Alex Callinicos

Good riddance to Donald Rumsfeld

“Donald Rumsfeld never loses.” James Mann in his book about George W Bush’s war cabinet, The Rise of the Vulcans, calls this “an old bit of folk wisdom that has been quietly passed around among Republicans for decades”.

China’s champions of state capitalism

Zheng Zeguang, the Chinese ambassador to Britain, recently tweeted a picture of him visiting Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate, London.

What is behind the fears about inflation?

One issue is dominating discussion of the major economies—inflation. This has to do with both reality and fear.

Israel’s strategy fuels resistance

There was never any doubt that the giant Israeli military machine could inflict terrible death and devastation on Gaza.

Neoliberalism is alive and useful to rulers

Is neoliberalism over? This is what many of its defenders are beginning to fear. Chris Giles, the economics editor of the Financial Times, recently lamented, “The left is winning the economic battle of ideas.”

Dark web of Tory sleaze unravelled

The most interesting thing about the Tory sleaze scandal is not the Boris Johnson vs Dominic Cummings grudge match, enjoyable though that is. Everyone knows these are two thoroughly unscrupulous and unpleasant individuals.

Repression is rulers’ response to crisis

13 April 2021
The Tory government’s Police and Crime Bill is a very nasty attack on civil liberties. But it’s not an aberration.

Debt is rising but the rich won’t be paying

08 March 2021
Everyone is talking about debt. This is mainly because of the enormous amounts governments are borrowing to cover extra spending in responding to the pandemic.

Is the City losing its financial domination?

16 February 2021
Is world history going into reverse? The great historian Fernand Braudel argued that the modern capitalist world economy always has had a city at its centre, starting in the later Middle Ages with Venice.

Myanmar is fought over by imperialists

09 February 2021
The neoliberal imperialists who have returned to office in Washington with Joe Biden are finding the world has become more complicated since they left with Barack Obama four years ago.

Vaccine nationalism will endanger us all

02 February 2021
Farcical aspects aside, the row over the European Union’s vaccine supplies reveals the inability of the present system to manage the Covid-19 pandemic.

European economies are headed for crash

05 October 2020
The political disarray the pandemic is causing in Britain and the United States has made the European Union (EU) look good by comparison.

Is EU singing from Hamilton songbook?

25 May 2020
Alexander Hamilton, one of the brilliant group of “founding fathers” of the United States and its first finance minister, was once remembered mainly because he was killed in a duel by vice president Aaron Burr in 1804.

Science advice is shaped by politics

27 April 2020
The latest bombshell to explode in the government’s face has hit its claim to base its policy for the Covid-19 pandemic on “the science” or “the evidence”

Will US hegemony survive pandemic?

20 April 2020
Donald Trump's decision to withdraw United States funding for the World Health Organisation symbolises how the coronavirus pandemic has been dominated by national responses to what is a global problem.

Lockdown policies hit the Global South

06 April 2020
There’s an old cliche about the economy falling off a cliff. This time it really has, all over the world.

Spending smears are a sign of the storm ahead

12 November 2019
No general election would be complete without the Tories denouncing Labour for its irresponsible fiscal plans. The classic example was the 1992 campaign, when John Major’s team first warned against “Labour’s Tax Bombshell”, soon to be followed by “Labour’s Double Whammy—1. More Taxes, 2. Higher Prices.”