History
Monopoly Imperialism: How Empires Can Be Bought and Leased
Given that empire remains a wide-ranging and hugely influential phenomenon it is surprising how little academic attention has been directed towards it. Those few texts that do examine the processes by which empires gain power tend to focus upon the most obvious method, conquest. Yet there remain a surprising number of alternative strategies for expanding, [...]
The Rebirth of Utopian Thinking on the Left
Utopianism is a necessary part of our rethinking of social democracy. Almost exactly twenty years ago the Berlin wall came crashing down on ‘actually existing socialism’ in Eastern Europe. Some commentators on the political right were quick to announce the ‘end of history’ and the ever-lasting triumph of the liberal-capitalist order: the end of the [...]
Power Games on the German Left – Lafontaine, the radical Riddle
On the evening of the 30th August the ghost of Weimar walked abroad in the Saarland. The social democrats of Heiko Maas were only just over three percentage points ahead of their left-wing rivals. This was uncannily reminiscent of the last Reichstag elections to be held in the Weimar Republic in November 1932. Then the [...]
Morality and Capitalism in Sociological Perspective
Whether neoliberals can claim that their form of free-market capitalism is a moral force is debatable (which from a deontological viewpoint is very debatable), but they certainly claim it is superior to all other forms capitalism as well as socialism. This stands in contrast to social democratic and Christian democratic conceptions of capitalism which regard [...]
No Freedom Without Solidarity!
Do you remember the moment when communism fell in Eastern Europe? Most people will recall the dramatic events in Berlin in November 1989. Perhaps they will remember the overthrow of Ceaucescu in Romania or when Yeltsin defeated the coup in Moscow two years later. Yet communism ended here, in Poland, when twenty years ago the [...]
