Who’s paying for the wage subsidies?

Anthony Main is a member of Socialist Action Australia. from The Socialist, ISA in Australia The federal government announced a $130 billion wage subsidy package in late March. The measures include provisions for workers in companies that have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic to be paid up to $1,500 per fortnight. If companies are […]

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Trump Inaction Fuels Disaster

Tony Wilsdon is a member of Socialist Alternative in the US. The threat posed by COVID-19 was not a secret. The devastating spread of the virus in China, and the fact that it could be transmitted person-to-person was world news by the middle of January. The science of virus transmission and the steps to minimize […]

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US: Build a Fighting Labor Movement

Bryan Koulouris is a member of Socialist Alternative in the US. If it wasn’t obvious before, it is clear as day now: working people make this economy run. While billionaire hoarders and corporations get bailed out and millions of us are laid off, workers on the frontlines have been risking everything to deliver essential goods […]

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Capitalism and the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919

Keishia Taylor is a member of the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland). The 1918-1919 “Spanish Flu” killed between 50-100 million people, more than the number of deaths in the First and Second World Wars combined. According to expert Laura Spinney the Spanish flu “re-sculpted human populations more radically than anything since the Black Death.” The […]

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EU in crisis and COVID-19

Finghín Kelly is a member of the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland). Last week saw a major clash between eurozone finance ministers with a 16 meeting ending in a deadlock before a face-saving meeting later agreed to a package of measures worth up to €540 billion. This has been heralded with much fanfare as a […]

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Homeless sleaping in a designated parkinglot - Las Vegas, Nevada

Nevada homelessness under COVID

Harper Cleves is a member of the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland). In the last weekend of March, images of a parking lot converted into a homeless shelter in Las Vegas, Nevada sparked outrage. The images of the make-shift shelter are stark and are illustrative of the grotesque inequalities that lie at the heart of […]

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African women wearing a face mask

COVID-19: Capitalism Driving Africa Into the Abyss

Serge Jordan is a member of International Socialist Alternative. Capitalism and Imperialism in the dock The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the profound social inequalities prevailing under modern capitalism. Nowhere more than in Africa. The Global Health Security (GHS) Index is a measured assessment of 195 countries’ capacity and readiness to face outbreaks […]

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South Africa: Lockdown a Death Trap for the Poor

Carmia Schoeman and Mametlwe Sebei are members of the Workers’ and Socialist Party (ISA in South Africa). Lockdown measures surpass those of 1987 Apartheid state of emergency South African president Cyril Ramaphosa announced on March 23, that the government’s “state of disaster” restrictions would be escalated to an unprecedented lockdown of the whole country. The […]

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