Chris is a labour law researcher, specialising in China and the right to strike. He spent 27 years in the SA union movement. Chris now lives in Canberra. More →
If she blows? by Humphrey McQueen 11 October If it is dodgy to speculate about the timing of, or the immediate trigger for a depression, six consequences can be predicted with almost 100% accuracy. >Above all, a collapse of real existing capitalism is not going to move the world one toenail closer towards being a [...]
This is a link to a challenging socialist analysis of the current world capitalist financial crisis by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin ‘They say they won’t intervene. But they will.’ This is how Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, responded to Paul O’Neill, the first Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush, who openly criticized his [...]
How to lose a trillion. (2 October) When the radio news reported that the New York Stock market had “lost” a trillion dollars, my eyes glazed over. A trillion is what Douglas Hofstader calls a Very Big Number, meaning that we have no way of coping with so many zeros after the one ($1,000,000,000,000). Those [...]
Freelance left labour historian Humphrey McQueen as guest comments on the capitalist crisis: exploitation the basis, it’s not socialism and all capitalists are parasites. Exploitation leads to over-consumption Even if $US700bn cauterises the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, it will not touch the core of the crisis. The root cause is the exploitation of [...]
Financial crisis: working families need protection IR and labour law policy issues in other posts commenting on the Labor governmen cannot but be connected to the capitalist crisis dramatically unfolding with bank and business crashes daily. It is on-going and impacting on working families. This is clear reading the weekend’s press, following Stephen Long daily [...]
I was in that great city San Francisco in March 2007 and looked at the union question. Australian unions are dependent on US unions’ surviving, whether we like it or not. I talked with union activists and report on union debates: ∑ social unionism lives; ∑ organising for growth, the SEIU; ∑ militant left unionism [...]
