After the weekend’s million and a half strong “March for dignity” in Madrid, once again showing that the wave of radicalisation that has swept Spain since the 15-M protests of 2011 is far from over, LUKE STOBART returns to Left Flank with the second instalment of a special three-part analysis of the Indignados movement and […]
17 Mar
LUKE STOBART with the first instalment of a special three-part analysis of the radicalisation that has swept Spain since the 15-M protests of 2011. *** Anti-politics and the 15-M movement On 15 May 2011 the new collectives Juventud Sin Futuro (Youth Without Future) and ¡Democracia Real Ya! (Real Democracy Now!), demonstrated in Madrid using […]
10 Jan
I’m putting up a link here to my review of two books on the crisis in psychiatry — which has just appeared in the latest International Socialism journal in the UK — so that people can write comments and I can reply. The books are: Ethan Watters, Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche (Free Press, 2010) Gary […]
23 Sep
By MARC NEWMAN This article continues the analysis of Labor’s crisis — especially in terms of its meaning for trade unions and social movements — begun here. Despite the defeat of the ALP, the election was not a crushing victory for the conservatives. Fewer seats fell than expected, and some of the LNP gains in the lower […]
18 Sep
In the first of two posts on the modern crisis of Australian Laborism, MARC NEWMAN looks at the roots of the ALP’s problems in its embrace of neoliberalism in the 1980s. *** Labor’s voter base remained stable for the bulk of the 20th century, through numerous changes in political circumstances. It only dipped below a 40 […]
06 Sep
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My long-form essay on the trajectory of the Greens since 2010 is now up at Overland Journal‘s website, and will be in the print edition due out next week. No comments option at Overland, so feel free to comment below. The rise of the Greens represented a historic realignment of the Left of Australian politics, […]
09 Jul
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Jacobin magazine has just started their inaugural Book Club seminar on Panitch and Gindin’s The Making of Global Capitalism. Up today is my contribution, ‘Within or Against the State‘, which is chiefly in response to how the authors conceive of the state in relation to class struggle. Also available to be read, with more to follow, […]
09 Jun
Here is an edited transcript of the speech I gave at the Secure Jobs in a Green Future Conference. Thanks to the Search Foundation for inviting me along, and to the other speakers on the panel: Sally McManus, Andrew Giles, Cate Faehrmann, Nick Martin and Hall Greenland. You can now access many of the presentations […]
10 Apr
If there’s one thing the entire Australian Left agrees on right now it’s that “Thatcherism was a very bad thing”. But beyond that, it may be appropriate to ask what exactly it is that people think was a bad thing. The answer to that question rests on one’s interpretation of what exactly was going on […]
10 Mar
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by KEVIN OVENDEN Below are the points, updated and a little amplified, I made in a contribution to the highly successful Unite Against Fascism conference in London on 2 March. The speech (and I’ve incorporated my summing up) was in a workshop with Petros Constantinou from Greece, Marwan Mohammed from France and Glyn Ford […]
24 Mar
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