Author: Matthijs Krul

Great divisions of global opinion on capitalism, USSR

by Matthijs Krul

The British Broadcasting Corporation recently held a poll in various countries of the world in which they asked the respondents’ opinions on capitalism and the fall of the Soviet Union, among other things.(1) Unsurprisingly, the opinions on the current world system were strongly divided in the world, and mostly between the rich and the poor nations. Nevertheless there were some interesting results. Only 11% of all people polled indicated the current capitalist system worked well, with many people desiring reform or regulation, and 23% indicating it was “fatally flawed”. We may take the latter position as an anti-capitalist one, meaning principled opposition to capitalism lives among a quarter of the sample polled, a better result than might be expected. Opposition to capitalism altogether was still intense in France, by far the most anti-capitalist of the Western nations: in this country 43% of the population indicated to oppose capitalism altogether, compared to 35% in Brazil and 38% in Mexico.

Opinions on the collapse and disappearance of the USSR were strongly divided by bloc. Continue reading “Great divisions of global opinion on capitalism, USSR” →

Italian court convicts CIA agents

by Matthijs Krul

Thanks to the persistent efforts of Italian procurator Armando Spataro, the CIA agents responsible for abducting Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, have been prosecuted for their crime committed with the connivance of the Italian government of Berlusconi. Just a few days ago, the court in Milano found 23 American agents and two Italians guilty of the crime, sentencing them to long imprisonments, mostly in absentia.(1) The CIA station chief in Milano, Robert Lady, got eight years’ imprisonment, whereas most others received five years, including a US Airforce colonel. Continue reading “Italian court convicts CIA agents” →

R.I.P. Chris Harman (1942-2009)

by Matthijs Krul

The news has come to us of the death of the well-known socialist author Chris Harman, who has suddenly and prematurely passed away as the result of a heart attack in Cairo.(1) He was a popular and active author of works of a historical and economic nature seen from a socialist perspective, a perspective he developed as a student at the London School of Economics. In particular his work about the movement of Paris 1968, The Fire Next Time, and his Marxist history of the world for a popular audience, A People’s History of the World, have justly become famous. Continue reading “R.I.P. Chris Harman (1942-2009)” →

Crisis: Liberalism fails where anti-liberalism succeeds

by Matthijs Krul

The current economic crisis, despite (or maybe because) of the hullaballoo about its premature ‘end’, gives a good perspective on the failures of liberal economic policy. Precisely those nations that had in the past attempted a get-rich-quick scheme by relying on extreme liberalism to draw in capital in search of unrestricted territory for expansion are now the ones suffering the most from the inevitable cyclical collapse that is attendant on the movement of capital.

Such ‘success stories’ of liberal development as Ireland and Iceland have gone into deep recession. Continue reading “Crisis: Liberalism fails where anti-liberalism succeeds” →