Globalism

News pointing to global inequality and a lack of democracy has been dominating newspaper headlines in recent days. From the Panama Papers to controversies swirling in the US presidential primaries, a divided world is in crisis. As recent events illustrate, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Neoliberal ideology has dominated world discourse for the first fifteen years of the twenty-first century. The mantra has been that the only viable policy for governments and social movements was to give priority to something called the market.

The term “nation” has had many different meanings across the centuries. But these days, and ever since the French Revolution more or less, the term has been linked to the state, as in “nation-state.” In this usage, “nation” refers to those who are members by right of the community that is located within a state. The issue is why states create nations, and what should be the attitude of the “left” to the concept of the nation.

When Bernie Sanders announced that he would seek the presidential nomination of the U.S. Democratic Party, few people took him very seriously. Hillary Clinton seemed to have so much support that her nomination seemed assured without difficulty. Sanders however persisted in his seemingly utopian quest.

The International Workingmen's Association -- sometimes called "The International," or "The First International," depending on your views concerning the legitimacy of its subsequent incarnations -- was formed in 1864 by representatives of numerous European socialist and workers' organizations, in order to coordinate strike activity and otherwise aid the working class in its struggle against capitalism. 

The story of the BRICS is a strange one. It starts in 2001 when Jim O’Neill, at that time the chairman of the Assets Management division of Goldman Sachs, the giant investment house, wrote a widely-commented article about what we have come to call “emerging economies.”