International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Japan
  

  The Political Landscape Surrounding the Snap General Election

  23 January, by Toshizo Omori

  Prime Minister Takaichi announced the dissolution of The House of Representatives and the general election at a press conference on January 19th. The general election is to be held on Sunday, February 8th. This brief essay will examine the current political situation, focusing on what the snap election means and why a new party, the Centrist Reform Coalition, was formed by the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and the Komeito Party (Komeito).

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• USA
  

  Resisting Trump’s Assault on Democratic Rights and the Sovereignty of Nations

  22 January, by Kay Mann

  “The efforts to defend immigrants from ICE raids have all the markings of an authentic nascent social movement. ”

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• Portugal
  

  New neofascist advance in presidential elections

  21 January, by Jorge Costa

  “The reduction in the electoral strength of the left is an invitation for activists to reflect on the fragmentation of this camp. In the downward spiral of the last three years, the only time the left has made its mark on the public debate to contest popular opinion was during last December’s general strike, called jointly by the CGTP and UGT against the new labour laws that the government wants to impose.”

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• Big Tech
  

  Techno-feudal lords or oligarchy of data traffickers?

  20 January, by Françisco Louçã

  Intensive use of social networks, more than other forms of Internet presence, with the possible exception of games, generates behaviours comparable to other forms of drug addiction, such as excessive consumption and psychological, or even physical, hangovers. This article argues that this is the product sold by this new oligarchy.

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• Ukraine
  

  Kyiv in crisis: how wild capitalism is exacerbating the devastation

  19 January, by Vitaliy Dudin

  The year 2026 began with devastating Russian shelling of Kyiv’s infrastructure, which, in freezing conditions, brought the population to the brink of survival. The city, home to 3 million people, is experiencing an acute shortage of heat and water, and electricity is being supplied on a short-term basis. It has become clear that the authorities had no plan B in case of a catastrophic deterioration in the security and weather situation.

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...and the rest of the current issue

• USA

  Trump’s Occupation of Minnesota and the Resistance

• Europe

  Europe in 2025

• Burkina Faso

  The proper use of conspiracies

• Far right and academic freedom

  Academic freedom under attack

• Arab Spring

  From the Ashes of the Arab Spring

Recently posted Features

• Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF: 70th anniversary (Part 13)

  South Korea : the miracle unmasked

  4 December 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  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.

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• Sexuality and capitalism: The Italian Renaissance

  3 December 2014, by Colin Wilson

  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.” [1]1 The “utopian socialists” of the early nineteenth century also challenged accepted ideas about sexuality.

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• Bensaïd on Lenin

  “Leaps Leaps Leaps”: Lenin and politics

  24 November 2014, by Daniel Bensaïd

  Hannah Arendt was worried that politics might disappear completely from the world. The century had seen such disasters that the question of whether ’politics still has any meaning at all’ had become unavoidable”. The issues at stake in these fears were eminently practical: ’The lack of meaning in which the whole of politics has ended up is confirmed by the dead end into which specific political questions are flocking.’

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• Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF: 70th anniversary (Part 12)

  Theoretical lies of the World Bank

  24 November 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  The World Bank claims that, in order to progress, the Developing Countries [2] should rely on external borrowing and attract foreign investments. The main aim of thus running up debt is to buy basic equipment and consumer goods from the highly industrialised countries. The facts show that day after day, for decades now, the idea has been failing to bring about progress. The models which have influenced the Bank’s vision can only result in making the developing countries heavily dependent on an influx of external capital, particularly in the form of loans, which create the illusion of a certain level of self-sustained development. The lenders of public money (the governments of the industrialised countries and especially the World Bank) see loans as a powerful means of control over indebted countries. Thus the Bank’s actions should not be seen as a succession of errors or bad management. On the contrary, they are a deliberate part of a coherent, carefully thought-out, theoretical plan, taught with great application in most universities. It is distilled in hundreds of books on development economics. The World Bank has produced its own ideology of development. When facts undermine the theory, the Bank does not question the theory. Rather, it seeks to twist the facts in order to protect the dogma.

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