As we approach the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, let us recognise concretely that our movements will either succeed together, or fail separately, says Susan George.
Inequality may seem to be diminishing, but governments realise that support for globalisation will wane if the opportunities it offers are not shared in a more equitable way, writes John Vandaele.
The EU will declare war today on Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra and Switzerland. Weary of losing billions of tax euros, Ecofin is meeting in Brussels to agree a strategy aimed at bringing the continent's tax havens under control, by Sean O'Grady.
Davos is a small, and for much of the year, an ordinary Swiss ski resort. But, for about a week every year, limousines and helicopters converge in Davos as the world’s rich and mighty congregate to attend the World Economic Forum, by Bhaskar Dutta.
The ideology of neoliberal globalization was not in fact a new idea in the history of the modern world-system, although it claimed to be one. It was rather the very old idea that the governments of the world should get out of the way of large, efficient enterprises in their efforts to prevail in the world market.
An average of nearly two out of three people in 34 countries around the world believe that the benefits and burdens resulting from changes in their nation's economy over the last few years are not being distributed fairly, according to a new multinational survey released Thursday by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). That view was held by a majority in 27 countries and by well over two-thirds of respondents in Latin America, continental Europe, non-oil-producing nations of the Middle East, and East Asia.
Wild stock market gyrations and a global financial meltdown open 2008. Around the world, old and new critics of neo-liberalism smirk and repeat "I told you so." Neo-liberal dogma -- that private enterprise is good and efficient whereas state economic interventions are bad and wasteful -- suffers deepening disrepute. The private, deregulated capitalism of recent decades produced imprudent credit orgies that generated unsustainable bubbles bursting across scary headlines.
The processes of globalisation sweeping across the world today are being driven by neo-liberal ideologies which celebrate untrammelled market forces, the free movement of capital and the sovereignty of the citizen-consumer. Labour remains subject to many more restrictions than capital, but it too has become a global resource. As governments are increasingly forced to pursue competitive advantage in the global economy through the construction of flexible labour markets, in which workers can be hired and fired with impunity, women have emerged as the flexible labour force par excellence.
India is on the boil with ‘democracy’ set for a head on collision with the ‘free market’, as a variety of social movements challenge the government’s policies and pitch for changes to safeguard the rights of the urban and rural poor, women and indigenous people, by Satya Sivaraman.
British Petroleum, Beyond Petroleum . . . Biofuel Promoter, Biosphere Plunderer. Regardless of what the BP abbreviation actually stands for, one thing is clear: this oil giant knows a good deal when it sees one, writes Hannah Holleman and Rebecca Clausen.
