Like pieces on a chess board, centrist parties lose ground as they accommodate rather than challenge far-right agendas — socialists must play things better, warns MATT KERR
Report card on a failing economic system
Capital’s imperative to reproduce itself has taken it into riskier and riskier places, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
Nasdaq
ANSELM ELDERGILL asks whether artificial intelligence may decide legal cases in the future, in place of human judges, and how AI could reshape the legal landscape
With both nations blasting Brussels for failing to secure their energy needs and mishandling first the Ukraine war and now the US tariff crisis, this joint statement signals trouble ahead for the EU’s geopolitical aims, reports RAINER RUPP
HEATHER WOOD pays tribute to a champion of working-class women and a fierce voice of solidarity
After more than 30 years, the printing presses have finally halted for the left-wing magazine. KATE HUDSON pays tribute to the always thought-provoking publication and explains how the editorial team are inviting feedback and comment on their continued online operations
Why is the Labour government so addicted to giving government jobs to Tories when it spent so long trying to oust them? In the hope the favour is returned the next time the Tories return to power, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
MARC WADSWORTH reports from the meeting to commemorate the Sharpeville Massacre 65 years ago
ON Friday May 6 the Federal Reserve released data showing that consumer credit (debt) has been accelerating since the fourth quarter of last year, with revolving credit (largely credit card debt) speeding up at an even greater pace since the third quarter of 2021.
Total consumer credit in the US grew by an annualised rate of 7 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, increased to 9.7 per cent in this year’s first quarter, and expanded to 14 per cent in March.
At the same time, revolving credit — the debt largely incurred through credit cards — grew 8.3 per cent in the third quarter and 12.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021, and then 21.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year, and an astonishing 35.3 per cent in March.
More from this author
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
ZOLTAN ZIGEDY reflects on the lessons from two books looking at the US labour movement and the recent history of spontaneous mass uprisings – and finds two pernicious ideologies working against the interests of the people
ZOLTAN ZIGEDY argues Trump’s victory shows the deep failure of liberal calculations that write off huge swathes of the electorate and mirrors the worldwide rise of right-wing populism amid Establishment collapse
From ‘middle class’ to ‘microaggressions,’ from ‘fascism’ to ‘terrorism,’ ZOLTAN ZIGEDY makes an anguished cry for us to turn away from the most misused and misleading terms and tropes – or at least use them accurately