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.
‘The people have, through their own fault, lost the confidence of the government...Wouldn’t it then be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?’ Bertolt Brecht, ‘The Solution’, 1953
read article...[This article was written hours before the mass terrorist act that targeted Hezbollah members through pagers in the afternoon of 17 September, thus enhancing its title’s topicality.]
read article...In an angry, determined, yet festive action, with music blaring, airhorns blasting, and fireworks shooting into the sky, 33,000 Boeing workers walked out on strike at plants in Washington, Oregon, and California on September 13, stopping production of the Boeing 737 plane and other aircraft. The Boeing strike by the International Association of Machinists (IAM), the biggest strike of this year so far, is principally over wages and pensions.
read article...Despite the confusion that accompanied the announcement of the recent presidential elections’ results in Algeria, one thing is clear and certain: the Algerian people overwhelmingly reject military rule, after having devoted their Hirak [movement] five years ago to demanding an end to this rule and its replacement with a democratic civilian authority. Indeed, the confusion itself is a direct result of this fact, which emerged through what were the real stakes in these elections, as no one could have the slightest doubt about the victory of the military establishment’s candidate, Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
read article...The Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) was founded during the first Intifada by a group of Palestinian and Jewish doctors. The PHRI Prisoners and Detainees Department deals with all prisoners who are under the control of different Israeli forces. In this interview, Oneg Ben Dror recounts his observations in this hell.
read article...The creation of Podemos in the Spanish state was an important attempt to build an anti-neoliberal and pluralist mass party to the left of social-liberalism. That experience, which started very well, has finally ended very badly. Perhaps, for this reason, the title of this article could have been “Radiance and decline of Podemos ... as an emancipatory political project.”
No matter how much time passes, or how often history is declared to have ended, the debate over socialist strategy and organization always returns. This foundational question appeared in embryo at the very start of the workers movement in the nineteenth century and was raised explicitly by Lenin when he described his perspective as “tactics as plan” and when revolutionaries split with social-democracy during World War I.
For the second time since the turn of the century, governments in North America and Europe are intervening massively with public funds and in conjunction with central banks to bail out entire sectors of the economy and prevent a general economic collapse. The ongoing rescue operations necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic has already reached a much higher scale than the one deployed against the 2007–08 financial crisis. These operations clash with the basic tenets of neoliberalism in that they constitute a massive regulatory intervention by the state in reining back the market, whereas deregulation and market “survival of the fittest” are central to neoliberal ideology.
The semiannual French review Les Possibles, a publication of Attac France, in its most recent issue (No 23) features a number of articles on planning for the ecological and social transition. Most are addressed to the issue of socialist planning vs. capitalist markets that was prominent in the debates of 20th century socialism. The contribution by Michael Löwy puts this debate in the ecosocialist framework that has emerged in this century. My translation of it is published below.
– Richard Fidler
The last days of August saw the 14th edition of the Summer University of Anticapitalistas with the slogan ‘A new internationalism in the face of war and climate barbarism’ with the just over 750 people attending. This year there was a significant increase in the number of young people as a result of the work to establish the student movement, the role played in promoting solidarity with Palestine and the intervention around the queer question.
- read article...This solidarity statement was adopted by the 39th edition of the Fourth International youth camp in France in July 2024.
- read article...The People’s Struggle Alliance (PSA—Jana Aragalaya Sandanaya/Makkal Poraata Munnani) is a newly formed movement of Left political organisations and individuals active in the 2022 people’s uprising (‘Aragalaya/Poraatam/Struggle’) in Sri Lanka who are advancing and deepening its demand for ‘system change’. The Socialist People’s Forum (SPF), supporters of the Fourth International in Sri Lanka, is among its founders.
- read article...Anti*Capitalist Resistance statement on far right violence sweeping Britain and Northern Ireland in August 2024
- 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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