From Bolivia to Sri Lanka, countries fed up with the IMF-driven debt-austerity cycle and bullying by the U.S.-led bloc are beginning to assert their own agendas, writes Vijay Prashad.
Emergence of a New Non-Alignment
Category: Income Inequality
Discovering Largest Known US Slave Auction
Lauren Davila made a stunning discovery as a graduate student at the College of Charleston: an ad for a slave auction larger than any historian had yet identified, Jennifer Berry Hawes reports.
When Thatcher Met Mandela
As soon as Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years, in still apartheid South Africa, U.K. officials lobbied him for business interests, declassified files show, reports Mark Curtis.
Two Decades That Boosted the US Middle Class
Sam Pizzigati considers new research on the U.S. mid-century home ownership boom in the context of today’s record levels of inequality.
Austerity & a New Cold War With China
Vijay Prashad says the expanding IMF-driven debt crisis, which has converted the idea of “financing for development” into “financing for debt servicing,” bears watching while China waives debt to 17 African nations.
Amnesty Calls for ‘Social Protection’ Rather Than Social Repression
Amnesty lamented that governments have turned to “repression and unnecessary and excessive use of force” against struggling demonstrators instead of addressing their core concerns, such as high food prices and paltry wages.
The Hidden Hand of the IMF in Sudan’s Crisis
Orthodox economics is the ideology of the rich and powerful, writes Dian Maria Blandina. Poor countries such as Sudan, that are trying to develop, cannot afford a regime of free trade.
The Poverty Trap
Lower interest rates and longer-term paybacks that match the pace of underlying social progress are key to successful development finance, writes Jeffrey Sachs.
There Is Wealth, But No Life in the Factories
The class struggle is alive and well, writes Vijay Prashad. Although one of the weaknesses of our time is that massive mobilizations have not been easily converted into political power.
Ukraine’s Big Mistake
From criminality during Perestroika and privatizations to the problem with Russia’s “imperialist war” designation, Natylie Baldwin discusses a wide range of subjects with the author of The Catastrophe of Ukrainian Capitalism.