Suchergebnisse

What is capitalism? What is it we are for, if we are for it? Or against, if we are against it? As we use the term today, it generally refers to a kind of economy, variously characterized by private industry, free enterprise, competitive markets, and lots of investment opportunities, which most people believe are valuable parts of the way we live together. But during the 1830s and 1840s, in the run-up to the revolutions of 1848, when the term "capitalism" first began to appear frequently, it signified neither a social system nor a "mode of production" but a politics—the concerted attempt by capitalists and their allies to secure the political power they needed to ensure that their interests took precedence over those of everyone else, including landowners, small businesses, wage earners, and even taxpayers more generally.

For more than six years, United Nations and European Union sanctions against terror suspects have failed to meet commonly-accepted standards of fairness. Despite recent reforms, especially to EU procedures, they do not guarantee fair and impartial treatment. This is all the more worrying given that both organisations stand for the protection and promotion of human rights. Ultimately, the flawed sanctions will damage the integrity and credibility of the UN and the EU as well as harming people who are wrongfully accused or punished disproportionately. Adapted from the source document.

The experts have apparently agreed that it wasn't values that lost us the last election. It was passion, and above all, it was the passion of fear. But maybe frightened people look for strong leaders, whose strength is revealed in their firm commitment to a set of values. Fear politics and value politics may turn out to be closely related. So what is wrong with the liberal-left? Do we really look weak, uncommitted, value-free-tacking to the wind, whichever way it blows? And is this just a matter of appearance, a failure of public relations; so that what we need is a little rhetorical uplift, cosmetic surgery, some improvement in our posture? Stand straighter! Talk tough!

Attempts to make a case for a clearer understanding & political project for the liberal-left in the United States in order to counter the rhetorical battle that the Right currently seems to be winning regarding morality & values. Argues that the liberal-left needs a story that adequately defines liberal-left values. Explains that ideological zeal & certainty have crossed over to the right & ideological uncertainty & skepticism about political solutions have moved to the left. Argues that the left response must be to not only recognize its own moral character & value-driven politics, but to coherently engage in a struggle informed by a general vision of the world & nation. Learning from generations of "fighting" liberals whose focus was on equality, in particular, would clarify left engagement in the struggle to confront the Hobbesian need to protect people from fear. This struggle should be a humane & egalitarian one that distributes the costs of security. R. Rodriguez

On the 23rd October 2002 during a performance of a new Russian romantic musical, Nord Ost, in a Moscow theatre, members of the cast were going through their paces singing and dancing, dressed in military uniform. Another man appeared from the wings, also in military costume, and fired a weapon into the air. The audience at first believed this to be part of the performance. However, it didn't take long for them to realize that this was not art but real life, and the beginning of what turned out to be a 57-hour ordeal from which many of them would never emerge alive. They were no longer an audience, but hostages. The brutality of the Chechen war for independence had been brought to the heart of Moscow. Whilst these paintings depict a specific event related to a specific conflict a long way from London, the imagery alludes to the bubble of immunity which most of us occupy in our daily lives as we watch the world outside, literally screened off by our televisions, and how this bubble can now be so easily burst in the most brutal way by people and events that we feel have nothing to do with us. The reality is of course, as we have learned recently to our cost in London, it has everything to do with us.