Nottingham Save Our Services Campaign

In the dim light of austerity’s dawn, Nottingham finds itself at a crossroads. Grappling with the dire consequences of sweeping budget cuts and a community destabilised, the fight against the cuts has brought the city alive. As city councils nationwide contend with the fallout of austerity measures, the struggle of Nottingham’s residents epitomises the realities knocking on the door of communities up and down the country. In this guest post, Niamh Iliff discusses how in the face of adversity, grassroots movements have emerged to unify the city across a variety of local organisations against the measures and supporting those in the city who are struggling.

The Geopolitics of Global Capitalism and Ukraine

In Adam D. Morton’s and my latest co-authored essay in Socialist Register 2024 we deliver a contribution to understanding contemporary geopolitics without shying away from placing our concerns within an analysis of capitalism. Spotlighting contributions across the social sciences we demonstrate a common tendency to avoid any reference to capitalism as a totality. Instead, mainstream approaches commonly strive for an emphasis on a multiplicity of contingent social factors shaping geopolitics that results in mystifying economic development. We therefore argue that there is a common allergy to capitalist totality as well as historical materialism that grips the international theory of (1) the science-envy of structural realism; (2) constructivist ideas-centred accounts of geopolitical change based on contingency; and (3) approaches that focus on the discursive production and indeterminacy of geopolitics.

Vulture Capitalism: Going beyond Keynesianism and Neo-liberalism!

Tired about reading more post- or neo-Keynesian literature on how the state may be able to step in and solve neo-liberal capitalism’s crisis tendencies? Then Grace Blakeley’s latest book on Vulture Capitalism (Bloomsbury, 2024) is the volume to turn to. 

Engagingly written around a host of stories such as the history of Fordlandia, a factory town in the Amazon rainforest intended to secure rubber for car manufacturing, or the scandals around Boeing and its faulty 737 Max causing hundreds of deaths in two aeroplane crashes, this book provides illuminating insights about what is wrong with capitalism and how we can get beyond it.

Atonement for the Holocaust through support of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza: Germany quo vadis?

The Holocaust has weighed heavily on Germany and the German population. Taught widely across almost all years in school, there is a clear sense that Germany today must take responsibility for its past and act accordingly to redeem itself. Nevertheless, while the German government and many of my fellow German citizens believe that this implies unquestioning support for the state of Israel, I will argue in this post that the main focus has to be on opposing Genocide wherever it occurs.

 

The New Age of Catastrophe: Reviewing Alex Callinicos’ latest book.

With The New Age of Catastrophe (Polity Press, 2023) Alex Callinicos has published another impressive book of great historical and thematic breadth and depth. In this blog post, I will briefly review this volume, outline its merits but also identify a couple of especially conceptual shortcomings.

Kai Wiedenhöfer, 3. März 1966 - 9. Januar 2024!

Fotografie war Kais Leben. Es begann damit, dass er die Portraits aller Schülerinnen und Schüler für die Abschlusszeitung unseres Abiturjahrganges 1986 am Ludwig-Uhland Gymnasium in Kirchheim unter Teck aufnahm. Ab da gab es kein Zurück mehr.

Contesting Musk: Swedish Tesla strike becomes a global conflict

What began as a local strike by 130 mechanics for a collective labour agreement (CLA) in the Swedish Tesla service workshops is escalating into a global conflict, argues Roland Erne in this guest post. According to the Swedish arbitrator for labour disputes, Tesla boss Elon Musk forbade his local managers to make any concessions to the trade unions, even though CLAs have been a central component in Swedish labour relations for decades. Clearly, Elon Musk feels infinitely powerful and thinks he can bring even Europe's strongest labour unions to their knees.