Workshop Organizers: Why is the Left so Weak?

Let us quote from our starting working paper: “The central challenge is and will be to work on strategies against competition, for organizing solidarity. Here we have to recognize that we were and are not successful regardless all Social Forum Processes, many conferences, workshops and so many activities. It means, we have to ask about the reasons of our failures.“ The point was critisised. More

Etienne Balibar: The Rise and Fall of the European Union: Temporalities and Teleologies

Historians and philosophers have been discussing the extent to which specific ideologies regarding the understanding of time and space are involved in the writing of history, as a consequence of the “central” place that Europe had attributed itself in Modern history. The idea of “Europe” itself, whether perceived from inside or outside, is by definition ideological or it is a teleological “discourse”, which performs epistemological and political functions at the same time. Whether we consider ourselves More

Patrick Bond: South Africa’s Multiple Resource Curses, the Metalworkers’ Break and Community Uprisings

The title of the following post may surprise. Why should a text from South Africa be put on this blog? The explanation is the asked by us questions: Why is the left in the EU, in Europe so weak? How could we become stronger? Bonds article helps us to discuss this issue productively. It starts from the opposite question: why could a left-emancipatory force become strong? The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa finished the tolereance of neoliberal development and split away  from the ANC. More

Jan Toporowski: Fascist Spectre Looms over Stagnant Europe

A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of fascism, born of economic Stagnation and the very apparent ability of democratic governments to eliminate mass employment.

There are two main reasons for the alarming prospect: First, Exchange rate stability has come to be regarded as a precondition for European economic and monetarian union. More