The new world disorder: war and imperialism
Published on: Sat, 21/12/2002 - 16:32
Number 2/3 of Workers' Liberty magazine is a special issue on "The new world disorder: war and imperialism". For contents, and links to download articles from the magazine as pdf files, read on.
The USA as hyperpower by Colin Foster.
"Rome fell. Babylon fell. Scarsdale's turn will come". The super-plutocracy of the US rich, symbolised by such posh commuter towns as Scarsdale (near New York), is fated to decline. Thus Paul Kennedy summed up the message of his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which was the central reference point for discussions of the shape of the world at the time it
Rewind Labour's policy on Europe
Labour right-winger Chuka Umunna is using European issues as a device for self-promotion and to bash Corbyn, but on the Single Market he is right.
It will be abject if Labour ends up using its votes in the Commons to save the Tory government on a possible pro-Single-Market amendment which will be debated in the House of Lords on 8 May and may be backed by enough Tory rebels to defeat May unless Labour gives her its votes.
The Single Market means free movement of workers and free movement of trade, through a more-or-less common set of regulations, across Europe. There are Single Market rules
Danger in US-China tit-for-tat
As I write on 10 April, US stock markets are recovering after dipping in the wake of tit-for-tat tariff announcements by US president Donald Trump and by the Chinese government on 4-5 April.
Trump and then the Chinese authorities have announced new 25% tariffs on a range of imports from each other. Those are bigger than and additional to the new tariffs introduced by Trump in March on steel and aluminium, and the Chinese retaliations for them.
With China running a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, responsible-adult pose, majority plutocrat opinion is now hoping that the announcements are largely
Editorial: Trump threatens trade war
On 1 March Donald Trump announced tariffs of 25% on steel imports, 10% on aluminium imports.
Other governments are alarmed by this shift towards trade war. The OECD, a consortium of the world's 35 strongest capitalist economies, has criticised the move. Further argument will come at the meeting of the finance ministers and central bank governments of the G20 (20 strongest countries) in Buenos Aires on 19-20 March.
Socialists should be alarmed too, for our own distinct reasons.
Socialists do not endorse capitalist free trade. We are not for the unfettered rule of markets. We are for fettering
Davos: saving the world for the capitalists
At the end of January, the world's elite met in the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Davos to discuss how to maintain and improve their position in the economy.
Both the setting and the speeches were utopian, as the politicians and bankers professed the virtues of neoliberalism. While millions were spent on round-the-clock security and caviar, we were told of the dangers of largesse spending by the state and the need to slash public services. Life is tough at the top.
There is growing discontent with capitalism around the world and it is being expressed in several different ways.
It has
WTO stalemate in Buenos Aires
"Expectations were low as the meeting began in the Argentine capital", or so the Economist magazine reported on the latest World Trade Organisation meeting of trade ministers, in Buenos Aires on 10-13 December.
"They sank even lower as it progressed. Delegates failed to agree on a joint statement, let alone on any new trade deals".
Eighteen years ago, at a similar meeting in Seattle in November 1999, the WTO appeared as a manifestation of the chiefs of global capital triumphantly carving up the world. Tens of thousands of anti-capitalist protesters, trade-unionists, students, and others,
Trump's "America First" means workers last
Lance Selfa
Perhaps it's foolish to take anything Donald Trump says as an articulation of core principles or beliefs. But this passage from his inaugural address hit many like a bolt of lightning: From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it's going to be America First. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great
Stop Trump: On the streets against the "Muslim ban"
Organise, on the streets and in the labour movement! Argue for socialist, democratic, internationalist ideas which offer a real answer both to Trump's rancid, right-wing, regression, and to the discredited status quo. That is how we can block Trump.
Trump's "executive order" of 27 January has stirred up protests across the world. Trump's "Muslim ban" halted the entire US refugee programme for 120 days, and indefinitely banned Syrian refugees fleeing Assad's butchery and the sectarian Islamist militias. All travellers who have nationality or dual nationality of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia,
Ports and workers' power
"The RWG [container] terminal [in Rotterdam, 2.35m teu capacity], with its fully automated cranes, is operated by a team of no more than 10 to 15 people on a day-to-day basis. Most of its 180 employees aren't longshoremen, but IT specialists" (Journal of Commerce, 4 Feburary 2016).
The managing director says: "We are in fact, an IT company that handles containers".
Compare: in 1900 the Port of London was the busiest port in the world. It had 50,000 workers shifting cargo mostly by hand, as they had done for thousands of years. It handled 7 million tons of cargo.
"Teu" means "twenty-foot