Oxfam India’s latest report revealed that 84 percent of the country suffered a decline in wealth in 2022, even as the number of billionaires grew from 102 to 142. The report notes reduced state investment in public education and healthcare, along with an increased reliance on indirect rather than corporate taxes to raise revenue. In their 2013 book, JEAN DRÈZE and AMARTYA SEN analyze… Read More INDIAN INEQUALITY
Tens of thousands gather for rally and workers in several sectors strike over rightwing government’s proposals Israel’s new hard-right government has begun introducing sweeping legislation aimed at overhauling the judicial system, prompting the largest public demonstrations against the proposed measures to date. In a heated meeting in which several opposition politicians had to be forcibly… Read More Protests and strikes in Israel as plans for judicial overhaul move forward
Polly Toynbee This is deeply embarrassing. Today the Fire Brigades Union called off its planned strikes after being offered 7% for this year backdated, plus 5% next year, by the National Joint Council that negotiates for local authorities. Its members have yet to agree, but council workers settled for a similar deal because local authorities jointly are free to… Read More UK government is losing face on strikes; and millions of votes
‘The Dual State is one of the most erudite books on dictatorship ever written’ Opening paragraphs of Jens Meierhenrich’s 2017 introduction to The Dual State (1941) Though largely forgotten today, Ernst Fraenkel’s The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Democracy, first published in 1941, is one of the seminal works in the study of law… Read More An Ethnography of Nazi Law: The Intellectual Foundations of Ernst Fraenkel’s Theory of Dictatorship
Aidan McQuade Theresa May, both as home secretary and prime minister, pushed for the UK to become a global leader in the international struggle against contemporary forms of slavery. Her vision was always a blurred one, in which she somehow reconciled championing the 2015 Modern Slavery Act alongside prosecuting victims of human trafficking for the… Read More Anti-strike bill: a step toward forced labour in the UK?
by Yorgos Mitralias The international media may say hardly a word, but that does not mean that these days France is not being shaken by the biggest social eruption of the last several decades! In particular, on Tuesday January 31st the demonstrations against Macron’s pension reform were the most massive in the country for 30 years (a total of… Read More France: towards a social explosion of historic proportions!
Matthew T. Huber, Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet (2022) Reviewed by Casey Williams The US Congress passed its largest ever investment in clean energy in August – the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – and yet it remains impossible to shake the feeling that, as Matthew T. Huber puts it, ‘the climate… Read More Climate Change as Class War
Harsh Thakor With the goal of raising class consciousness and mobilizing the working population of Banaras, especially the weavers, a meeting was organized at the Swayamvar Vatika on behalf of the Fatima-Savitri Janasamiti. The weavers themselves openly discussed the issues related to their status and wages in the programme. Mohammad Ahmad Ansari, who toils with… Read More Weavers of Banaras are forced to work for less than the minimum wage
On 7 January, a massive protest broke out at the Zybio (Zhongyuan Huiji) medical supply factory in Chongqing that produces Covid-19 antigen test kits. About half of the company’s 20,000 workers were set to be terminated after orders for test kits have recently dropped. Workers were still owed some back pay and took to the streets to… Read More Massive protest in Chongqing belies company’s recent labour awards from the official trade union
Stephen Burgen Yolanda Díaz, the deputy prime minister and a lifelong member of the Communist party, is heading Sumar (Unite), a platform to the left of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, that plans to put up candidates at the general election due on 10 December. On Saturday, 2,000 people filled the Auditori in Barcelona to… Read More Yolanda Díaz is galvanising the left in Spain
After the truth-shower 