A curious contrast of perception grew up around Jacinda Ardern during the five years she spent as prime minister of New Zealand before her resignation in late January. Internationally she had been feted as a celebrity politician and liberal darling, the supposed “world’s anti-Trump” who capably steered New Zealand through...
‘Pink Tides’ & Popular Fronts
Latin America is in turmoil, buckling under the pressures of imperialist exploitation, the lingering impact of the Covid-19 crisis and rampant inflation fueled in part by the US/NATO-led war in Ukraine. An estimated 267 million people, or 40.6 percent, of the region’s population are “food insecure,” up 9 percent since...
Rearranging the Deckchairs
Every six to nine years, the small imperialist state of Aotearoa New Zealand replaces its centre-left governing coalition with a centre-right coalition, or vice-versa. The bell now tolls for the current Labour–Green government, an alliance between a party of the union bureaucracy that long ago traded in its social-democratic programme...
Why Marxists Voted ‘No’ on Prop 34
On 6 November 2012, Californians voted down “Prop-osition 34” (aka the “SAFE California Initiative”) which would have converted all death sentences into life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). As opponents of the death penalty, Marxists would normally support a measure proposing to eliminate this barbaric form of punishment, which...
The Corbyn Project
Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the British Labour Party for five years between 2015 and 2020. This period saw a vast increase in membership and a renewal of interest in left-wing ideas such as significant wealth distribution and international solidarity. In the general election of 2017 and again in 2019...