For three years now, Europe has been in the throes of the worst economic crisis since the end of the Second World War. Especially in the poorer countries of the EU, the crisis has struck with full force. In preparatory obedience, to make sure it would indeed fulfil all the expectations of international speculators, Spain brutally slashed its public budget. Pensions were reduced, workers rights struck down, public investments cut back and taxes raised. The result is a paralyzed country in which 40% of young people are now unemployed.
Archive for the ‘Crisis’ Category
Euro-crisis: In Ireland, the Worst is Yet to Come
Monday, March 7th, 2011
Roland Kulke, RLF Brussels
Ireland is to receive €85 billion from the European Financial Stabilization Facility, a large part of which will be passed on through to the country’s banks. Altogether, this credit line has been stocked up to the tune of €400 billion; on top of that comes €60 billion from the European Commission’s Financial Consolidation Mechanism. The Commission was particularly proud of the latter instrument, since it thought it was getting a tool that might move the Brussels bureaucracy a tiny step towards greater financial autonomy. But their hope that of some day becoming a player on the financial field was soon dashed: Merkel and Sarkozy made it clear that this mechanism will expire in 2013.
Dilemmas of Contemporary Environmentalism
Friday, March 4th, 2011Joan Martínez Alier analyses in his paper the negative tendencies of the impacts of the economy on the environment and the rising conflicts of ecological distribution. The text is in Spanish.
From Dakar to Egypt and Back Again – The 2011 World Social Forum in Dakar
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
By Ulrich Brand, University of Vienna
These days, world history is being written in Cairo and other North-African cities and countries. But the ten-year old World Social Forum, which took place in mid-February in Dakar, Senegal, has proven itself to be an indispensible transnational space of encounters, for the development of strategy, or for launching campaigns. For many activists, the Forum began already one week before the official opening, with a migration caravan from Bamako, Mali, to Dakar, which sought to both inform people, and learn from and network with them, about the complex interrelationships surrounding the issue of migration. Beyond this one, a number other caravans towards the Senegalese capital had been organised as ways for their participants to highlight their respective issues, and to learn about other conditions and situations.
Entry Projects to a Politics of Solidarity: A Radical Practice Test of Counter-hegemony in Times of the Crisis of Neo-liberal Financial Market Capitalism
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
By Michael Brie, Director of the Institute of Social Analysis, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Berlin)
An analysis of Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony reveals a “magic square” which societal forces must form in order to successfully challenge the ruling structure in a counter-hegemonic manner: The first side of that square is the emergence of the possibility for a new and higher societal stage of productivity. The old power and property structures must have proven themselves as chains binding the new productive forces. The second concerns individual life opportunities. “Society” or “classes” do nothing; rather, it is always concrete people in concrete groups who take the risk of dissident action, or of refusal, upon themselves. The third is the necessary interconnection of conflicting interests, a historic compromise which links very different or even contrary classes and social groups. The fourth is that none of this is possible without a new moral foundation, a superior system of values.
The Left in Government in Latin America and Europe
Friday, July 9th, 2010
“The Left in Government II: Latin America and Europe Compared” – RLS-Conference in Brussels, 27-29 June 2010
Political activists from Latin America and Europe met for the second time in recent days at the invitation of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Brussels to discuss their experience with participation in government. At the first conference, the opinion had been unanimous: Yes, despite some disappointing results, such as those in France and Italy, the left could not resist the challenge of assuming governmental responsibility. The recent second conference was to serve to deepen the discussion. How is the left reacting to the worldwide crisis? What strategic concepts are they following? Are there political topic areas, in which the left is implementing new ideas? What about such issues as participatory justice, ecology, deepening democracy, or an alternative financial architecture?
A Different Government is Possible! Beyond the Centre-left Governments in Europe
Monday, June 28th, 2010
By Michael Brie, Institute of Social Analysis, RLS
1. A NEW STRATEGIC SITUATION
The short social-democatic decade and the return of the conservatives
After the German parliamentary elections in 1998, thirteen of fifteen governments of the then member countries of the European Union were led by social democrats; Spain and Ireland were the only exceptions. Within a decade, this picture has been reversed completely. The centre-left in Europe is everywhere on the defensive.
Self-criticism on the part of the left of its last twenty years is the necessary point of departure for real renewal. For the life goals, the political convictions and the style of politics of the most important leaders were no longer of the left, the results of their politics no longer had any connection to leftist goals, and the cooperative base for a common left formation had disintegrated. To put it bluntly, this left no longer knew what it wanted. It no longer wanted what it could do. It could no longer do what would have been good for itself and for the country.
The Crisis of Capitalism and Post-capitalist Horizons
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
By Pedro Páez Pérez – A century ago, Rosa Luxemburg stated that the historical dilemma humankind faced at that time was either socialism or barbarism. The current global crisis underscores emphatically the need to create the objective and subjective conditions to guarantee a solution that enriches and projects the best of human experience from the last centuries. It is a responsibility incumbent upon the progressive forces to immediately create a resolute programme which will permit political consolidation, while at the same time blocking the emerging neo-fascist agenda and opening the way for major transformations.
The Left in Iceland
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Auður Lilja Erlingsdóttir, Iceland
From the middle of the 19th century, the question of Iceland’s independence from Denmark dominated the Icelandic political scene. With sovereignty in 1918 and full independence in 1944, the Icelandic society began to change. Iceland moved from being an agricultural society to a more industrialized one, causing swift changes in settlement, life style and living conditions. The Icelandic party system was not immune to these changes in the social structure.
Left and Progressive Governments of Latin America and the Challenges Posed by the Crisis of Civilization
Friday, April 9th, 2010
By Edgardo Lander, Venezuela – With the recognition of the deep civilization crisis and the limits of the planet, any project for a democratic transformation of society necessarily has to include radical alternatives to the predatory logic of this society of progress and of subjugation/exploitation of so-called “nature”. This requires, in the first place, an anticapitalist option.
English