It has been a popular meme in recent years that American power is in decline. China’s rise is impressive, although some predict a Chinese crash. However a recent report by HSBC on the world economy in 2050 casts doubt on the assumption of American decline and sheds some light on the prospects of social democracy. […]
End of a Communist era: Jyoti Basu
The death on Sunday of Jyoti Basu, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) leader and Chief Minister of West Bengal 1977-2000 marks the end of an era in the history of the left within the old British Empire and its former colonies. Basu as a student in London in the 1930s was inspired by the […]
Global futures
In teaching Australian Identities: Indigenous & Multicultural I include some big picture speculation about the future. I draw on Jeffrey Williamson’s 2003 Noel Butlin lecture on world factor migrations and demographic transitions. Williamson describes how 19th century migration was driven by the desire of the young to escape European overpopulation and poverty for the much […]
Rembering Jerry Cohen
Reviewing my lecture on Marxism for Modern Political Ideologies I looked over Andrew Heywood’s valuable Political Ideologies. To Heywood any future for Marxism rests on ‘post-Marxism’ in the Laclau-Mouffe sense. There was a time when an alternative road was proposed: that of analytical Marxism. Jerry Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History was one of its […]
Indian Left at a loss
Earlier this year I had a chapter in The Politics and Culture of Globalisation; India and Australia. The chapter addressed Indian Communism. Since then the Indian Left has suffered a severe setback in the national elections. The alliance of the two Communist parties (the CPI(Marxist) and the CPI), the All India Forward Bloc and the […]