Socialist Register 2019: The World Turned Upside Down?

The World Turned Upside Down? poses two overarching questions for the new period opened by the Trump election and the continued growth of right-wing nationalisms. Is there an unwinding of neoliberal globalization taking place, or will globalization continue to deepen, but still deny the free cross-border movement of labor? Would such an unwinding entail an overall shift in power and accumulation to specific regions of the Global South that might overturn the current world order and foster the disintegration of the varied regional blocs that have formed? These questions are addressed through a series of essays that carefully map the national, class, racial, and gender dimensions of the state, capitalism, and progressive forces today. Sober assessment is crucial for the left to gain its political bearings in this trying period and the uncertainties that lie ahead.

Contents:

• Leo Panitch/Sam Gindin: Trumping the empire
• Alfredo Saad Filhon: Neoliberalism, working classes and the twin crises of democracy
• Ray Kiely: Locating Trump: Paleoconservatism, neoliberalism, and anti-globalization
• Doug Henwood: Trump and the new billionaire class
• Nicole Aschoff: American’s tipping point? Between Trumpism and a new left
• Elmar Altvater/Birgit Mahnkopf: The Capitalocene: Permanent capitalist counter-revolution
• Alan Cafruny: The European crisis and the left
• Aijaz Ahmad: Extreme capitalism and ‘the national question’
• Jayati Ghosh: Decoupling is a myth: Asian capitalism in the global disarray
• Sean Kenji Starrs: Can China unmake the American making of global capitalism?
• Lin Chun: China’s new globalization
• Ana Garcia/Patrick Bond: Amplifying the contradictions: The centrifugal BRICS
• Adam Hanieh: The contradictions of global migration
• David Whyte: Death to the corporation: a modest proposal
• Umut Ozsu: International intervention today
• Colin Leys: Corbyn and Brexit Britain: Is there a way forward for the left?
• Mark Boffo/Alfredo Saad-Filho/Ben Fine: Neoliberal capitalism: The authoritarian turn

Leo Panitch and Greg Albo are professors in the Department of Political Science at York University, Toronto.