Labour prospects in May elections may be irrevocably damaged by Birmingham Council’s costly refusal to settle the year-long dispute, warns STEVE WRIGHT
Imperialism, US hegemonism and multipolarity
Not every international conflict is some form of inter-imperialist rivalry, argues JENNY CLEGG — we must recognise and support the rise of developing countries and the alliances they make that are slowly creating a more equal world
Over the decades, in order to maintain unequal exchange, a system of rules, institutions and practices of investment and trade centred on the US dollar and US financial institutions has evolved. Under US-monopoly power, both inter-imperialist rivalries as well as anti-imperialist resistance have been subdued with the subordination and incorporation of Europe and Japan and of many of the elites of the developing nations.
HENRY FOWLER and ROB POOLE explain the significance of today’s Megapicket
One hundred years after 1.7m workers shut the country down in defence of the miners, the struggles that sparked the 1926 General Strike are still with us – and will be honoured on London’s May Day march this year, writes MARY ADOSSIDES
The Labour Growth Group and its think tank partner, the Good Growth Foundation, have taken funding from major lobbying firms linked to housebuilders, banks and Heathrow – raising questions about corporate influence at the heart of Starmer’s pro-growth project. SOLOMON HUGHES reports
The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse and union member, has sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls from National Nurses United to dismantle Ice and related agencies, says MARK GRUENBERG
A Vatican photo-op, a hard-right donor and a rhetoric of mass deportations reveal how appeals to ‘Christian values’ are being reshaped by Reform and Tory MPs, says SOLOMON HUGHES
IN HIS RECENT ARTICLE “‘Is Russia an imperialist country?’ is not the right question” (Morning Star, March 29 2022) Zoltan Zigedy does well to point out that imperialism, as a new stage of capitalism, is a historically developing system and not a policy.
But somewhere along the line the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater: by effectively dismissing multipolarisation as a system of inter-imperialist rivalry, drawing an equation between now and 1914, he overlooks the crucial factor of the emergence of the developing world.
Despite subordination under neo-colonialism, that developing countries still have a certain counter-imperialist agency has been demonstrated by the abstentions to the US-initiated UN general assembly motion deploring Russia’s aggression on Ukraine.
Similar stories
JENNY CLEGG reports from a Chinese peace conference bringing together defence ministers, US think tanks and global South leaders, where speakers warned that the erosion of multilateralism risks regional hotspots exploding into wider war
Despite the US withdrawal from Ukraine and economic self-harm from sanctions, European centrists maintain their bellicosity to justify military spending and distract from neoliberalism's failures, writes PRABHAT PATNAIK
The transformation of a stable secular state into a fractured ruin largely ruled by Western-backed fundamentalists exposes the hollow nature of ‘multipolarity’ and the absence of principled anti-imperialism today, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY