resources prevent it from building a power project with its own identity. This vacuum paved the way for the Noboa clan to capitalize on the discontent.”
read article...“If we want to avoid the worst-case scenario, namely Ukraine’s defeat and the strengthening of Russian neo-fascism, international solidarity must be stronger than ever.”
read article...The debate on the left over how to respond to the debt crisis is fundamental for defining socialist policies. That is what this text is about. In the first part, I look at the crisis of the euro. I will argue, as many others have, that this crisis is structural and permanent, contrary to the claims of both social democracy and the right. In the second part, I look at the two options that have been put forward as alternatives to the strategy of left-wing europeanism : first the nationalist exit strategy and second the leap towards a European State. I aim to show that both these alternatives have three problems: they are profoundly contradictory, they depend on concealing their real economic and social effects, and they ignore the balance of forces in which choices have to be made. In the third part, I take a fresh look at left-wing europeanism and seek to show that an economic alternative demands a strategy of class struggle. For that, we need to go back to basics.
The rise of China has been of enormous significance for the Australian capitalist class. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Ross Gittins outlines three major reasons why the East Asian giant now matters for Australian capitalism. First is its sheer size. With a population of 1.35 billion, it has 20 per cent of the world’s population and is 11 times larger than Australia’s second largest trading partner, Japan. Second, the Chinese economy has grown by 10 per cent a year for three decades, roughly doubling in size every eight years.
Movements always arrive unexpectedly. And those who have worked hardest in previous years and months to push towards an escalation of struggles and mobilizations are usually the most surprised by a movement’s arrival. In spite of the many surprises — Who would have imagined that the occupation of Tahrir Square was possible? Who would have imagined the Spanish acampadas? — Leftist activists tend to insist in thinking that movements and the specific forms the movements take can be predicted. The reality is that one can predict that there will be a struggle, for class conflict is inscribed in the capitalist relations of production. But when, where, and which form this struggle will take is impossible to predict. The impossibility of predicting the specific constellation in which those who are below decide that the situation is simply not acceptable any longer does not mean that movements explode like lightening in the sky.
The political dynamics of contemporary South Africa are rife with contradiction. On one hand, it is among the most consistently contentious places on earth, with insurgent communities capable of mounting disruptive protest on a nearly constant basis, rooted in the poor areas of the half-dozen major cities as well as neglected and multiply-oppressed black residential areas of declining towns. On the other hand, even the best-known contemporary South African social movements, for all their sound, lack a certain measure of fury.
The world is on fire and the authoritarian right aims to control and dominate us to ensure the survival of capitalism. But radical ecosocialist youth fight back!
- read article...The Indian Armed Forces have launched Operation Sindoor which has carried out strikes in as many as nine places spread over three cities in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Punjab province while a counter-strike by Pakistan, also to be condemned, has led to lives lost in Poonch. All this is an extremely worrisome development, though not entirely unexpected.
- read article...Press Statement Jammu Kashmir Awami Workers Party (JKAWP)
- read article...Today the Verkhovna Rada votes for ratification of the Agreement between the governments of Ukraine and the United States on the creation of the American-Ukrainian investment fund for reconstruction. Despite the loud promises of "partnership" and "investment", the document causes serious concerns.
- read article...Statement from the Haqooq Khalq Party (HKP) of Pakistan.
- read article...International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
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