International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

In the crosshairs of AI

Ashley Smith — 2026-10-29T16:33:17Z

In this three-part series, Ashley Smith interviews two advanced tech workers, Josh and Yasmine, on the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its many intersecting implications for the nature of our lives, labor, and the Left. This initial installment provides a contextual overview of artificial intelligence as it is known in current political discourse and discusses both the financial and existential “hype” around AI. The second will explore AI's connection to global labor and imperialism struggles, and the third will propose organizing interventions and strategies of resistance for the Left.

- Features / Economy

AI, data and inequality: preserving democracy

Eliana Como — 2026-10-29T14:01:55Z

The dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) do not lie in the technological development itself, but in its management by uncontrolled economic powers. To counter this risk, there are “only” two strategies: collective struggle and political resistance in order to remove technology from purely extractive and capitalist logics.

- Features / Economy

Battle over AI Creates New Political Allies and Enemies

Dan La Botz — 2026-09-25T10:10:43Z

AI or artificial intelligence systems may have the power to destroy human life say several AI experts and industry leaders. Their statements have led to a political fight between those who want to accelerate the development of AI and those who want to slow development and regulate the industry. The debate over AI's power and danger resembles the fight over nuclear energy in the 1950s.

- IVP620 - September 2026 / United States (USA), Economy

Washington's Seizure of Venezuelan Oil: Where Have the Oil Revenues Gone Since 3 January 2026?

Éric Toussaint — 2026-08-22T07:49:34Z

On 3 January 2026, the United States launched a military operation against Venezuela, resulting in the capture and detention of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and their transfer to the United States. During this attack, carried out using 150 aircraft, around a hundred people lost their lives, including 32 Cubans who had attempted to protect the country's presidential palace; the remaining victims were Venezuelans. A few hours after this intervention, Donald Trump announced that Washington now claimed to be temporarily in control of Venezuela and would exploit its oil resources.

- IVP619 - August 2026 / United States (USA), Economy, Venezuela

After hyperglobalisation: the capitalist reconfiguration

Diogo Machado and Alexandre Abreu — 2026-08-01T15:42:27Z

Crises of capital accumulation, from the 1970s to the 2008 financial crisis, combined with the emergence of new powers, shape capitalist and imperialist policies.

- Features / Economy, Features, Imperialism

An important contribution by Ernest Mandel to the debate on the transition to socialism

Éric Toussaint, Ernest Mandel — 2026-08-01T14:43:25Z

We are reprinting an important text that Ernest Mandel wrote in late 1963 to contribute to the public debate that had begun in Cuba a few months earlier. The main participants in the debate were, on the one hand, Ernesto Che Guevara (Minister of Industry) and Luis Álvarez Rom (Minister of Finance) and, on the other, Alberto Mora (Minister of Foreign Trade) and Marcelo Fernández Font (President of the National Bank of Cuba).
At the Cubans' request, two foreign Marxist economists joined the (…)

- Ernest Mandel Archive / Economy, Ernest Mandel, Features

The imperialism of our time

Benjamin Bürbaumer — 2026-07-27T11:06:52Z

The discussion continues on the nature of imperialisms and their functions in international relations. Interview with Benjamin Bürbaumer, economist specialist in globalisation and international political economy, by Juan Tortosa.

- Features / Economy, Features, Imperialism

Earth's first trillionaire – a damning indictment of late capitalism

Simon Hannah — 2026-06-25T19:42:59Z

A man who does Nazi salutes and promotes race wars has become the world's first trillionaire. Simon Hannah makes the case for a political revolution

- IVP617 - June 2026 / United States (USA), Economy

Global profits: an upward turn?

Michael Roberts — 2026-06-17T14:25:13Z

At the end of 2025, corporate profits in the major economies accelerated after stagnating in 2024. The global figure below is calculated from a weighted (by GDP) average of profits in the US, UK, Japan, Germany and China (taken from national accounts and in national currencies).

- Features / Economy, Features

The political economy of Ukraine's war and the politics of a coming bad peace

Adam Novak — 2026-05-29T13:32:13Z

What Moscow expected to be a war of weeks is now into its fifth year. Ukrainian railway workers, miners and energy crews keep the country running under Russian bombardment while Ukraine's oligarchic state will not ask the rich to pay for defence. This article documents the price the Ukrainian working class is paying, the feminised volunteer infrastructure carrying what the state will not, the mass anti-corruption mobilisations, and the stakes of a reconstruction now being designed in donor conferences.

- Features / Economy, Ukraine