Established as a landmark victory for the climate movement, the CCC promised to hold governments to account. Today, it is understating the danger of climate chaos and impeding the radical action needed, says IAN SINCLAIR
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Government spending and debt: a new approach
Introducing a new paper from Rebuild Britain, FAWZI IBRAHIM argues that it is high time for the working class to drop the Labour Party as its vehicle for change, and take economic matters directly into its own hands
The real ‘humanitarian threat’ isn’t Cuba but the United States, where poverty, lack of healthcare and illiteracy abound, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
ROGER McKENZIE draws attention to the much-neglected oral traditions of the global South that define the identity – and therefore the liberation – of its custodians
Labour movement history in Britain shows workers secured reforms through collective pressure and political representation, rather than being gifted from above, writes KEITH FLETT
CLAUDIA WEBBE looks at how Britain’s Nato ally has upped the stakes in its effort to silence domestic dissenting voices
IN his book, Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin refers to imperialism as a “special stage,” “a very high stage of development,” “specific historical stage,” “the latest phase” and “the beginning of its transition to socialism.”
Imperialism, writes Lenin, is the stage of capitalism’s development in which “the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance.”
Rarely does he refer to it as the highest stage — but, given the title of the work, it has invariably been interpreted literally, that capitalism can evolve no further for it has reached its zenith.
Whether this is what Lenin intended is irrelevant, for this approach has permeated the communist movement and the left in general, yet it has little Marxist merit. It implies that once that stage is reached (which Lenin dates back to the early 20th century), time stands still, capitalism’s internal contradictions disappear and with them any further evolutionary development. But what happens to the socialist embryo that is born within capitalism? Does that cease to evolve as well?
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While politicians fixate on defence budgets, the real answers lie in peace-building and economic justice, says ALAN SIMPSON
PHILIP ENGLISH says military spending will not create the jobs young people need — instead, build an economy based around needs, not profit
