International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

“What does Rossana say?”

Salvatore Cannavò — 2020-10-25T15:27:52Z

Rossana Rossanda, who died on 20 September 2020, played an important role in the Italian communist left, first within the Communist Party - from which she was expelled in 1969 - then as director of the newspaper Il Manifesto until 2012.It is said that for a long time in Il Manifesto, a historical communist newspaper, the following refrain was heard: “Is Valentino there?” Is Luigi writing? What does Rossana say?” This trio consisted of Valentino Parlato, Luigi Pintor and Rossana Rossanda. The last of the three left us yesterday at the age of 96, after a long life in the camp of the left and the communist ideals for which she fought. Always defeated in the end.

- In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / Italy, Marxism, Obituary, Features

A new centre-right (with a hyphen) is born

Salvatore Cannavò — 2018-06-05T10:22:15Z

The Conte government is the first government of a new Italian centre-right. A centre-right which to be precise has to be defined as hyphenated – bringing together distinct political currents.

- IV521 - June 2018 / Italy

The last stand of a system in crisis

Salvatore Cannavò — 2014-02-18T07:55:41Z

While we might dub Enrico Letta, recently thrown overboard by Matteo Renzi, the Copenhagen giraffe, Renzi might be characterised as the last stand. The last stand for a political-social system that has been carved up, taken apart and put in debt to the European Union but which is still functioning and whose leaders do want to be overwhelmed by the only real tidal wave that is rising in Europe which is anti-European, nationalist or populist or with more contradictory characteristics like the Five Star Movement in Italy. In this sense Renzi is the last card for all those pro-austerity, pro-government forces.

- IV469 - February 2014 / Italy

An audit for Italy too

Salvatore Cannavò — 2012-04-17T07:54:01Z

The book Debitocrazia, published by the CADTM [1] was largely written in 2010 and consequently does not take the Italian case into account. However, already last summer, and even before, the experts of the Committee, founded in Belgium at the beginning of the 1990s, had put Italy under observation because, if we follow the most emblematic examples described in the book and the dynamics which underlie the formation of public debt, our country also joins the list of the cases in which we can call for cancellation of the illegitimate or illicit debt. The formation of the Italian public debt enables us to retrace a history of the country and to highlight one of the mechanisms of a way of functioning that is specific to capitalism, in which tax incentives for big companies and for the wealthiest individuals are combined with the use of the state machine to produce a way of managing welfare spending that is centralised and has a class nature.

- IV447 - April 2012 / Italy, Economy, European Union, Debt

Successful national meeting on citizens' debt audit

Salvatore Cannavò — 2012-04-17T07:42:05Z

For a whole day the Faculty of Physics at La Sapienza University in Rome was transformed into a free university in movement. Approximately 200 participants, for the most part young people and students, were able to listen, on Saturday March 24, to the speech by Eric Toussaint, president of the CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt),Belgium, who is a militant, an activist of the global justice movement and author of the book Debitocrazia, who by sketching out the elements of the global economic crisis explained how and why cancellation of illegitimate debt constitutes an opportunity for social movements to think about an alternative.

- IV447 - April 2012 / Italy, Debt

A Failed Refoundation

Salvatore Cannavò — 2012-04-04T17:11:40Z

This text is the first and final chapters by the book of the same name La Rifondazione Mancate published by Edizioni Allegre in 2009.

- Building new parties of the left / Italy, New parties of the left, Debate section

Municipal elections: Berlusconi's defeat

Salvatore Cannavò — 2011-07-05T14:49:47Z

During the last two weeks of May 2011 municipal elections took place in 1,300 Italian communes, including 13 big cities. Participation was 68.58% in the first round and 60.12% in the second. In relation to the regional elections of 2010, the right lost 6% of its vote at the national level, but 13 to 16% in the North, and Berlusconi's Popolo Della LibertÃ (PdL, People of Liberty) lost more votes than Bossi's Lega Nord (Northern League). The coalitions formed around the centre left Partito Democratico (Democratic Party) won votes, but above all thanks to the "radical” candidates of Sinistra e LibertÃ (SEL, a split from Rifondazione). The anti-party “5 stelle” (5 stars) movement, led by the comedian Beppe Grillo, obtained 93,000 votes. The left in various forms won the four biggest cities (Milan, Naples, Turin and Bologna), as well as significant towns.

- IV438 - July 2011 / Italy

Crisis of “Berlusconism” with a left that's out of the game

Salvatore Cannavò — 2010-10-08T17:02:34Z

Although the Italian political crisis is obviously interlaced with the international economic crisis, which has already gone on for two years, this fact is completely absent from the political debate, which focuses on the unexpected appearance of the crisis of Berlusconism and its centre-right alliance. Unforeseen, of course by all those who have made Berlusconi the spectre to hide the reality of relations between classes and the drift to the right of our country. Thus one of Berlusconi's most loyal allies, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Gianfranco Fini, has abandoned him and his party to found a new organization, Futuro e LibertÃ (Future and Freedom). For the Italian right this is a shock, because the infallibility of the leader is thus questioned and a serious crisis - even if it is not, yet, a governmental crisis - announces the end of a cycle, that opened by Berlusconi himself with his entry on the political stage in 1994.

- IV429 - October 2010 / Italy

The International becomes a perspective

Salvatore Cannavò — 2010-03-04T05:49:24Z

The Sixteenth World Congress of the Fourth International took place at the end of February in Belgium. International Viewpoint will publish reports, resolutions and statement from the congress. We start with an article makng a first balance sheet.

- IV422 - March 2010 / Fourth International, 16th World Congress Resolutions - 2010

Victory of the right, suicide of the left

Salvatore Cannavò — 2008-07-05T12:58:31Z

According to many commentators, Italy experienced a veritable earthquake at the elections of April 13 and 14, 2008. But in fact it amounts to a conservative stabilisation rather than an earthquake.

- IV402 - July 2008 / Italy