Against Nationalism and War!
Submitted by Internationalis... on Apr 28 2018 11:47
May Day 2018 Statement of the Internationalist Communist Tendency.
Miguel Amorós interviewed by Rubén Martín for El Informador (Guadalajara)
A March 2018 interview in which Miguel Amorós discusses his anti-development concepts, the global trend towards mega-urbanization, the destructive tendencies of capitalist development, Latin American populist governments and their social basis, the civil society movement, and perspectives for a movement to create a better world.
Universal Basic Income
Submitted by Internationalis... on Apr 17 2018 13:57
UBI is gaining traction amongst the capitalist class because it presents a last-ditch ploy to maintain ‘social peace’ and undermine a collective working class fight back in the economic turbulence to come. Not so much a “utopia for realists” as a dystopian reformist panacea in the face of declining ‘economic growth’, wages, services and general quality of life.
Tragic events in Russia
Submitted by Internationalis... on Apr 8 2018 09:59
Exactly a week after Putin’s “landslide” victory in the Russian Presidential election (March 18) a terrible fire broke out in the “Winter Cherry” shopping and entertainment centre of the Siberian city of Kemerovo. It killed more than 80 people, at least 40 of whom are children. Some are still missing. Appalling though Kemerovo was, it was not an isolated incident.
Brexit 2018: The Ruling Class Nightmare Continues
Submitted by Internationalis... on Feb 7 2018 15:05
During the preparation for the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU) we made it entirely clear (in Revolutionary Perspectives 08) that the debate was one that class-conscious workers should not have been drawn into – on either side. Participating in the exercise could only line workers up behind one or other faction of the ruling class. The stories peddled by both sides – that somehow workers would benefit from the British state either maintaining or ditching their relationship with EU institutions – were full of lies and imagined, but non-existent, benefits.
The whole world is like a nowhere land called Alicante – Miguel Amorós
A brief, and idiosyncratic, social and economic history of the medium-sized Valencian city of Alicante since the Spanish Civil War, denouncing the negative impact of chaotic development, venal and corrupt politicians, unbridled consumerism, the role played by the automobile in social atomization, the destruction of old working class neighborhoods, real estate speculation, the cynical exploitation of local cultural traditions, the noxious effects of an economy based on tourism, the ruin of traditional agriculture, and the proliferation of hideous skyscrapers in a nauseating panorama of trivialization and degradation that is typical of so many other cities all over the world.
Carillion’s Failure and the Private Finance Initiative
Submitted by Internationalis... on Feb 3 2018 11:17
The collapse of Carillion is another symptom of capitalism’s general crisis of profitability. We are told the PFI and debacle of Carillion are not the way capitalism is supposed to work. Unfortunately this is the way capitalism is supposed to work, and the way it worked under state control also. The system is supposed to transfer wealth created by the working class to those who own capital and this is precisely what has been happening with Carillion, with PFI in general and with privatisation.
Capitalism’s Crisis of Stagnation and Austerity
Submitted by Internationalis... on Jan 30 2018 16:11
As 2018 opens economic optimism is breaking out amongst the capitalist class. Leaving aside the vainglorious boasts of the current President of the United States that unemployment in the US has reached lows only last seen in the post-war boom, or that the New York stock market is now at all time record highs, more serious economic commentators are arguing that after a decade of misery (at least for 99% of the planet) the signs of recovery from the 2007-8 banking collapse are now behind us. If this sounds familiar it is because we have heard the same tale so many times.
The pitfalls of the social economy – Miguel Amorós
The text of a 2017 presentation examining the significance of the “third sector” or “social economy”, the non-profit community development and assistance sector, its origins as a replacement for faltering government aid programs for excluded sectors of the population, its diversification and increasing economic impact on job creation, service provision and housing, its association with the “civil society” movement, its avoidance of conflict with state and private power and its reliance on parliamentary procedures and negotiations, its ideological smokescreens, and the rise of the “new commons” ideology as a delusional strategy for non-confrontational withdrawal from the system.
The veins of Latin America are more open than ever – Miguel Amorós
The text of a 2017 presentation on the key role of extractive industries in contemporary world capitalism, their effect on the “territory” and its inhabitants, the left-wing parties’ support for export-oriented capitalist development that devastates the rural areas of their countries in exchange for funds to finance social programs, the importance of the “new middle classes” in serving as mediators for the rule of multinational corporations in Latin America, the fraud of “civil society” movements and their promotion of “sustainable development”, and the crucial role of peasant and indigenous movements in complementing urban struggles for “self-governed life in common”.
