In death Margaret Thatcher has caused further division. The left has failed to convince enough people of the alternatives. In 1966, a little more than a year after Martin Luther King won the Nobel peace prize, only 33% of Americans had a favourable view of him, as...
cuts
Pampering of rich too costly | by Dick Forslund
Speculation is rife in anticipation of next week's budget speech. Will Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announce tax increases? Might the tax rate for personal income above R617 000 increase to 42 percent? Might it even return to 45 percent for the portion of income...
Tax pegging ratio of 25% tax to GDP = A Small State | by Donna Andrews
Revenue from personal income tax is part of how governments are able to fund the type of society they imagine. In the case of South Africa, the government presents a vision of a more equal society, striving to lessen inequality and right the wrongs of the past. For...
Time to stop the tax cuts
'There is no money!' This is the standard response to the demands with which the government continues to be bombarded by people whose basic needs have still not been met after nearly 20 years of post-apartheid rule. People in South Africa are angry and impatient in...
The crisis in Spain: Winners and losers | by Brian Anglo
The key question is who, i.e. which class, is going to pay for this enormous crisis. Whichever one wins the battle, it will be directly at the other's expense. So far the popular classes are taking a beating. Can this be turned round? Throughout Europe people are...
The crisis in Spain: Winners and losers | by Brian Anglo
The key question is who, i.e. which class, is going to pay for this enormous crisis. Whichever one wins the battle, it will be directly at the other's expense. So far the popular classes are taking a beating. Can this be turned round? Throughout Europe people are...
Spain: After austerity, the rescue? | by Sofia Tipaldou
The pain in Spain is falling mainly on the poor, says Sofia Tipaldou, but they are resisting on a wholly new scale It’s happened again. Now it is Spain’s turn to get rescued. After half a year of austerity from the ruling centre-right party, Partido Popular (PP), the...
The crisis that won’t go away | by Phil Gasper
The economic crisis that began in 2008 is getting worse—but it’s finally sparking a fight back in the U.S. IT’S BOTH an exciting and a sobering time to be a socialist in the United States or, for that matter, almost anywhere else in the world. Exciting, of course,...
Q & A with Pablo Solon
‘COP 17 cannot be a global suicide pact: we need to end the apartheid against Nature’Pablo Solón is an international analyst and social activist. He served as chief negotiator for climate change and was ambassador of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the UN from...






