News

Banks propped up by states a decade on

The 2007-8 financial crash continues to overshadow the world economy. The big economic news last week was the decision of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve Board (Fed), not to increase interest rates.

Class was the key for Erik Olin Wright

The Marxist sociologist Erik Olin Wright died of leukaemia last week. He was 71 years old.

Jeremy Corbyn can break the impasse over Brexit if he backs free movement

After the crushing House of Commons defeat for her deal with the European Union (EU), Theresa May has been going through the motions of talking to opposition parties.

Struggle can break paralysis on Brexit

A thin ray of light shone through the Brexit tangle last week. Two government defeats in the House of Commons marked the moment when Theresa May definitively lost control of the parliamentary process governing Britain’s departure from the European Union (EU).

Turkey gains from isolationist Donald Trump

Just before Christmas Donald Trump took an important step towards controlling his own administration. By announcing the withdrawal of US troops in Syria he provoked the resignation of his defence secretary Jim Mattis.

Oil is an incentive in the US and Saudi relationship

The recent see-sawing of the oil price has a lot more to do with politics—particularly geopolitical competition among states—than economics

What does global capital want out of a Brexit deal?

Brexit has become, as numerous commentators have pointed out, a historic crisis of the British state

US is trying to slow down China’s rise

Donald Trump has been blundering around Europe again, picking fights as he goes. But the relationship that really matters is between the US and China.

The White House can’t trump socialism

The Trump administration is full of surprises. The White House’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) has just published a 72-page report called, “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism.”

Why Fukuyama still doesn’t get history

Francis Fukuyama has published a new book with the remarkably dull title Identity—not that anyone has really noticed. It was very different back in 1992, when The End of History and the Last Man came out.

Clash between Turkey and Saudi Arabia gives Donald Trump a headache

We’ve seen again how hard it has become to manage the Middle East in the interests of Western imperialism. The players this time are the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Will the rich flee before a Corbyn government?

While Brexit obsesses politicians and commentators, the super-rich apparently are more worried about Jeremy Corbyn.

Liberals do not have any answers to crisis

Ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it’s a matter of controversy whether the global economic crisis it helped to precipitate is over.

The Labour right are attacking the real anti-racists

Something remarkable is happening in the Labour Party. The right is trying to seize the mantle of anti-racism.

The global trade war hasn’t been resolved

Last week the developing trade war between the three main economic blocs—the United States, the European Union (EU), and China—seemed to relent.

Fight antisemitism, not Corbyn’s Labour

If you want to make sense of the row about Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism you have above all to understand that it has nothing to do with antisemitism.

Trump’s chaos tour will unleash far right

The extreme centre, as author Tariq Ali dubbed mainstream neoliberal parties, is convinced that Donald Trump’s European tour confirmed he is unfit to be president. And it’s true that his performance has been characteristically erratic, and occasionally idiotic.

Why EU cannot heal its national divisions

Apparently Jeremy Corbyn is under growing pressure from within the Labour Party to support a second referendum on Brexit. This comes not just from the Tony Blair fan club on the Labour right but also from within Corbyn’s own grassroots support movement Momentum.

Livingstone case shows it’s risky for Corbyn to appease the right

Every time the Labour right have confronted Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters in open combat they’ve been defeated, usually humiliatingly. But they’ve just been allowed to score a major victory

Regional rivalries lie behind Trump shifts

Why is Donald Trump destabilising the Middle East? For that’s what he’s doing by moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Iran.