HUGH LANNING says there is no path to peace without dismantling Israel’s control over Palestinian land, lives and resources
Latest editorial
The return of anti-monopoly politics?
Opposition to the mega-companies that dominate industry cannot be left to the political centre — the labour movement could build a a powerful coalition around the cause. But beware, warns ZOLTAN ZIGEDY, this is still not anti-capitalism
CJ ATKINS reports on the stand that saw Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif hauled out of Israel’s parliament during Donald Trump’s vainglorious address
ROGER McKENZIE argues that Western powers can see the beginning of the end in the rise of the global South — and racist reactions are kicking in
The Tory conference was a pseudo-sacred affair, with devotees paying homage in front of Thatcher’s old shrouds — and your reporter, initially barred, only need mention he’d once met her to gain access. But would she consider what was on offer a worthy legacy, asks ANDREW MURRAY
Taking a brief look at who the US president surrounds himself with reveals a team dedicated to the complete erasure of Palestine, not justice and civil rights for its people, writes TERRY HANSEN
As the Global Leaders’ Meeting on Women begins in Beijing, it’s clear that China has fulfilled its commitments set 30 years ago and delivered amazing progress in women's education and equality, writes YU BOKUN
ECONOMIC MONOPOLIES — enterprises or groups of enterprises that overwhelmingly reign over a specific economic sector — have been the target of reformers and revolutionaries since their widespread notice in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Many keen observers in the most advanced capitalist countries of the late 1800s perceived the development of a tier of capitalist firms in various industries that rose to dominate those industries. Through rapid expansion, ruthless competition, absorption and consolidation, a few capitalists or corporations acquired a majority share of markets and the lion’s share of profits.
A classic US example of the process of monopolisation was the creation of the Rockefeller oil monopoly, Standard Oil. Like an uncontrollable wildfire, Standard Oil devoured competitors, both horizontally — in oil extraction — and vertically — in the shipping, refining and selling of the final product. Eventually, Standard Oil was on the verge of completely controlling the petroleum industry in the US.
Similar stories
Lenin’s theory of the weakest link shifted the centre of gravity of the proletarian revolution towards peoples’ struggles in the developing world, contrary to the expectation of Marx and Engels. The effect was to hinder the cause of socialism by decades. Time bring it back to its natural home, argues FAWZI IBRAHIM
The left must call out the fact that BlackRock and private billionaires have merged with the state apparatus as our leaders abandon any pretence of there being a ‘free market’ for direct and overt corporate control, writes JOE GILL