A socialist analysis
There is growing debate in Australia about population growth and its alleged impacts on the economy and the environment. The Federal government has argued for a population increase to 35 million by 2050 (up from the current level of 21 million). These calls have been backed by various employer organisations as a [...]

Few things better display the underlying morality of capitalism than the scale and scope of ‘offshore banking’, ‘off-balance-sheet’ accounting and parasitical speculation - thievery by most people’s definition.
The World Bank estimates that the total of ‘illicit money’ hidden from tax authorities, governments and accountants, amounts to between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion a year.
By Steve [...]

Hundredth anniversary of International Women’s Day
At its very beginning, in the early 20th century, International Women’s Day – the 8th of March - was a day of struggle for working women. Nowadays it has largely been hijacked by the capitalist establishment as a ceremonial and sometimes highly commercial affair. Much has happened over time, providing [...]

Interview with a socialist blogger in China
In January the world’s largest internet company declared it had been targeted by organised hackers from China and was therefore prepared to quit the Chinese internet market. What is at the root of this conflict and how could it develop? Chinaworker.info spoke to socialist blogger Zhao Jiangang.

Introduction to new Urdu edition of ‘Permanent Revolution’ by Leon Trotsky
We publish below a new introduction by Peter Taaffe to Leon Trotsky’s ‘Permanent Revolution’, which our comrades in the Socialist Movement Pakistan (CWI) are publishing in Urdu.
What relevance does Trotsky’s Theory of the Permanent Revolution have to the problems of the workers’ cause or the [...]

The 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics are taking place in the Vancouver-Whistler area of Canada. Many Canadians are looking forward to the sports and hoping for gold, especially in ice-hockey. However there are growing concerns about the costs and problems the Olympics will cause.
The Montreal Olympics, in 1976, give a stark reminder of the huge [...]

“Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil”
Karl Marx likened capitalism to a vampire which lives and expands by sucking “living labour” from the worker by extracting “surplus value”, “unpaid labour”.
But that is while the worker lives. Now we learn through Michael Moore, the US radical film-maker, that the biggest vampire, Wal-Mart - [...]

In the last weeks of 2009 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced that the government would be nationalising eight banks. These banks represented 8% of the financial sector in Venezuela and held a significant percentage of Government deposits.
These Government nationalisations however have not been in response to the global financial crisis- as in some [...]

Only days after his December 1st announcement that a second surge of 30,000 troops would be sent to Afghanistan, US President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. According to Obama, “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than [...]

“a historic failure that will live in infamy”
The UN conference on climate change (Cop15), held in Copenhagen 7-18 December, was a fiasco. The Independent called it “a historic failure that will live in infamy”. After years of preparation, the representatives of 193 countries discussed and wrangled for two weeks. In the closing hours, leaders such [...]