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)”
Tag: United Kingdom
The Problem of Public Strikes
(From http://nieuwerijnkrant.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/het-probleem-van-de-publieke-stakingen/).
Recent times have seen a strong increase again in the number of industrial actions in the public or semi-public sectors, probably under the influence of the current crisis. Recently the court in Amsterdam enjoined the unions from striking in the public transport of the three largest cities in the Netherlands. This strike had been intended as a means of exerting public pressure against the plans of the Dutch government to increase the retirement age to 67.(1) In the meantime the United Kingdom is now witness to a large-scale action by the union CWU against the plans by Royal Mail to implement severe cuts in the services and pensions.(2) The latter of these however threatens to have a counterproductive effect, since Royal Mail is already under significant pressure under the name of privatization. If the mail services were to fully compete, the result would be that the private competitors would be able to obtain all the lucrative mail services by offering worse labor conditions, whereas the Royal Mail, because of its obligation to service, would be stuck with the ‘unprofitable’ mail (as is being seen to some extent already).
A different problem however with industrial action in the public services is the severe pressure they put on public opinion. Continue reading “The Problem of Public Strikes”
Orthodoxy Prevails in Academia
Notre Dame University has announced the closure of their long-standing department of “economics and policy studies”, to which it had condemned heterodox economists after splitting the formerly mixed Economics department in two. The university was so frightened of the pervasive discussions about ideology and methodology in this supposed social science that instead of fostering an atmosphere of debate, it wanted to separate the orthodox and the unorthodox as much as possible. Of course it has now used the situation as an occasion to get rid of the unorthodox entirely, as reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education. (1) Continue reading “Orthodoxy Prevails in Academia”
Alan Turing Vindicated
The British government led by Prime Minister Brown has today apologized for the murderous treatment of the famous gay computer scientist Alan Turing, following a petitition by a number of well-known British public figures, among whom Sir Ian McKellen and Richard Dawkins. Not only has it indicated regret for the events, but it has in no uncertain terms rejected the attitude underlying the persecution of Turing as well.
This is an important fact, since the British government had maintained anti-homosexual laws on the books until 2003 (2000 in Scotland). Similarly, in the United States a significant number of states banned homosexual sex, until the Supreme Court of the United States voided these laws in the decision Lawrence vs. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). Just very recently, even the High Court in Delhi has voided the colonial-era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which prohibited “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”. Even nations such as China and Singapore are becoming more lax on this topic. Continue reading “Alan Turing Vindicated”
Edward Hallett Carr on History and Revolution
This is a transcript of an interview with the famous British historian E.H. Carr as done by New Left Review in the year 1978, under the title “The Left Today”. Carr, one of the early serious specialists in Russian and Soviet history (a little outdated now but still very useful and readable) was at the time 86 years old. Although he was never a Communist, he clearly identified with the political left, and spent much of his academic efforts combating conservative and liberal (Whiggish) historiography. Nonetheless, for a significant of his career he was not an academic, but worked at the Foreign Office, and later as assistant editor of The Times, neither of which are exactly known for being left-wing. This gave him a broad and nonsectarian perspective on events. Continue reading “Edward Hallett Carr on History and Revolution”