Austerity

SYRIZA MAY JUST HAVE BEEN SUFFERING FROM AN EARLY BIRTH: Everywhere, it seems, anti-austerity policies and politicians are on the rise. With Jeremy Corbyn, British Labour has decided upon a course radically dissimilar to its previous “me too” endorsement of austerity. Spain’s Podemos, despite insistence that the country’s situation is not Greece’s, cannot escape comparisons with SYRIZA. Even in the United States, the rise of Bernie Sanders indicates that the word “socialist,” if not socialist policy, is losing some of its spookiness. [Read More]

CAMPAIGNING STRONGLY AGAINST AUSTERITY and for greater democracy in Spain, the political party Podemos (“We Can”) gained popularity immediately upon its formation in early 2014. In the elections to the European Parliament of that year it won 5 seats (equivalent to 8% of the Spanish vote). On October 17, 2014, Lucy Parker and David Mountain of the Platypus Affiliated Society interviewed Eduardo Maura, Professor of Philosophy at University of Madrid and spokesperson for Podemos. [Read More]

Platypus Affiliated Society member Chris Cutrone on RT’s Crosstalk, hosted by Peter Lavelle, on the global economic crisis. “The IMF has released a report that predicts the hoped-for global economic growth is again endangered. Why is this happening? Why has the Great Recession come back so early? Did it ever end? Has austerity made things worse? And is there a way to avoid the ‘fiscal cliff’ issue in Washington? [Read More]

LAST NOVEMBER PLATYPUS organized a teach-in led by Sam Gindin of the Canadian Auto Workers on “Public Sector Unionism, Austerity and the Left” at York University in Toronto. An audio and video recording is available above. What follows is an edited version of the interview Andony Melathopoulos of Platypus conducted with Gindin as a follow up to the teach-in. Andony Melathopoulos: Clearly these are not very good times for public sector unions, not only in Canada but worldwide. [Read More]