“It is a massive contradiction when you declare a very large portion of the population superfluous. This portion of the population is not going to remain always meek and compliant and resigned to the conditions to which it is condemned. So things are happening, things are changing. But these changes will have to go [...]

  In what follows, ‘capital’, following Marx, refers to a historically specific mode of production (based on the producers’ separation from the conditions of production) and the corresponding social relation between producers and the owners of the conditions of production – the basis of the modern society. In this situation the conditions of production (including [...]

  3. From the tyranny of necessary labour time to emancipation through disposable time (concluding part) How can labour—the structural antagonist of capital—counter the deteriorating trend inseparable from the narrowing margin of capital’s productive viability? This question takes us back to the third element of Rifondazione’s quest for securing the 35 hours working week quoted [...]

  2. The myth of flexibility: downward equalization of the differential rate of exploitation On May 19, 1998 the French Parliament passed a law reducing the working week to 35 hours. Similar legislation is expected also in Italy in the not too distant future. It would be very naïve, however, to think that this is [...]

  1. The globalization of unemployment Socialists in several European countries—as well as in North and South America—are fighting for the objective of reducing labour time to 35 hours per week without loss of pay. This important strategic demand is by no means free from its difficulties. For it highlights both the pressing problem of [...]

  Contents Foreword 1. The ‘Globalization’ of Unemployment 2. The myth of flexibility: downward equalization of the differential rate of exploitation 3. From the tyranny of necessary labour time to emancipation through disposable time Notes [By István Mészáros, speech given to seminar organised by Workers Left Unity-Iran, 18 March 2000.]  Part-1  Foreword I have chosen [...]

    “whom am I now to believe, political economy or ethics? … It stems from the very nature of estrangement that each sphere applies to me a different and opposite yardstick – ethics one and political economy another; for each is a specific estrangement of man and focuses attention on a particular field of [...]

  Perhaps it’s one of history’s surprises that the popular uprising surging through Spain today (and which is beginning to reverberate throughout the rest of Europe) was sparked on the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune, a heroic moment in which the fundamental demand was also that of democracy. But a democracy conceived as a [...]

  Contributions to a New Communist Theory on Women’s Liberation ” Women being not only oppressed among all the oppressed groups, but also the last group to be liberated are the most reliable, stable, and basic force which needs to be tapped not only in winning the revolution but also in waging continuous revolution.” ” [...]

  “The enemies of the workers, the finance capitalists with all the power, have taken them to heart for a long time.  As Warren Buffett famously said, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Well, it is far past the time for us to [...]