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Fourth International

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.

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  • Economy

    The reproduction crisis and the birth of a new “out of law” proletariat

    2 October 2017, by Silvia Federici

    Feminist philosopher, political economist, and activist Silvia Federici on the transformation reproductive labor has experienced over the last 40 years, and in particular, with the post-2009 austerity. Originally published in Italian in Francesca Coin (ed.), Salari rubati. Economia politica e conflitto ai tempi del lavoro gratuito, Verona: Ombre Corte, 2017, pp. 99-106.

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  • 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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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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