By Dean O’Donnell Stability, prosperity and progress: Some of the common catchwords capitalism’s most staunch defenders have used to justify a system that places private profit before all else. Yes there are flaws, but, so the story goes, the positives outweigh the negatives and, really, no other organisation of society is feasible. Barely halfway through 2020 and such illusions have ...

“THESE ARE the times that try men’ souls. You will no doubt hear a great number of stories respecting the situation of this country. Its present unfortunate state is entirely owing to treachery; the rich always betray the poor.”Henry Joy McCracken, leader of the United Irishmen These were the words of Henry Joy McCracken, leader of the United Irishmen, after ...

By Jonas Brännberg (Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna- our sister organisation in Sweden) Three months have passed since the corona pandemic reached Sweden, and although it has a significantly higher death rate than neighbouring countries with no improvement in sight, the government and authorities have so far escaped wider criticism, partly because of the uncertain state of knowledge but more because of the ...

By Haritha Olaganathan US billionaires saw their collective wealth increase by $282 billion in the first twenty-three days of lockdown. Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the biggest financial reaper, as shares in the social media company have surged by almost 60% over the past two months. Another profiteer includes CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos, whose wealth has increased by $25 ...

by Daniel Waldron “If the disease was in the animals, they’d have closed the place. But for workers, the factories can do what they want.” – Worker in an Irish meat factory, speaking to The Guardian Even at the best of times, working in meat processing can be tough. It is physically demanding, repetitive and, for many, unpleasant by nature. ...

The scale and rapidity of job losses across the private and semi state sector arising from the necessary restrictions on commercial activity is without precedent, writes Michael O’Brien. Even compared to the Great Recession of a decade ago what took several years to unfold in terms of a steep climb in unemployment levels has been surpassed in a few weeks ...

by Eóin Dawson Over the course of the pandemic, there has been speculation about what impact the lockdown and other measures have had on people’s mental health. While some services have seen a reduction in referrals, with life’s ordinary pressures eased for some, certain groups have been left vulnerable by the lockdown.  Emergency services in crisis  Phone counselling service Childline ...

By Eddie McCabe & Keishia Taylor, from the Summer 2020 edition of Socialist Alternative, the political journal of the Socialist Party. Capitalism must go. Virtually everything about the world today screams this. Take for example that in the midst of a global pandemic, when 1.6 billion people are in “immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed”, according to the International ...

By Dean O’Donnell While responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have varied from country to country, one common thread to all is the near uniform refrain from governments, the mainstream media and the super-rich: ‘we are all in this together’. Yet as the figures for infections and deaths continue to climb, the evidence mounts as to the disproportionate and devastating impact ...

By Sam Belton While the world reels in the face of the current Covid-19 pandemic, the climate change crisis ominously looms in the background as an ever-developing existential threat. Both crises are of course interconnected, as the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 – the coronavirus responsible for Covid-19 – was in part driven by global biodiversity loss and the destruction of finely-tuned ...