What is money? - Part One
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- Written by Adam Booth
What is money? Where does it come from? and what does it represent?
Photo: Pictures of Money/Flickr
Election 2016: America’s Most Unwanted
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- Written by John Peterson
The champions of the free market never miss an opportunity to extol its virtues: peace, prosperity, efficiency, integrity, a wide range of freedoms, and let’s not forget: lots and lots of choices. If you work hard and play by the rules, you too can get ahead. However, far from the myth peddled by the free marketeers, capitalism is organically and incurably irrational, exploitative, and corrupt.
(Editorial of the latest edition of Socialist Appeal (USA))
Trump and Clinton - by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 4.0
“Saint” Teresa of Calcutta: a fanatical stooge of the ruling class
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- Written by Arturo Rodríguez
I
ndeed, the saint-making business is thriving these days (in three years Francis has canonised 29 saints). Pope Francis has also been careful to varnish the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and its pantheon of saints with a gloss of social justice. Francis has attempted to paint his newest saint as a friend of the poor, a woman who “made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created”. The truth, however, is very far from Francis’ adulations of this “saint of the gutters”.
[Read also a longer article about the role of Mother Teresa here: Wojtyla and Teresa, or a Case of Saintly Overproduction]
Photo by Túrelio CC BY-SA 2.0 de
Turkey: "Sloppy coup" serves as temporary lifeline for Erdoğan
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- Written by Hamid Alizadeh
Dramatic events shook Turkey yesterday as armed troops moved onto the streets of Istanbul and Ankara. They closed down the main airports and bridges while military jets were roaring very low above the cities. A coup was in the works.
Britain: Two Labour Parties – The right wing is heading for a split
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- Written by Alan Woods
We are living in a period of sharp and sudden changes. The result of the British EU referendum was yet another such sharp and sudden changes. In a further dramatic turn of events yesterday the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party voted by a majority of 14 to 18 to allow Jeremy Corbyn to defend his position as Labour leader without having to seek nomination by Labour MPs.
Trotsky’s "Stalin": Pre-orders launched! Order your copy today!
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- Written by Wellred Books
This year, Wellred Books has been working on the completion of a historic project. Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence is the final unfinished masterpiece of the great Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Painstakingly restored over a ten-year period, this version will be the first to include all of Trotsky’s own words in full, 100,000 of them previously unpublished, with the distortions of previous editor Charles Malamuth removed. In consultation with the Harvard archives and the English, French and Russian editions, we have produced the most complete version ever published in any language.
Britain: Chilcot report rocks the Establishment
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- Written by Rob Sewell
The Chilcot report into the 2003 Iraq war and how Britain was dragged into it has finally been published after a delay of seven years. It fell like a bombshell on the British political scene that was already reeling from the effects of the EU referendum.
Brexit vote sends shockwaves across European Establishment
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- Written by Alan Woods
Yesterday, 23rd of June 2016, the people of Britain made a momentous decision. After 40 years as part of the European Union they voted to turn their backs on it. This decision has immense consequences for the future of Britain, Europe and the world.
Video Link -The Socialist Alternative to the European Union
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- Written by Alan Woods
In advance of the upcoming referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, Alan Woods - editor of In Defence of Marxism - explains the real motivations of the Stay and Leave camps, which are both dominated and led by reactionaries. The EU referendum is a fight between two wings of the Tory Party. Rather than supporting either of these, it is the task of Marxists to tell the truth, expose the lies and hypocrisy on both sides, and fight for a Socialist Europe.
To watch the video click the following link
http://www.marxist.com/video-the-socialist-alternative-to-the-european-union.htm
New Zealand Perspectives 2016
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- Written by Editorial Board
This perspectives document should be viewed as an addendum to the 2015 document. As the general processes outlined in the previous document are apparent in the present situation.
The New Zealand economy is still showing signs of weak growth of about 3% GDP per year in 2015. As previously explained the majority of the economic growth is a result of re-building earthquake ravaged Christchurch, property bubbles in both Auckland and Christchurch and economic growth not based on the productive sectors of the economy. Auckland's speculative property bubble is due to a shortage of housing and capitalist market failure to provide people with a basic human need – shelter. Auckland is not able to cope with population growth as a consequence of record inward migration.
The Panama Papers and the corruption of capitalism
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- Written by Roberto Sarti and Ben Gliniecki
Almost everyone is involved from across the Establishment, the rich and the ruling class: current and former heads of 
state; business magnates; and celebrities. In the biggest data leak in history it has been revealed how the global elite make use of 200,000 shell companies created by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to secure their money in offshore tax havens and to shield them from investigation.
Iran, Ireland and the USA - The lessons of three elections
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- Written by Alan Woods
For Marxists elections provide a valuable way of ascertaining certain tendencies in society. It is true that they are not the only way of judging the mood of the masses – nor even the best barometer of the real state of the class struggle. At best they are a snapshot of a certain mood at a given time. But having made these necessary reservations and qualifications, one has to take these indicators seriously, as Marx and Lenin certainly did.
In the last few days we have witnessed at least three elections, all of which bear witness to highly significant processes that are now moving with great speed. These processes are not confined to one or two countries. If that were the case, they might be dismissed as mere accidents, events with no particular significance. But when the same – or very similar – processes repeat themselves in many countries, they can no longer be dismissed as accidents. They are the manifestations of the same phenomenon.