What’s wrong with lesser evilism
Those who advocate a vote for the “lesser evil” hope to defeat the “greater evil” of the right wing–but they enable the Democrats to shift further right themselves. ————————————————————— DOES BARACK Obama deserve your vote? That’s the question people on the left should be asking as Election Day approaches. When you consider Obama’s record after four years […]
Why You Should Join and Help to Build the ISO
The world today has a wide range of obvious problems. These include a widening gap between rich and poor within the advanced capitalist countries, widespread malnutrition and starvation in the so-called ‘third world’, mass unemployment in many countries, the oppression of women, blacks, gays and lesbians, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the destruction […]
National’s war on the poor
This article will be focusing on cutbacks to Welfare and what they mean in the context of the social, political and economic environment of New Zealand. Firstly I will talk briefly about recent benefit history. Then I will talk about what the current welfare reforms are and some of the ruling classes myths to justify […]
Film Review: American Radical: the trials of Norman Finkelstein
“Every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. And it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians.” It is […]
Book Review: The Lacuna
How do you write a history of revolutionary lives and activity in the mid 20th century and sell it to the public? A tough order, certainly, but Barbara Kingsolver nails it with The Lacuna. The book follows the life of a young man, Harrison Shephard, who finds himself living between the worlds of his Mexican mother and American […]
Capitalism, the Environment, and Socialism
It’s apparent to everyone today that the world is going through an ecological crisis. Wilderness is disappearing fast as whole ecosystems – from forests to grasslands to marshlands – are becoming endangered. For the past two centuries, factories have spewed forth pollution into the atmosphere, poisoning the very air we breathe while lakes, rivers and […]
“Overpopulation” is not to blame for the ecological crisis
Overpopulation is a common theme when discussing environmental destruction. It’s undoubtedly true that since the 1960s an ecological crisis has emerged causing loss of biodiversity, plunging fish stocks, deforestation, and dangerous climate change. Coincidentally since this time the global population has doubled. It might seem logical therefore to link the two. The idea that ‘overpopulation’ is to blame for […]
The Fire Last Time: The Rise of Class Struggle and Progressive Social Movements in Aotearoa, 1968-1977.
“A dramatic upsurge in working class struggle, surpassing in magnitude the rise of the Red Feds from 1908 to 1913 and the 1951 Waterfront Lockout, took place in New Zealand from the Arbitration Court’s nil general wage order in June 1968 to the union movement’s defeat of the Muldoon Government’s attempted wage freeze in 1976. […]
The Significance of the 1912 Waihi Strike
This year marks the centenary of the 1912 Waihi miners’ strike, one of the most important – and violently contested – strikes in New Zealand history. Frederick Evans was matyred; political ideas and organisational questions clarified; and the role and force of the state made clear. The strike offers many lessons for today. To mark the occasion, […]
Issue 40: Editorial
This issue of Socialist Review takes up two key debates in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In a six page feature Andrew Tait looks at the debate raging over Māori rights over fresh water. It is argued that power companies should not be for profit but run for need by the workers who work them alongside representatives of […]
