From Amazon’s monitored warehouse hell to delivery workers being paid per package, exploitative work destroys collaborative relationships young people need — more screen time and 12 new AI ‘friends’ will only make things worse, writes ALAN SIMPSON
The great unravelling: the portal — another world is possible
In part 4 of a series looking at ecology and economics in the era of rapidly accelerating global crises, ALAN SIMPSON reflects on what the future holds
Melting ice caps
[Gerald Simmons/Creative Commons] 
The Tatar rebel argued that Western workers could be bought off, so instead a ‘colonial international’ must form a dictatorship over Europe and the US, ideas that led to his expulsion from the Bolsheviks and eventual execution, writes EDMUND GRIFFITHS
HEATHER WOOD reports back from another packed annual Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, where Palestinian flags flew high and solidarity with Birmingham’s striking refuse workers was central
Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
“A sense of cosmic specialness is no guarantee of good stewardship.”
— David Wallace-Wells
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
— Arundhati Roy
THE ink had barely dried on Arundhati Roy’s visionary invitation when “old economics,” crude lobbying and legitimate fear closed ranks on it.
None make the coming choices less urgent. They just clarify how much “luggage” we must leave behind. “Not normal” is the new normal.
Economics, as we know it, has imploded. No amount of ventilators will restore its former health. No amount of credit thrown out by central banks will avert its demise. And yet, beneath a welter of social measures, governments still bail out the owners of capital, in markets that are dead or dying.
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