International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Africa
  

  USA/Africa: privatisation of health aid

  12 February, by Paul Martial

  Recent agreements between the United States and some fifteen African countries are radically reshaping health cooperation on the continent, even as Washington has just left the World Health Organisation (WHO).
  These new partnerships are part of the so-called America First Global Health strategy, which makes aid conditional on US priorities. In December, Washington signed memoranda with some fifteen countries setting specific objectives for epidemic surveillance, laboratory strengthening (…)

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• Syria

  Where is Ahmad al-Chareh’s Syria heading?

  11 February, by Jean Batou, Joseph Daher

  “Daher provides an update on the worrying developments under Ahmad al-Chareh’s new government. He also highlights the opportunities opening up for working people and social movements, provided they prove capable of resisting sectarianism and ethnic discrimination.”

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• Portugal
  

  In the face of climate catastrophe, Portugal mobilizes vote against the far right

  10 February, by Jorge Costa

  António José Seguro was elected President of the Republic of Portugal on Sunday with 67% of the vote, comfortably beating the neo-fascist candidate he faced in the second round, André Ventura (33%).

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• China
  

  Purges and Regime Crisis in China

  9 February, by Pierre Rousset

  The dismissal of General Zhang Youxia was officially announced on January 24. This is another step in the purges that have been taking place within the Chinese army’s general staff. Zhang was considered “untouchable” given his supposed closeness to Xi Jinping. As for the Central Military Commission (CMC), it is now a hollow shell, having lost five of its seven members. Xi continues to clear the field around him, contrary to any form of collegiality.

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• USA
  

  Criticism of Trump by Democrats, Republicans Grows as his Support Falls

  8 February, by Dan La Botz

  “Now things have changed. Republicans have criticized his immigrant deportation policies, his racist posts, and his threat to take over the election process. At the same time support for Trump is declining as shown in polls.”

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...and the rest of the current issue

• Germany/Hungary

  Germany joins Hungary in prosecuting left‑wing activists

• Venezuela

  Redemocratise society and politics to overcome the colonial situation

• Mynamar/India

  Why Myanmar’s Election Matters for India’s Northeast

• Greece

  A historic peasant mobilization in Greece

• Syria

  On the Recent Agreement Between Damascus and the Kurdish Administration

Recently posted Features

• Gender and Capitalism

  Capitalism and Gender Oppression

  10 June 2015, by Johanna Oksala

  Feminist theorists today are increasingly returning to the insight that capitalism must constitute the critical frame for understanding contemporary forms of gender oppression. Investigating the relationship between feminism and capitalism raises a host of difficult questions, however, which Cinzia Arruzza faces head on in her lucid essay Remarks on Gender. She gives an illuminative roadmap of the terrain in which this issue was debated in the 1970s and 1980s by laying out three different theses on how capitalism and gender oppression are related: dual or triple systems theory, indifferent capitalism, and the unitary thesis. She begins by assessing carefully the problems of the first two positions and concludes by defending the third, the unitary thesis: in capitalist societies, a patriarchal system that would be autonomous and distinct from capitalism no longer exists. Instead of treating gender and sexual oppression as separate forms of domination, a unitary Marxist-feminist theory must incorporate them in the total framework of capitalist accumulation.

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• Gender and Capitalism

  The Intersectional Conundrum and the Nation-State

  10 June 2015, by Sara R. Farris

  It is not an easy task to reconstruct succinctly the main problematics that have traversed Marxist feminism in the last 40 years, without risking simplifications or serious omissions, or without producing a mere summary that avoids critically engaging with the subjects that it raises. And yet, I believe Arruzza’s text “Remarks on Gender” accomplishes the task very well: her reconstruction of the key theses on the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism proposed by different currents within socialist and Marxist feminism from the 1970s onwards is not only lucid and informative, but also extremely clear and accessible. Furthermore, her partisan critique of the different positions on the table, alongside an indication of the most promising questions for debate, give us – as feminists who locate ourselves in the Marxist tradition(s) – a great opportunity to begin and/or deepen a much needed discussion and exchange. A new generation of Marxist feminists has emerged in the last years; it begins to question, re-articulate, expand and criticise the theorizations and disputes it has inherited from previous generations.

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• Gender and Capitalism

  Closing the Conceptual Gap

  10 June 2015, by FTC Manning

  This text raises the question of a unified theory of social relations. Cinzia Arruzza’s essay “Remarks on Gender” reminds us of the debates, left dormant for decades, around creating a unified theory of capital. However, Arruzza’s path toward that unification is one that abdicates the possibility of locating gender and race as part of the abstract, logical, or “essential mechanisms” of capitalism, opting instead to incorporate these pervasive relations as aspects of capitalism’s historical and concrete unfolding.

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• Patriarchy, family, feminism

  Hunter-gatherers: gender equality, a key factor in human evolution?

  5 June 2015, by Jean Batou

  The social organization of humanity before the advent of agriculture tells us a lot about the context in which our species evolved over tens of thousands of years. It is in fact distinguished from that of primates by a more intense collaboration between individuals, which allows the development of a "cumulative culture." Researchers have just shown why gender equality may explain this propensity to associate a higher number of individuals coming from different groups (M. Dyble et al., "Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands ", Science, 15 May 2015).

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