austerity
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Alter Summit: A People’s Manifesto
The European oligarchy employs ever more authoritarian methods to prop up a failed neoliberal system – all this despite widespread protest and resistance. Democracy and peace are under threat. Discrimination, based on religion, racism, homophobia or sexism and nationalism are on the rise and the crisis is deepening daily. Continue reading
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A Hefty Bill: Guarding Assange in London By Binoy Kampmark
We live in an age of austerity, if we are to believe the scorched earth cult that has taken over most Western governments. Budgets are being slashed by economic irrationalists. Outlays are being trimmed. The nippers and snippers are doing their worst, and here, we have an astonishing statistic. The British government, through its police… Continue reading
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Ireland and the Basque Country By James Petras
Many billions of Euros are being extracted from Europe’s vassal-debtor nations – Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland –and transferred to the creditor banks, financial speculators and swindlers located in the City of London, Wall Street, Geneva and Frankfort. Under what has been termed ‘austerity’ programs vast tributary payments are amassed by ruling Conservative and Social… Continue reading
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The Greek Crisis and the Left Response: Two Essays by Panagiotis Sotiris
For the past three years Greece has been at the same time an experiment in neoliberal social engineering and a laboratory of movements and collective struggles. For the first time in many decades we have the case of a country entering a phase of profound social and political crisis that has the potential to turn… Continue reading
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A minimal program by S. Artesian
It’s not often that I read the articles on the New York Times Op-Ed page. And I can’t remember ever recommending any such article to anyone for any reason. But today, May 13, 2013, I read and I recommend “How Austerity Kills” by David Stuckler and Sanjay Basau. Continue reading
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Statewatch: Austerity, democracy and civil liberties
The Journal has been redesigned and each issue will now have a thematic focus. This issue focuses on the nexus between austerity, civil liberties and democracy. Continue reading
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“Let us glory in our inequality.” By Michael Hudson
As in Chile, privatization in Britain was a victory for Chicago monetarism. This time it was implemented democratically. In fact, voters endorsed Margaret Thatcher’s selloff of public industries so strongly that by 1991, when she was replaced as prime minister by her own party’s John Major, only 35 percent of Britain’s voters supported the Labour… Continue reading
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European Trade Unions and the Struggle for Public Services By Christoph Hermann
The public sector is a key battleground for a progressive trade union strategy and for an alternative to neoliberalism in Europe. On the one hand the existence of a public sector is a continuing example that a not for profit driven production of goods and services is not only possible in the 21st century –… Continue reading
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The Crisis of the European Welfare State An interview with Asbjørn Wahl
This is the start of a new era of social struggle. Social models, however, cannot be copied, neither from previous phases in history, nor from country to country. Social models are the concrete results of struggles and power relations in society. Continue reading
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Videos worth watching
15 February 2013 — The Real News Network Worker Owned Businesses Point to New Forms of OwnershipCan co-ops come out of the margins of the economy and be part of a larger political project to transform how things are owned?Go to story | Go to homepage Continue reading
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Reshaping Fiscal Policies In Europe: Enforcing Austerity, Attacking Democracy By Hugo Radice
These proposals, when fully implemented, will not only enforce a permanent regime of fiscal austerity, but also further remove macroeconomic policy from democratic control. For these reasons they need to be vigorously fought right across Europe. But if readers in the UK imagine that they are not affected, since we are not in the Eurozone,… Continue reading
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Europe: Existential Danger: New Political Challenges By Elisabeth Gauthier
In Europe, an ‘oligarchy’ has increasingly gotten hold of various powers; it is becoming radicalized and sees the moment as having come in which brutally to accelerate the dismantling of social and democratic gains, notably by profiting from the ‘crisis of public debt,’ generalizing austerity policies which, in turn feed the crisis. Continue reading
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UK’s poorest families face hundreds of percent tax rise
Under the UK government’s austerity program millions of low income households are facing a hike in their council tax bills of up to 333% a year. New changes are to be introduced this April, while Scotland and Wales chose not to implement the cuts to benefit. Continue reading
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Venezuelans Continue to Defy Washington Post By Peter Hart
The Washington Post has never been fond of left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. As serious questions mount about the state of Chavez’s health, the paper’s editorial page (1/5/13) found it a good time to take another swipe Continue reading
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UK council leaders warn of social unrest By Robert Stevens
The leaders of three Labour Party-controlled city councils wrote a letter to the Observer, published December 29, warning that the scale of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat austerity agenda could lead to “the break-up of civil society”. Continue reading
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America’s Deceptive 2012 Fiscal Cliff By Michael Hudson
When World War I broke out in August 1914, economists on both sides forecast that hostilities could not last more than about six months. Wars had grown so expensive that governments quickly would run out of money. It seemed that if Germany could not defeat France by springtime, the Allied and Central Powers would run… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 