By 2050, if current policies continue, India could have numerous mega-cities with up to 30-40 million inhabitants and just two to three hundred million people (perhaps 15-20% of the population) left in an emptied-out countryside.
For a generation, acceptance of the neoliberal doctrine that “there is no alternative” has paralyzed politics in the West. But what is the meaning of politics if there’s no alternative to the resulting Authoritarian Center, asks Diana Johnstone. By Diana…Read more →
QUESTION: If a school is educating a child, whether it’s a private school or a charter school, doesn’t it deserve public dollars?
RESPONSE: Public and private mean the opposite of each other. Public and private are antonyms.
Years of neoliberal economic policies imposed by Brussels and by Italian politicians alike have devastated numerous industrial towns and the very fabric of Italian society, reports Attilio Moro. By Attilio Moro Special to Consortium News in Brussels Sesto San Giovanni,…Read more →
Recent cases of personal information collecting for corporate interests highlight the urgency of revisiting the topic of higher education in its connection with the corporate sector and the government. We ought to reconsider at least some aspects of the complex web of the contemporary “education industry” and its social implications. Understanding how contemporary (Western) education works (or doesn’t work) can contribute to raising the awareness of the general population as to the scale of the problem, and making a change, no matter how small.
Gordon Gekko, the fictitious corporate raider so memorably personified by Michael Douglas in Wall Street, lectured an assemblage of investors and flaccid board members with this eye-opening burst of insight:
The foreign monarchy imposed on the Greek body politic was a cancerous import, just like the IMF is in our days. It never really gained social roots and after more than a century and a half was deposed in a referendum, one of course that was honored.
Poverty is the greatest cause of death and illness globally; it strangles the lives of billions of people, denying the expression of innate potential, condemning men, women and children to live stunted uncreative lives of interminable suffering and drudgery.
As the capitalist elite continues to pour ever more resources into its crusade to dismantle society, it’s important to keep a tally of the damage done—if only to direct popular attention to where it’s needed most, and to where the Left’s own resources are needed most. High on the list of capitalist priorities, and thus of priorities for left-wing resistance, is the goal to privatize everything from education to nature to policing and soldiering. With that in mind, here’s a list of some recent “negative externalities” of privatization that I’ve culled from news sources.
MEXICO CITY, — With a presidential election approaching, the crowds assembling here Tuesday for International Workers’ Day — or May Day, as it’s know the world over — were more animated than usual, the floats and rallies resembling performance art. Thousands poured into Mexico City’s main square, the Zocalo, to hang in effigy the wage-killing labor reforms of outgoing President Enrique Peña Nieto and depict the suffering and struggle of Mexico’s workers. A giant lemur wearing prison stripes represented the oligarchs who privatized the country’s telecommunications industry.
