The crisis ripping through financial markets means that thousands of people are asking whether there is an alternative to the current system – and what that alternative might be.
On 7 February 1941 an editorial entitled "The American Century" appeared in Life Magazine signed by its founder and publisher, Henry Luce. It argued that the US had missed its chance at the end of the First World War to mould the world around its economic and social model.
With capitalism appearing to collapse all around us today even some right wing commentators have been forced to admit that Karl Marx might have been right about the crisis-ridden nature of the system.
What happened over the last week?
George Bush’s apocalyptic televised address in the US last week will have signalled the seriousness of this economic crisis – even to those not already aware of it.
The financial crisis has reached such levels that even Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has said that Karl Marx’s critique of "unbridled capitalism" is correct.
On 5 October 1968 a few hundred demonstrators assembled in the mainly Protestant area of the Waterside in Derry in Northern Ireland.
The sheer scale of the global financial crisis has forced Gordon Brown and the government into making a few critical noises about "excesses" in the City and corporate greed.
Is this crisis over? Was it the result of a few rogue bankers? Is the world economy “fundamentally sound”? Could more regulation of financial markets stop this chaos? Or is this a crisis rooted in something more fundamental – the failure of the free market and capitalism itself?
Twenty years ago this month the Burmese army crushed a nationwide democracy movement that had grown out of increasing dissatisfaction with military rule and economic mismanagement.
Following the recent state take-over of financial giants, Ian Birchall reveals the limits of nationalisation, and why socialists stand for a different vision – that of workers’ control
My journey started in Miami, Florida – a city of conspicuous wealth where grand mansions jostle for space along bleached white beaches. But there is another side to Miami – the poverty of the Magic City trailer park where I met Marcos Antonio Prado, a migrant from Guatemala.
