Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A long good summary A specter is haunting the West—the specter of authoritarian capitalism

Coronavirus and Civilisation Related UK Home Secretary refuses to take children from Greek camps

Britain Michael Roberts reporting from a Labour Party conference Models of public ownership and   Why did Labour lose in 1983? "In a way, the myth that it was the 'hard Left' that cost Labour the election is an inverted form of Bennite optimism. It lays all the emphasis upon ideology, agency and leadership, albeit in a thin, polemical way that asks no searching questions of the Labour Right and Centre, long its dominant forces. But, then as now, agency and leadership turn out to depend on far bigger historical processes. And it's their obliviousness to those larger processes that leaves Corbyn's right-wing critics out in the cold, fantasising about re-staging the battles of the 1980s."

"Under Xi, it seems that the majority of the party elite will continue with an economic model that is dominated by state corporations directed at all levels by the Communist cadres. That is because even the elite realise that if the capitalist road is adopted and the law of value becomes dominant, it will expose the Chinese people to chronic economic instability (booms and slumps), insecurity of employment and income and greater inequalities. On the other hand, Xi and the party elite are united in opposing socialist democracy as any Marxist would understand it.  They wish to preserve their autocratic rule and the privileges that flow from it.  The people have yet to play a role.  They have fought local battles over the environment, their villages and their jobs and wages.  But they have not fought for more democracy or economic power." Xi's taking full control of China's future and an article by the author of The Party: The Secret World of the Chinese Commun