Tag: Opinion

  • Einstein on Socialism

    In this essay, titled “Why Socialism?,” Albert Einstein expressed his thoughts on socialism. The essay “was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year.” 

    Monthly Review is “an independent socialist magazine” that started publication in New York City in May 1949. 

    A short excerpt from the essay: 

    “Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before. 

    This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career. 

    I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.” 

    Read the full essay here.

  • On Female Friendships

    This piece on writingwomen.co talks about female friendships as “toolkits against patriarchal harms” and “meditative spaces for healing.” 

    A short extract: 

    “The most unusual characteristic about female friendships is that, unlike other bonds and relations, they don’t require an incubation period to develop. We as women connect instinctively at moments when making connections are the most difficult task otherwise- raising an eyebrow at each other after sensing the danger, holding hands while crossing roads, sending congratulatory messages after a scary presentation, offering sanitary napkins at the oddest moments; there is so much that women do for each other even without asking. The sense of doing it for the other and yet for ourselves, without any conditions and expectations has a deeply healing effect.”

    Read the full article here.

  • Degrowth and the UK Economy

    This article in The Conversation discusses the current state of the UK economy and the idea of degrowth that has been gaining traction around the world in the recent past. 

    The author points out that the two main political parties of the UK are presenting economic growth as a solution to the country’s current economic problems based on “conventional economic wisdom that “growth, growth, growth” increases incomes and standards of living, employment and business investment.” But according to the author, “economic growth on its own is not going to solve these multiple and intersecting crises.” 

    The article goes over some of the main ideas behind the degrowth movement, like “abandoning our obsession with growth at all costs” and instead “orienting the economy towards social equality and wellbeing, environmental sustainability and democratic decision making.” 

    The author argues that while “for many people the word smacks of misery and the type of frugality they are trying to escape from during the cost of living crisis,” actually “degrowth, if successfully achieved, would arguably feel better than a recession or a cost-of-living crisis.” 

    Importantly, “degrowth is not the same as negative GDP growth”: 

    “Instead, degrowth envisions a society in which wellbeing does not depend on economic growth and the environmental and social consequences of its pursuit. Degrowth proposes an equitable, voluntary reduction of overconsumption in affluent economies.

    Equally important is to shift the economy away from the ecologically and socially harmful idea that producing more stuff is always good.” 

    Read the full article here.

  • Making the Case for Reforming the IMF

    This article in Phenomenal World, “a publication focused on political economy,” juxtaposes “the rigidity and discipline enforced in IMF loan programs” with the “elasticity in liquidity and legal constraints” and “expedited financing” that is provided to financial institutions in the North Atlantic like Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse at times of crises.

    The author makes the case that “[s]urveying the contemporary landscape of sovereign debt and IMF lending programs reveals pervasive inequalities in the Bretton Woods system.” Such inequalities disproportionately impact low- and middle-income economies because “if countries fail to meet the structural reforms spelled out in the IMF’s program review, lending can come to a halt.”

    Busting a popular myth, the author writes that “[f]or many developing countries, the problem is not over-indebtedness per se” as “[m]ost governments pay back their external loans, often at the expense of imposing austerity on citizens.” Much like Credit Suisse, “the problem that most sovereigns face today is a liquidity constraint.” 

    Not only do “[p]rohibitively high interest rates make it difficult to access new financing and roll over existing loans” but high interest rates and debt servicing costs have led to central banks in some developing countries “selling part of their dollar stockpiles to buy—and thereby bolster—their own currencies.” Reportedly, the IMF does not seem to approve of this: 

    “Recently, IMF economists have criticized central banks that accumulate hard currency reserves to bypass interest rate hikes. But using foreign exchange reserves to purchase and thereby bolster the value of domestic currencies enables central banks to dampen some of the inflation. Given the inherent asymmetry in the international monetary system, hard currency war chests empower countries lower in the monetary hierarchy to cope with financial shocks.” 

    Between 2013 and now, the IMF’s own assessments have concluded that “IMF-imposed austerity mandates incur more damage to economic growth than previously calculated” and that “on average, fiscal consolidation does not lower debt-to-GDP ratios.” 

    The author makes a detailed argument that unless there are fundamental reforms in existing IMF lending policies and the Bretton Woods institutions are modernised, “the IMF’s future as the preferred lender for countries in crisis” is itself not secure: 

    “Much has changed since the initial drafting of the IMF Articles of Agreement in 1944. The Articles have been amended seven times, most recently in 2010. Shifts in the global financial system justify revisiting the Articles as a living document.”

    Read the full article here.

  • Authoritarianism and Neoliberal Education in Indonesia

    This article in Inside Indonesia discusses the “[l]egacies of Indonesia’s authoritarian past” in how “the Indonesian government continues to exert influence over how knowledge is consumed and produced within academic institutions.” 

    According to the author, “the state’s education policies have actively enforced an ideology of neoliberalism.” The author is concerned that “[a]cademics are shaping their ways of producing knowledge to conform with the expectations of a growing neoliberal authoritarian state.” This is concerning because: 

    “Knowledge that is produced within a neoliberal authoritarian environment deprives people of their economic and political rights, sustaining the state’s power. Controlling the people who produce knowledge is to control knowledge.”

    But the author draws hope from “the many examples of collective forms of education and knowledge production” and “a number of examples of collective resistance” to the Indonesian government’s authoritarian “marketisation of curriculum.” 

    Read the full article here.

  • How Dangerous is ISIS Today?

    This article published by Observer Research Foundation discusses how “[e]ven as ISIS as a group today is severely depleted, the threat perception remains constant.” 

    “[T]actically and strategically, ISIS is a mere shadow of what it was,” the author writes. After all, the terror group once “had control of the geography between Syria and Iraq, bigger than the landmass of the United Kingdom.” But “ideologically, it remains a potent force”: 

    “Pro-ISIS propaganda online remains in wide circulation, and other groups that align with it such as those in parts of Africa and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan continue to operate as local insurgencies and terror ecosystems using ISIS for its brand equity in an effort to attract attention, recruitment, and finance.” 

    The group’s ‘caliphate’ has long collapsed and “counterterror operations against ISIS in Syria, largely led by the US, have seen incredible success in the recent past.” Reportedly, “[t]he US has also moved away from an over-reliance on drone strikes as a mainstay of its counterterror thinking” and is instead using “special operations troops”: 

    “This method, while increasing risk of American fatalities on the ground exponentially, decreases the chances of civilian casualties, an issue that has repeatedly plagued and undermined US counter-terror operations in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan alike over the past two decades.” 

    Read the full article here.

  • Socialist Software Engineers

    This article in The Drift magazine talks about “a non-negligible number of the people who write software for a living” being socialists, though not “as many as the right would have you believe.” 

    Calling it “the engineer’s predicament,” the author talks about such coders developing a desire to “to put their politics into code”: 

    “They want to write software that will facilitate the creation of worker cooperatives, seed the internet with self-governing platforms, and equip movements and municipalities with tools for democratic decision-making and participatory governance.”

    Elaborating on the article’s theme after sharing some facts about the history of “highly skilled workers in capital-intensive industries who had radical politics,” the author concludes: 

    “This is the greatest dilemma faced by socialist software engineers: in working against the grain of their technological heritage, they may also be working to bring about a world in which technology matters less.”

    Read the full article here.

  • End of the Road for Erdogan?

    Is Recep Tayyip Erdogan about to lose political control in Turkey? The Economist sounds optimistic.

    As this article points out, Erdogan has had a tight grip over power in his country:

    “He was jailed and barred from public office, yet managed to overturn the ban and came to dominate Turkish politics. He has won five parliamentary elections, two presidential polls and three referendums. He has even faced down a military coup.” 

    And yet, the article reports, “the polls suggest that the united opposition could wrest control of parliament from Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party and its allies” in the upcoming elections and “Erdogan himself appears to be trailing in the presidential election to be held on the same day.” 

    And as this article, also in The Economist points out, “[w]ere he to lose, it would be a stunning political reversal with global consequences” and it could provide a reason for hope for democrats around the world: 

    “The Turkish people would be more free, less fearful and—in time—more prosperous. A new government would repair battered relations with the West. (Turkey is a member of NATO, but under Mr Erdogan has been a disruptive actor in the Middle East and pursued closer ties with Russia.) Most important, in an era when strongman rule is on the rise, from Hungary to India, the peaceful ejection of Mr Erdogan would show democrats everywhere that strongmen can be beaten.” 

    Read these two opinion pieces on the upcoming Turkey elections in The Economist here and here. 

  • Bernie Sanders Calls for A Reduced Workweek

    In this piece for Leftist magazine Jacobin, philosophy professor and author, Ben Burgis argues in support of Bernie Sanders renewing “his long-standing call to reduce the workweek to thirty-two hours.” 

    Burgess discusses state-level efforts in California and the federal attempt in Congress to make this reduced workweek a reality. “Right now, these efforts face an uphill battle to say the least.”

    Burgis writes: 

    “There was a 299 percent increase in labor productivity from 1950 to 2020. As Senator Sanders rightly suggests, the benefits of that increase largely went to the top of society. It certainly didn’t automatically generate a shorter workweek.”

    and

    “Technology and productivity have advanced to an astonishing degree since President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act. But the limitation on how many hours workers can be made to spend on the job if they want to be able to make a living has stayed in place.” 

    Read the full article here.

  • Avoiding Deliberations in Policy-making in the Name of Efficiency

    In this editorial for the Deccan Herald, policy researcher Yamini Aiyar warns against the tendency to problematise the bureaucracy only as a means to undermine democratic processes. 

    As she writes: 

    “Too often, debates on State capacity veer in the direction of setting up a false dichotomy between democracy and efficiency (conflated with State capacity). “Too much democracy”, the argument goes, with its attendant chaos caused by necessary rules of deliberation-negotiation and consensus-building, can become an impediment to State capacity. Indeed, this is the ruse that has been used to legitimise strongman leadership across the globe.” 

    Such demonising of bureaucracy in the name of “efficiency” is often used as a way to circumvent institutional mechanisms for deliberations on matters of policy, the author argues. As she concludes: “The expectation that a less democratic, low-capacity State can endow itself with the capacity to do what the State ought to do in a complex and unequal social setting is a falsity spurred by a deep desire to legitimise undemocratic political regimes.” 

    Read the full article here.

  • A Return to Blogging

    Writing for The Verge, Monique Judge makes the following case: “The decline of Twitter with the current erosion of legacy media has left me thinking we need to bring personal blogging back with a vengeance.”

    The biggest reason for this, according to her, “is a simple one: we should all be in control of our own platforms.”

    Perhaps most important of all her arguments is the following: 

    “We are now in an age where people come on the internet to be the worst possible versions of themselves, and it’s an ugly sight to behold. Take the power back by building blogs and putting comment moderation in place (it’s relatively easy on both WordPress and Blogger).

    Trolls only thrive in an environment where they are allowed to run around unchecked, and that is what most of social media is. There are plenty of tools that allow you to keep those people out of your comments while still allowing those who appreciate your words, thoughts, and content to fellowship with each other in a community of your own design.

    It’s what the social web was originally about, and we desperately need to get back to that.”

     Read the full article here.