Socialist Project

What's New: Why unsustainable fossil fuel use keeps on growing

| October 17, 2017

Simon Pirani, Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, gave a seminar at the Grantham Research Institute. He answers questions about the history of fossil fuel consumption, why consumption keeps rising when we need to reduce energy use, and how we could overhaul the systems which keep consumption high.

Bullet #1497: Mexicans Denounce Canadian Mega-Mining Projects

by Richard Fidler; Mexican Network of Mining Affected People | October 16, 2017

As Prime Minister Trudeau makes his first official visit to Mexico, writes Mining Watch Canada, 'the Mexican Network of Mining Affected People' (REMA by its initials in Spanish) has issued a communiqué to call on Trudeau to live up to his commitments and stop the devastation of Indigenous and campesino communities that has enabled Canadian mining companies to make big profits.

LeftStreamed: 1917: The October Revolution

October 15, 2017

It is now 100 years since the Great October Revolution of 1917, one of the most remarkable events of the 20th century. An autocratic monarchy governing over an emergent capitalist economy was swept aside, in a series of revolutionary ruptures between February and October, and replaced by a socialist state under the leadership of the Bolsheviks. The trajectory, meaning, strategy and tactics, and, finally, the complete reversal of the Revolution has sparked sharp debate, and division, to this day. Here is only a sample, from Eisenstein to Mieville, to Lenin's classic text, The State and Revolution.

What's New: TTCriders 2017 Annual Report

| October 14, 2017

Founded in 2011, TTCriders is a grassroots transit advocacy organization of transit riders. We campaign for an affordable world class public transit system for Toronto. We believe that everyone in Toronto has the right to ride fast and reliable public transit at an affordable price. Our priority campaign is to get lower fares and better service for riders on the TTC. It’s a struggle in this age of austerity. At the beginning of this year’s budget season, the TTC was facing a 2.6% budget cut despite significant cost increases, including the roll out of PRESTO and the opening of the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension. There was a very high likelihood of major service cuts and fare increases.

What's New: Nature, Labor, and the Rise of Capitalism

by Martin Empson | October 14, 2017

Capitalism has, to put it mildly, a peculiar relationship with the natural world. Karl Marx perhaps summarized it best in the Grundrisse, where he wrote that with the rise of the capitalist mode of production, 'for the first time, nature becomes purely an object for humankind, purely a matter of utility; ceases to be recognized as a power for itself; and the theoretical discovery of its autonomous laws appears merely as a ruse so as to subjugate it under human needs, whether as an object of consumption or as a means of production.' In the same section, Marx notes that 'capital creates the bourgeois society, and the universal appropriation of nature as well as of the social bond itself by the members of society.'

Bullet #1496: Costa Rica’s Banco Popular Shows how Banks can be Democratic, Green – and Financially Sustainable

by Thomas Marois | October 13, 2017

A decade on from the 2007-08 global financial crisis, the majority of private banks have changed very little. Most remain solely concerned with maximizing their returns, while sustainable or social goals remain subservient to this. For conventional economists, anything else remains an impossible or distant dream. But there is hope for a different kind of bank - one that is run democratically and with sustainable principles at its core. Costa Rica’s cooperative Banco Popular and of Communal Development (or BPDC) illustrates a viable and desirable alternative to the average private bank.

What's New: Campaign launch: Free Public Transit for Ottawa

| October 12, 2017

Solidarity Ottawa’s Eco-Justice Committee is convening a public meeting to launch a campaign for Free and Accessible Public Transit. The speakers at the event, including Stefan Kipfer from Free Transit Toronto Now, will provide insight into challenges and ways forward. Free transit is the future. The movement starts here.

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