March 2006, Volume 57 — Number 10
On January 19–23 the African session of the Polycentric World Social Forum— held separately in 2006 in Africa, Asia, and the Americas—took place in Bamako, Mali. On January 18–19 on the eve of the World Social Forum in Mali a group of around eighty antiglobalization political activists and intellectuals, including Marxist economists and organizers, met to conduct sessions independent of the World Social Forum itself, under the auspices of the Third World Forum, the World Forum for Alternatives, and the Forum for Another Mali. Samir Amin, director of the Third World Forum and author of the Review of the Month in this issue of MR was the leading organizer of the pre-WSF gathering, which he referred to as a “Peoples’ Bandung Conference” in honor of the recent fiftieth anniversary of the conference of nonaligned nations in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955… | more |
The Millennium Development Goals: A Critique from the South
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted by acclamation in September 2000 by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly called “United Nations Millennium Declaration.” This procedural innovation, called “consensus,” stands in stark contrast to UN tradition, which always required that texts of this sort be carefully prepared and discussed at great length in committees. This simply reflects a change in the international balance of power. The United States and its European and Japanese allies are now able to exert hegemony over a domesticated UN. In fact, Ted Gordon, well-known consultant for the CIA, drafted the millennium goals!… | more |
Why the United States Promotes India’s Great-Power Ambitions
In March 2005, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Washington’s decision to “make India a global power.” No doubt U.S. arms manufacturers can now look forward to large contracts from India; but this course is dictated by broader strategic considerations… | more |
The combination of technological change and globalization is bringing about fundamental changes in who does what work where, when, and how. This has implications which are profoundly contradictory for the nature of jobs, for the people who carry them out, and hence for the nature of cities… | more |
Education is an essential part of modern economic progress, yet in recent decades, the right wing has consistently been unfriendly to public education. For example, the Walton family’s donation of $20 billion to help conservative causes was weighted toward the privatization of public education.… The economic effects of privatization will not be felt immediately. Over time, however, as a larger share of the workforce suffers the handicap of inferior education, the negative effect on all aspects of society will be unmistakable.… | more |
Rebel in the House: The Life and Times of Vito Marcantonio
Vito Marcantonio was the most consequential radical politician in the United States in the twentieth century. Elected to Congress from New York’s ethnically Italian and Puerto Rican East Harlem slums, Marcantonio, in his time, held office longer than any other third-party radical, serving seven terms from 1934 to 1950. Colorful and controversial, Marcantonio captured national prominence as a powerful orator and brilliant parliamentarian. Often allied with the U.S. Communist Party (CP), he was an advocate of civil rights, civil liberties, labor unions, and Puerto Rican independence. He supported social security and unemployment legislation for what later was called a “living wage” standard. And he annually introduced anti-lynching and anti–poll tax bills a decade before it became respectable. He also opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee, redbaiting, and antisemitism, and fought for the rights of the foreign born. He was a bold outspoken opponent of U.S. imperialism… | more |
Sustaining Equality and Justice in the Struggle for Socialism
Every socialist has surely indulged in speculation about an ideal society from time to time. The realities of our own society certainly encourage such flights of fancy. But they should not be considered entirely fanciful: without imaginative thinking, it is quite impossible to see how the world might be changed for the better. Yet without any practical grounding, such exercises cannot take us any nearer to the “realistic utopia” that should be our goal… | more |
