The Eurozone & World Economic Crisis
Interview: Working people have no interest in saving the euro
ISJ January 2012 - Costas Lapavitsas
Costas Lapavitsas, Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, spoke to Stefan Bornost about the crisis in the eurozone For starters the crystal ball: Will we still pay with euro in 2015? Some countries will probably still pay with euro in 2015 but it is highly unlikely that all present members of the eurozone will continue to use it.1 The euro in its current form is unsustainable and it will not be sustained. The pressures making for collapse are evident—even as we speak the European bond market is seizing up because financial investors are moving into German bonds, selling other bonds due to the fear of insolvency. Consequently, they are pushing up interest rates and disrupting state borrowing as well as the normal functioning of financial institutions. If this process is intensified, the euro will be finished in weeks. . ...more
Eurozone: Bankrupt elites plot a new assault on workers
Socialist Worker November 2011 - Alex Callinicos
The eurozone crisis is all about bankruptcy. But this isn’t just economic. There is intellectual, moral, and political bankruptcy as well. Here are just three examples from last week. First is intellectual bankruptcy. Every time an economist is interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme, he—it is almost always a he—says Greece should default on its debt and leave the euro. . ...more
What's the solution for Greece?
Socialist Review November 2011 - Mona Dohle
In arguing against a Greek departure from the eurozone some on the left are mistakenly conflating the EU and workers' internationalism The vilification of Greek resistance to austerity has been a recurrent feature of media coverage of the eurozone crisis. Sadly most of the leading left wing parties across Europe have also been unable to provide a convincing answer to these attacks. The general response of much of the European left has been to replace the right wing paradigm The vilification of Greek resistance to austerity has been a recurrent feature of media coverage of the eurozone crisis. Sadly most of the leading left wing parties across Europe have also been unable to provide a convincing answer to these attacks. . ...more
Can Marxism explain the crisis?
Socialist Review November 2011 - Bill Dunn
Recent panic in the stock markets has led some commentators to ask whether Karl Marx might have been right after all. Bill Dunn explains some of the core ideas at the heart of Marx's understanding of capitalism and shows how they can be used to explain the system's current crisis ...more
The crisis of our time
ISJ October 2011 – Alex Callinicos
As it has remorselessly unwound, the global economic and financial crisis has passed through a succession of turning points. The first came when the credit crunch began in August 2007. Then there was the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, precipitating the greatest financial crash since 1929. The onset of the eurozone crisis in the spring of 2010 marked a third turning point. In all probability, the summer of 2011 saw another—panic falls in financial markets as the realisation spread that, four years on, the crisis is very far from any kind of resolution. We go to press as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledges that “the global economy is in a dangerous new phase”.1 ...more
Unsteady as she goes
ISJ June 2011 - Alex Callinicos
For a while the high priests of capitalism congratulated themselves on the robustness of the economic recovery. Financial markets soared and there was euphoria about the robust expansion of the “emerging market” economies of the Global South. But in the past few weeks it has begun to sink in that the world economy is locked into a crisis that is far from over ...more
