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An invaluable warning against the State as a neutral tool (Beyond Leviathian reviewed by ‘Counterfire’)

The state cannot be ‘reformed’ since it is not, despite what liberal theory would insist, a neutral institution. The state historically developed in order to enshrine class power, and so traps us ‘within the paralyzing confines of the hierarchical and antagonistic framework of the political/military domain’. This can only be broken through a ‘radical transformation’ in ‘our social metabolism’, that is in the relations of production of capitalism. | more…

“A lofty dream” (Work Work Work reviewed in ‘Dissident Voice’ and ‘Countercurrents’)

‘Work Work Work’ sounds similar for working boys in many countries. Anyone can find them at any hub of exploitation and profit making. A visit to the Tipu Sultan Road or the Dolaai Khaal or Taatee Bazaar area in the capital city of Dhaka, a visit to automobile repair shops around Dhaka or to the marine vessel making yards along the Buriganga near Dhaka will find them. Boys picking torn papers, discarded plastic pieces of innumerable shapes and sizes from street sides, tearing down old posters from walls of the city buildings, looking for whatever is saleable in garbage heaps, selling kitchen items or flowers from morning to night, until may be 10 or 11 PM…. | more…

Listen: “Ending the Myth” podcast (Co-author of Dissenting POWs interviewed on ‘Mechanical Freak’)

The podcast Mechanical Freak, recently welcomed esteemed sociologist Jerry Lembcke to talk about how the memory of the Vietnam War was both recreated and used in the 1980s and 1990s to unify public sentiment against the liberatory movements of the 1960s. Lembcke reminded the audience that even in the creation of memory, there is a political struggle for the future that needs to be waged. | more…

EXCERPTS: SOCIALIST REGISTER 2023

The 59th annual volume of the “Socialist Register” examines the growth of corporate power and other important organizational trends in global capitalism. Rejecting such notions as “stakeholder capitalism,” it reviews the organization and strategies of unions and the left as it searches for new routes to socialism. Read on for excerpts from the likes of Adam Hanieh, Patrick Bond, Charmaine Chua and Spencer Cox… | more…