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Showing posts with the label “Paul Mason”

Ukraine and Imperialism

I disagree with Callinicos’s position on Syriza though. It sounds an ultra-leftist stance for me, and he does not specify when Syriza should have been opposed before the capitulation of Alexis Tsipras or after. A reply to Paul Mason

Biden, Profits, Wages and “Social Democracy”

Is he really trying to redistribute wealth to workers? ‘Redistribute’, not ‘distribute’ implies that wealth was once distributed to workers. No, what happened between 1945 until the ascent of the neoliberal form of capitalism was a social contract based on compromise between the state, capital and trade unions.  Are the profits too high? I don’t think so. One of the reasons we are in an “era of anaemic economic growth” is that the low rate of profit/of return to capital is not high enough to incentivise the capitalists to invest. Thus some governments are intervening and pouring money into the economy and corporations as well as giving financial support to families and individuals, especially because of the pandemic. As Cédric Duran put it: “  Is this shift sufficient to tackle the century’s social and ecological crises? Not nearly. Does it alter essential class relations? On the contrary: it strives to re-legitimize the social order. Is it unambiguous? No: while private finan...