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.
Parliamentary elections will take place in Portugal on Sunday 18 May. This report on a Left Bloc electoral meeting gives a flavour of the campaign.
read article...Where did the “global neofascist axis” come from, and where is it going? What destabilizing effects might Russia’s war in Ukraine have? Ilya Budraitskis and Gilbert Achcar discuss the current conjuncture
read article...Ukrainian workers make up the bulk of frontline soldiers defending the country against Russia’s war of aggression, but that hasn’t stopped Volodymyr Zelensky’s government from attacking trade union rights.
read article...The country of Georgia, a small nation of 3.8 million people in the Caucasus, has been thrown into a profound crisis. Its people have risen up against the ruling party, Georgian Dream, over the passage of its Russia-style “foreign influence law,” homophobic anti-LGBTQ propaganda law, rigging of the recent election, and suspension of accession talks for membership in the EU.
read article...The conclave of cardinals has for the first time elected a pope from the USA, a man who has been critical of the policies of President Donald Trump and Vice-president J.D. Vance. What will the choice of this American to be head of the Catholic Church mean for the US?
read article...We 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%.
From 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]
The 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.
Revolutionary struggles against capitalism have raised, time and again, the issue of sexual liberation. Right at the start of capitalism, the English revolution of the 1640s and 1650s involved what historian Christopher Hill has called a “sexual revolution” against the old order. The more radical forces included “ranters” such as Lawrence Clarkson, who argued that “What act soever is done by thee in light and love is light and lovely, though it be that act called adultery.” [2]1 The “utopian socialists” of the early nineteenth century also challenged accepted ideas about sexuality.
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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