Mass joblessness is an everywhere phenomenon in the developing world. The existence of an ever-growing reserve army of labour manages to keep working wages below a living minimum. Hence, the majority of the working class in any third world economy can get nicely tied...
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Wal-Mart in Mexico: a blueprint for South Africa? | by Etienne Vlok and Simon Eppel
In 2004, the Mexican Federal Competition Commission took the peculiar step of allowing collusion in the Mexican retail market. It did so when it approved the establishment of Sinergia, a buying cooperative comprised of Mexico’s second, third and fourth largest...
…And the Postman Goeth | by Terry Bell
On Monday, nostalgia, tinged with concern, will provide a worker and union undercurrent when the post office, with justifiable pride, celebrates the centenary of South Africa’s first delivery of mail by air. Similar feelings afflict postal workers the world over as...
A hundred and fifty years after France abolished slavery | by Elikia M’bokolo
The impact of the slave trade on AfricaOn 27 April 1848 Victor Schoelcher, the French under-secretary of state for the colonies, signed a decree abolishing slavery. To force the decision through, he had warned of the danger of a general uprising if nothing was done....
Egypt’s Bloody Sunday | by Mariz Tadros
At first, it looked like a repeat of the worst state brutality during the January 25 uprisings that unseated the ex-president of Egypt, Husni Mubarak: On Sunday, October 9, security forces deployed tear gas, live bullets and armored vehicles in an effort to disperse...
More Observations from Occupy Wall St | by Stephanie Luce
It was a strange feeling to be in Zuccotti Park (once called Liberty Plaza Park), right next to Ground Zero. I was with thousands of people listening to speeches through the “people’s microphone.” The crowd looked so similar to those of the late 1990s/early 2000s...
Occupy New York’s Wall Street. Occupy Cape Town’s Company Gardens. Occupy mailboxes of senators and congressmen. Occupy your mind … | by Niren Tolsi
The millions of unemployed around the world can, finally, find an occupation these days, it seems, as momentum from the camped protest at New York's Zuccotti Park near Wall Street continues to spread to other cities in the United States and beyond American borders to...
Anti-capitalism and environmentalism as a political alternative | by Esther Vivas
We cannot analyse the global ecological crisis separately from the crisis in which we are immersed or the critique of the economic model that has led us into it. The starting point for today’s debate is to note that humanity is in a global ecological crisis that is an...
Dexia and bailing out the banks | by Michael Roberts
The large Belgian Bank, Dexia, went bust over last weekend. It provides a lot of pointers about the role of banking and how it fits into this crisis. Dexia was bailed out before at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. Then the Belgian and French governments...



