Friday, Jan 27th 2012
There is a sense that, if we could just overcome these temporary setbacks (recession, credit crunch, low export demand) then we might find our way back to a more benign economic climate. There’s very little sense that this is a ‘game-changer’, as Liam, a reader of this blog, put it. For instance, the Sunday Tribune [...]
Draining the Public Sector| Barbara Ehrenreich on the Economic Moment
Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich
A red guide to Italian politics | Hilary Wainwright
Wainwright talks to Paul Ginsborg, author of Democracy: Crisis and Renewal (reviewed on ILR and soon to be interviewed) and others on the Italian left.
“The creation of a Europe-wide left has proved to be a much stickier process than I imagined in 2002 when I stood in [...]
Far right Lieberman is to become Israel’s foreign secretary
Worrying times: In his bid to form a coalition government, Benyamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud Party, has signed an agreement with the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party that will give it five cabinet posts. Party leader Avigdor Lieberman is to become Israel's foreign secretary.
Likud won 27 [...]
In his third post on competitiveness at the progressive economy@tasc blog (previous two here and here), ICTU economists Paul Sweeney asks if a reduction in labour costs, even unit labour costs, will reduce prices for goods and services throughout the economy - the measure needed, the economists tell us, it improve Ireland’s competitiveness. Or will [...]
Eoin Ó Broin’s Sinn Féin and the Politics of Left Republicanism (Pluto Books) looked like a timely book when it came out a few weeks ago. Events since have only emphasised the relevance of its argument.
The book opens with a trenchant defence of Sinn Féin against allegations that is an authoritarian, quasi-fascist movement. Ó Broin acknowledges [...]
Mark Conroy, who kindly posted my essay ‘Towards a New Economic Narrative’ on Indymedia, noted my comment that it was growing quickly out-of-date and asked:
‘In what way is it “out of date”, and what would an updated version of it look like?’
Fair question. With new projections from Ulster Bank suggesting we are entering into a [...]
David Harvey & Alexander Cockburn Interview | GritTV
Harvey makes the same argument as he does in his Red Pepper interview, that the stagnation of wages lead to two things:
The first was the gap between what labour was earning and what it was spending was covered by the rise of the credit card industry and increasing [...]
In the second pamphlet on Italy from the archives of the Irish Socialist Network, which I’m republishing here to coincide with the two recent Perry Anderson essays on the Italian centre right and its ‘invertebrate left‘, the story goes back to the rise of the left in Italy towards the end of the Second World [...]
Indymedia has kindly posted my article ‘Towards A New Economic Narrative’. But I fear it is quickly growing out of date. The speed at which the economy is melting down means we are running hard and still not able to keep up. The article was written in November. Today we are in a much different [...]
