Hugo Chávez’s rejection of the neoliberal policies dragging Europe down sets a hopeful example to Greece and beyond By Richard Gott May 16, 2012 “The Guardian” — Some years ago, travelling on the presidential plane of Hugo Chávez of Venezuela with a French friend from Le Monde Diplomatique, we were asked what we thought was [...]

    “Recovery of Marx’s ideas could help improve ecological science itself, since there is a lack of understanding of the dialectical character of the social metabolism between humanity and nature. Marx’s work also helps us to recognize that the negative dynamics of resource use under capitalism must be replaced by the rational-scientific planning of [...]

A Rebellious World or a New Dark Age? On the History of the US Economy in Decline “It’s inevitable. But unless the spirit of the last year, here and elsewhere in the country and around the globe, continues to grow and becomes a major force in the social and political world, the chances for a [...]

  Part I: Spontaneous Education? While working people are often enough unhappy with their work, or lack of it, and alienated from the political system, they ordinarily do not have a very clear understanding of the nature of our political economy or a desire to radically transform it. Why is this? Karl Marx hinted that [...]

  Against the wishes of the male French revolutionaries, their own actions let the genie out of the bottle.  To anyone who visits Iran today, it is quite clear the same outcome is occurring in the Islamic Republic – not in spite of the 1979 revolution, but because of it. The French revolution in 1789 [...]

  If you want to defy authority, you should arm yourself with some ideas   A few weeks ago, a 22-year-old man named Jefferson Bethke produced a video called “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.” The video went viral. It speaks for many young believers who feel close to God but not to the [...]

  “Black Monday,” September 19, 1977, was the day 34 years ago when the shuttering of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube steel mill threw 5,000 steelworkers onto the streets of their decaying Midwestern hometown. No local, state or federal programs offered significant help. Steelworkers called training programs “funeral insurance”: they led nowhere since there were [...]

For the first time since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958, the French political left have won an absolute majority in the Senate. In elections held on September 25, a broad front, ranging from the Communist Party through the Socialist Party (PS) to the Europe Ecologie-The Greens (EELV) and left radicals, gained 175 of [...]

  On 9/13 morning, the Census Bureau released its annual report on income—including median income, inequality, and income poverty—and health insurance coverage in the previous year. As expected given continued high unemployment, the report shows a substantial deterioration in Americans’ economic security between 2009 and 2010, including substantial income losses for middle- and working-class Americans, [...]

  When governments fall deaf to social reality, it’s up to working people to get loud. Obama’s jobs speech proved that the Democrats – like the Republicans – suffer from massive hearing loss, unable to listen to the millions of people suffering from the intractable jobs depression. After mounting pressure from labor and community groups, [...]