Browsing: Writing
China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse – book review
Andrew Burgin reviews Richard Smith’s new book ‘China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse’ Pluto 2020 It has become a truism that we live in the most dangerous phase of imperialism. Rosa Luxemburg’s assessment that the future we face is either that of ‘socialism or barbarism’ no longer fully expresses the depth of the interlocking crises facing humanity. As the Hungarian Marxist Istvan Meszaros wrote in 2003: ‘if I had to modify Rosa’s words it would be ‘barbarism if we are lucky. …the extermination of humanity is the ultimate concomitant of capital’s destructive course of development.’ The world situation has deteriorated even…
Foot Work – What your shoes are doing to the world
TRANSFORM interviews Tansy Hoskins about her new book: Foot Work – What Your Shoes Are Doing To The World. In Foot Work, you discuss the detrimental effects of the footwear industry on society and our planet. What would you say is the biggest issue in the book? The working title for the book was Foot Work – What Your Shoes Tell You About Globalisation. I wanted to write it because I am interested in the way certain objects tell us a bigger story – in this case shoes perfectly tell us the story of globalisation and out-of-control corporate power. Globalisation has meant…
COVID-19: marking the death knell of the old world and midwife to the new
In just two weeks the world has been educated as to the incompatibility of free market neoliberal nostrums and the political and geopolitical order they support with the needs of humanity and the planet. On a national and international level coronavirus is ravaging not only the lives of its victims and those affected by its social and economic consequences, it has taken a bludgeon to a status quo that is now lies broken and blooded on the ground. To watch Donald Trump and Boris Johnson address their respective nations to update them on the pandemic’s impact and their response is…
Who is the parasite class?
A review of Parasite, (South Korea, written and directed by Bong Joon-ho) by Dave Kellaway