International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Portugal
  

  General Strike Rejects Labour Reform Package Once Again

  6 June, by Adriano Campos

  “It’s turning out to be a major general strike; the data we have from last night shows workers are determined to treat today as a major day of struggle,” said the CGTP’s General Secretary in the morning outside one of the striking schools in Lisbon.

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• Bolivia
  

  “Until the president resigns...”

  5 June, by Javier Rojas

  In Bolivia, mobilizations against austerity and an agrarian reform favourable to the concentration of land have weakened the government of Rodrigo Paz and his neoliberal policies.

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• Spanish state
  

  A step forward in Andalusia

  4 June, by Daniel Albarracín, Pablo P. Ganfornina

  Is this the beginning of a shift in dynamics? To attempt to formulate an answer, our perspective cannot begin with the latest election results, but rather with an analysis of Andalusian political history. In this regard, we operate on a fundamental premise: there is no electoral victory without a prior social and political victory. In the south of the Spanish state, the right wing did not conquer the institutions by chance in 2018; it did so by first winning the battle for "common sense", displacing collective frames of reference and colonising the public agenda long before the ballot box validated its hegemony.

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• Colombia
  

  “Surprise” election result poses new challenges for the left in Colombia

  3 June, by Ana C. Carvalhaes

  The clashes over the next 20 days on the streets, in workplaces and on social media in Colombia will determine not only the name of the country’s new president – between a neo-fascist and a progressive – but also, to a large extent, the balance of power in South America. The Colombian presidential elections, with a second round on 21 June, are a precursor to the Brazilian elections in November and are of central importance to the construction of Trump’s “shield” on the continent.

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• Spanish State
  

  Public education comes to a standstill in a historic strike in Valencia

  2 June, by Moisès Vizcaino, Vicent Mauri

  “May 11th will be etched in the collective memory of the Valencian people. The teachers, the grassroots and union movement, and the entire educational community will make history for the dignity, determination, and strength they demonstrated during weeks of mobilisation and organisation. The indefinite strike is already a moral and political victory against an arrogant, authoritarian government that is completely out of touch with the reality of educational institutions.”

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...and the rest of the current issue

• USA

  Trump, Miller Take away Immigrants’ Rights, Sometimes Their Lives, but Resistance Continues

• Sudan

  France arms the war in Sudan

• Belgium

  Government brutalizes, the street protests in Belgium

• Ethiopia

  Dark clouds over Ethiopia

• South America

  Notes on the Political Situation in South America

Recently posted Features

• Debt as a Primeval Weapon of Dispossession (Part 3)

  Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Illegitimate Private Debt in the global South

  8 September 2017, by Éric Toussaint

  The "debt system" is gathering steam In Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, just as in the highly industrialized countries, after going through several fundamental changes over the past 40 years. Mainly since the outbreak of the Third World debt crisis in the early 1980s.

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• Debt as a Primeval Weapon of Dispossession (part 2)

  Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Illegitimate Private Debt

  8 September 2017, by Éric Toussaint

  Throughout human history, private debt has been used by the dominant classes to subjugate, despoil, expropriate, and dispossess the toiling classes (among whom women have always been the hardest-hit victims): small farmers, artisans, fishers, and on up to the salaried workers of today and the members of their households (students, who go into debt to pursue their education). [1] The process is simple: the lender requires that borrowers pledge their possessions as collateral. This can be, for example, the land held and cultivated by the farmer, or in the case of an artisan, the tools of his or her trade. Repayment of the loan must be made in cash or in kind. Since the interest rates are high, to repay the loan the borrower must transfer a large share of the fruits of his or her labour to the lender, and so becomes impoverished. If the borrower defaults on repayment, the borrower is dispossessed of the pledged collateral. In some societies, that can mean a loss of freedom for the debtor and/or the members of his or her family. This is called debt slavery. Under the laws of the United States and certain European countries, failure to repay a debt was punishable by physical mutilation until the early 19th century. And still today, in Europe and elsewhere, non-repayment of debts may be punishable by imprisonment.

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• Debt as a Primeval Weapon of Dispossession (Part 1)

  Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Illegitimate Private Debt

  8 September 2017, by Éric Toussaint

  Throughout human history, private debt has been used by the dominant classes to subjugate, despoil, expropriate, and dispossess the toiling classes (among whom women have always been the hardest-hit victims): small farmers, artisans, fishers, and on up to the salaried workers of today and the members of their households (students, who go into debt to pursue their education)

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• Populist Philosophy


  From the concept of the people to the materialization of a leader?

  17 August 2017, by Edgardo Logiudice

  The post-Marxist philosophy of Ernesto Laclau (1935-2014) and Chantal Mouffe seems to inspire some leaders and activists of Podemos (Spanish state) and La France Insoumise. In order to better understand the ins and outs of this new philosophy, we reproduce here a critique written in 2014 by an Argentine Marxist, Edgardo Logiudice, a member of the editorial board of the journal Herramienta. This article originally appeared in Herramienta n° 56 (autumn 2015).

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