Reviews
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Marx and the alternative to capitalism
Book Review by Martin Percival, July August 2011
Kieran Allen
Global capitalism is in a deep crisis. Austerity measures being used by governments across the world are exposing the barbarities of the system. The gap between the wealth of the ruling class and that of workers is rapidly increasing. Yet people across the world are demanding an alternative. In this context, understanding of the key ideas of Karl Marx is essential.
Kieran Allen's new book provides this in an impressively accessible way. It gives a Marxist explanation of the contradictions of capitalism, including complex issues such as alienation and the dominant ideology of the ruling class. All this is broken down and explained clearly, and Marx's ideas are placed in a contemporary context.
Allen explains that the current crisis is a consequence of a system driven to grab short-term profits. At times this can place the longer-term needs of the system in jeopardy, increasing the likelihood and severity of an economic crisis. In striving to protect profits, capitalists cut workers' wages, which leads to workers borrowing more to maintain their living standards. At the same time the banks strive for greater profits by lending more money than people can ever afford to pay back. This leads to huge levels of debt and paves the way for a crisis.
Allen places these developments in the context of deeper contradictions in the system - in particular the long-term tendency of the rate of profit to fall. This is a crucial feature of capitalism which Marx identified, the effects of which are very evident today.
By placing the role of class as central to capitalist society, Allen shows how exploitation is maintained, but also how it can be challenged.
Some influential academics - such as Eric Hobsbawm in his latest book, How to Change the World - accept that capitalism is a deeply flawed system, but argue that the Marxist alternative has failed. Hobsbawm's pessimism is based on illusions he had in the Soviet Union, a society marked by class divisions and subject to the competitive logic of the global system. Allen's book challenges this analysis, presenting the Marxist vision of a classless society where workers organise and collectively control the means of production as the only solution which can bring an end to oppression.
Such a society, he argues, can only be brought about through the revolutionary struggle of ordinary working people.
Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism is a fantastic place to start for students wanting to get a practical understanding of Marxism. It's also an important read for anyone wanting to understand the troubled world we live in today, and our alternative to it.
Clare Solomon and Tania Palmieri (eds)
In the autumn and winter of last year students shook the coalition with a vast, militant outburst of anger from below. Waves of student protests and occupations challenged the neoliberal agenda of the Con-Dem coalition, which sought to deny access to education for working class people and set a clear course to the wholesale marketisation and privatisation of education. Education is now no longer the preserve of critical thought and self-development - it is a tool of capitalism, to provide a skilled labour force tied with debt which can be hired and dispensed to the needs of the market.
This collection of essays, reports, letters, poems and photos documents the vivid revolts ranging from the student movements in the West (Britain, France and the US) to the general strikes in Greece and the revolution in Tunisia. The personal accounts from activists record the growth of the fight for education, the brutality of the police and the defiance of students and workers united in solidarity.
The ongoing struggle to fight the coalition's plans has revived student politics. Young people in Tunisia, Greece and Egypt record the revolutionary upheaval created by workers withdrawing their labour and students bringing their governments to a halt. The essays in the compendium debate tactics and ways forward to continue the struggle against capitalism. One US activist writes, "We demand not a free university, but a free society. A free university in the midst of a capitalist society is like a reading room in a prison."
Springtime captures the scale of resistance across the world and serves to inspire anti-capitalism and the fight to reclaim education. However, it also highlights how ongoing debate within the movement is absolutely necessary.
It is certainly inspiring to hear about the new and dynamic ways of protesting - such as the Italian students' "book blocs" or how occupations have reclaimed space - but we must see the fight for education as an outward-looking resistance, as one of many struggles. The contributions from students, lecturers, journalists and academics bring forward the ideas of class solidarity, anti-capitalism and revolution - fighting for a new type of society and for a reimagining of education as we know it.
The student movements have revived the energy and the anger of working class people worldwide. As one Tunisian painter prophetically writes, "Citizens are burning themselves...in Cairo, hoping to trigger a revolution. It will come." An Egyptian taxi driver explains, "The Egyptians are a very patient people by nature, but their patience is running out - they could explode." Springtime is testimony to our struggle as a class, and it articulates what is on the tip of people's tongues right now: revolution.
Springtime
Book Review by Max Brophy, April 2011Clare Solomon and Tania Palmieri (eds)
In the autumn and winter of last year students shook the coalition with a vast, militant outburst of anger from below. Waves of student protests and occupations challenged the neoliberal agenda of the Con-Dem coalition, which sought to deny access to education for working class people and set a clear course to the wholesale marketisation and privatisation of education. Education is now no longer the preserve of critical thought and self-development - it is a tool of capitalism, to provide a skilled labour force tied with debt which can be hired and dispensed to the needs of the market.
This collection of essays, reports, letters, poems and photos documents the vivid revolts ranging from the student movements in the West (Britain, France and the US) to the general strikes in Greece and the revolution in Tunisia. The personal accounts from activists record the growth of the fight for education, the brutality of the police and the defiance of students and workers united in solidarity.
The ongoing struggle to fight the coalition's plans has revived student politics. Young people in Tunisia, Greece and Egypt record the revolutionary upheaval created by workers withdrawing their labour and students bringing their governments to a halt. The essays in the compendium debate tactics and ways forward to continue the struggle against capitalism. One US activist writes, "We demand not a free university, but a free society. A free university in the midst of a capitalist society is like a reading room in a prison."
Springtime captures the scale of resistance across the world and serves to inspire anti-capitalism and the fight to reclaim education. However, it also highlights how ongoing debate within the movement is absolutely necessary.
It is certainly inspiring to hear about the new and dynamic ways of protesting - such as the Italian students' "book blocs" or how occupations have reclaimed space - but we must see the fight for education as an outward-looking resistance, as one of many struggles. The contributions from students, lecturers, journalists and academics bring forward the ideas of class solidarity, anti-capitalism and revolution - fighting for a new type of society and for a reimagining of education as we know it.
The student movements have revived the energy and the anger of working class people worldwide. As one Tunisian painter prophetically writes, "Citizens are burning themselves...in Cairo, hoping to trigger a revolution. It will come." An Egyptian taxi driver explains, "The Egyptians are a very patient people by nature, but their patience is running out - they could explode." Springtime is testimony to our struggle as a class, and it articulates what is on the tip of people's tongues right now: revolution.
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