Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“The UN's labour organisation is keen to stress that slavery is not confined to poor countries far away from the Western world - more than half of all forced labour happens in wealthier countries in the upper-middle or high-income bracket.“ 10 million increase in numbers in five years

 How unscientific is the labour theory of value?

Our media are dominated by ethnic strife while largely ignoring class struggles “Ethnic differences entwine with other social differences –especially of class, region, and gender. Ethnonationalism is strongest where it can capture other senses of exploitation. The most serious defect of recent writing on ethnonationalism has been its almost complete neglect of class relations (as in Brubaker, 1996; Hutchinson, 1994; Smith, 2001). Others wrongly see class as materialistic, ethnicity as emotional (Connor, 1994: 144–64; Horowitz, 1985: 105–35). This simply inverts the defect of previous generations of writers who believed that class conflict dominated while ignoring ethnicity. Now the reverse is true, and not only among scholars. Our media are dominated by ethnic strife while largely ignoring class struggles. Yet in actuality these two types of conflict infuse each other. Palestinians, Dayaks, Hutus, and so on believe they are being materially exploited. Bolsheviks and Maoists believed t...

For 'Palestinian peace process' read 'Iran war process' My comment: I would add one important element to enlarge the "international relations" picture: control of the region by the US, a hegemon, and Israel, an ally, has to be viewed vis-a-vis a rival or rivals. Iran is one, but China and Russia are two others and it is very crucial that their powers is undermined. The US has lost is loosing its primacy is south east Asia. The Middle East has to remain a levrage for its geo-political and economic primacy, not for oil (America doesn't need Middle Eastern oil), and not only for the arms industry (the arms sales is still a fraction of the American GDP), but of capital outflows (as the author mentioned. It assist the more or less stagnating Western, especially European economies and maintaining domestic consent/stability/wealth) and hegemony and/or over others. Related (from the archive):  My interview with the author about his book Hamas: A Beginner...