IV406 - November 2008

The files in the November 2008 issue of International Viewpoint can be viewed in magazine format and downloaded as a PDF file.

The seism on Wall Street has surprised the world Establishment. At the summits of power, panic and alarmist declarations dominate. Everyone is absorbing an event which could be the beginning of a change of epoch. The comparison with the fall of the Berlin Wall gives some indication of this historical dimension.

From the beginning of the “subprime” crisis of September 2007, we noted that this banking and financial crisis was the forerunner to a total economic crisis, that marked a historical turning point in the world economy and situation. Today, for all commentators, the historical bench mark for estimating the extent of the crisis is “the crisis of 1929”, with differences… but it is of this breadth.

Alex Callinicos’s article shows well the changes that have taken place in the radical left in recent months. The characteristics of the situation, and in particular the deepening of the crisis of the capitalist system and the social-liberal evolution of social democracy, confirm that there is a space “to the left of the reformist left”.

In the past couple of years the fortunes of the radical left have diverged sharply. The most important case on the negative side was provided by the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista in Italy.... Fortunately, there are more positive experiences. The most exciting of these has been the initiative taken by the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire to launch a New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA).

What remains from the Communist Manifesto in 2008, one hundred and sixty years after its publication? As David Harvey observes in his brilliant preface to this edition, the present financial crisis corresponds in an astonishing way to the predictions of Marx and Engels: “ the society of the ‘too much’, of ‘overproduction’ and excessive speculation, has plainly broken down and reverted, as it always does’ to a ‘state of momentary barbarism”.

The political impact of the NPA process is quite important. In a number places, this new political party in constitution is already de facto replacing the LCR and is very active.

The central thread of this work is an evaluation of Antonio Gramsci’s fundamental contributions to the theory of revolutionary social transformation, particularly incorporating the role of the revolutionary party as the central institution of revolutionary conflict: its position as the ’’Modern Prince’’ and the ’’Collective Intellectual’’, its relation to different socio-political actors (its allies and opponents, different classes, the state and the civil society).

MILLIONS OF AMERICANS see the election of Barack Obama as a referendum on white supremacy and today we join in their celebration. The racist campaigns launched against Obama, conducted sometimes in coded language and other times in inflammatory accusations, turned out to be amazingly unsuccessful.

The political panorama of the French left has been shaken in recent months by the announcement of the creation of a New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) at the initiative of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) of Olivier Besancenot.