Journal
Editorial
Dear reader,
The focus of the current issue of Transform is the crisis of the capitalist economy and of the whole reproduction process it governs. It is far from being overcome, as the mass media would have us believe. In fact, the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of the working population has, especially in Europe, just begun. In some countries there has been, and there is, massive resistance to it; in other countries massive austerity measures are being pushed through without large protest actions....
Contents
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Essays
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- Europe in the Great Crisis
- For years the EU-Commission has been complaining about society in the Euro-zone being divided into two classes. The gap between those Euro-states able successfully to compete, with Germany as the...
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- Establishing a New Framework for Coordinated International Economic Competition
- The insecurity concerning the further course of the economic cycle is omnipresent in politics and economy. Even if at surface level there is peace and quiet, the decisive question remains unanswered...
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- Resistance and Struggles Against Austerity in Europe
- A Round table was held in Paris on October 24 with the following participants: ...
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- Modern Times: The New Attack on Working Time in Europe
- “Time is the delimiter of human development. A person who has no free time at his disposal, whose whole lifetime – aside from the mere physical interruptions of sleep, meals and so on – is taken up by...
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- "Transformation": Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi
- “It may be ruled out that immediate economic crises of themselves produce fundamental historic events; they can simply create a terrain more favourable to the dissemination of certain modes of...
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- A Dearth of Organisational Wisdom Leaves Us Political Orphans
- The renaissance of Marxism will occur on the soil of “the globally networked brave new world of transnational high-tech capitalism”, and “as analysis, critique, alternative praxis and resistance, …...
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Focus
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- Employment in the Centre
- Interview with Miguel Portas, Portuguese Member of the European Parliament, Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc), regarding the Pervenche Berès report on the financial, economic and social crisis....
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- Car Conversion: Towards an Eco-Socialist "Economy of Reproduction"
- The car industry is a good example of the current many-sided crisis, or, better, its crystallisation point: for decades the industry has been characterised by enormous over-capacity – nevertheless...
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- Basic Aspects of the Car Industry
- In the history of all industrialised countries, the car industry represents both the good and bad aspects of the changes occurring in the move from old to new industrial realities. It was through the...
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- The Costs of Carbon Dioxide Emissions: A Just Basis for the UN-Global Climate Summit in Canc
- After the negotiations at the last Climate Summit in Copenhagen failed so spectacularly, even well-meaning and sensible climate politicians are saying that global climate negotiations within the...
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- A New "Strategic Concept" for NATO: Assure the Security of "Modern Societies"
- One of the main objectives of the 24th NATO Summit in Lisbon1 is the adoption of a new strategic concept. With the reason for its existence in question at the end of the Cold War, in 1991, NATO needed...
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- Strategy Meetings Against Neoliberal Austerity Plans
- In the wake of the European trade-union mobilisation on September 29 in Brussels various political meetings took place in order to strategise joint struggles against the neoliberal policies in Europe....
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ESF/WSF
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- The US and the European Social Forum: Strategic Challenges for the WSF
- No World Social Forum will be held in 2010. Instead, about 40 events are taking place all over the world in order to broaden the alterglobalist movement, to reflect on the crisis – whether it is...
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European Union and Country Reports
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- Action Day and Euro-Demonstration in Brussels
- Joël Decaillon, interviewed by Francine Mestrum What do you make of the Action Day and the European demonstration that took place in Brussels on September 29?...
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- The Dilemma of the Italian Left:Origins and Perspectives
- The Italian left has been an extraordinarily large and important left. In many respects it was an anomaly in the European left – this, both in terms of traditional organisations (a very strong...
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- Antisarkozyism in France*
- The political situation in France is at a fresh turning point. The capitalist crisis and the financial crisis have suddenly worsened the living conditions of the world of labour, which is undergoing...
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- The Belgian Conundrum
- Federal elections took place in Belgium on June 13, 2010, three and a half months before these lines were written. There is as yet no government, and not one of the problems that gave rise to the...
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- The Dutch Socialist Party in the Current Crisis
- Recent years have seen an interminable debate in the Netherlands around social-cultural identities and very little discussion of the social-economic questions, which have a far greater influence on...
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- Greek Wage Earners in the Crisis
- Introduction...
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Review
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- Ernest Mandel Biography
- Jan Willem Stutje, Ernest Mandel: A Rebel’s Dream Deferred, London: Verso 2009; translated by Christopher Beck and Peter Drucker, 392 pages....
