Africa ought to be the richest continent on Earth. Its natural resources alone make this a fact, and yet it remains oppressed and prey to exploitation. William Briggs explains why.
neoliberal capitalism
Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso's neoliberal economic policies and proposals are facing determined opposition from diverse social sectors, Harvey Goldberg reports.
Neoliberal ideology has reduced tertiary education to a commodity. Students have become “customers” and academics and lecturers are now “service providers”, writes Markela Panegyres.
The scale and scope of government measures to deal with the COVID-19 crisis have shattered long-held neoliberal dogmas, writes Dave Holmes.
In 1792, pioneering British feminist and social justice activist Mary Wollstonecroft wrote in The Rights of Women: “It is justice, not charity that is wanting in the world.”
Now, 226 years later, Labour has anchored that fundamental truth in its vision for international development: A World for the Many, Not the Few.
Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis
By John Smith
Monthly Review Press, 2016
On April 24, 2013 a clothing factory in Rana Plaza, Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed, killing 1133 workers and injuring 2500 others.
This image of super-exploited, fatally-trapped workers, hemmed in by national borders and racist migration policies preventing them from moving to safer, better-paid work opens John Smith’s book — and illustrates his outrage.
Privatisation continues to be touted as a quick fix, so the mantra goes “public sector bad, private sector good”.
That is, using community funds and resources to build up a vital service or piece of infrastructure, usually over a period of many years, then when there is a “budget crisis” selling it off to yield a quick cash injection and the removal of an expense from the ledger — regardless of whether it is generating income or not — while giving sweetheart deals to the new owners to ensure monopoly-like conditions to maximise their profits.
