All articles by Richard Seymour
Richard Seymour on August 25, 2010 0 Comments
The class basis of the UK’s Conservative Party
Politics
Public opinion does not exist
Richard Seymour — August 20, 2010 1 Comment
Public opinion is an “artifact, pure and simple, the function of which is to dissemble that the state of opinion at any given moment is a system of forces and tensions and that nothing is more inadequate for representing the state of opinion than a percentage”.
Psychology
Epochal nature of financial crisis must be grasped by unions
Richard Seymour — July 1, 2010 2 Comments
The truly epochal nature of this crisis needs to be registered before a proportionate response can be mustered, and I have the sinking feeling that as far as the labour movement is concerned, the last people to get it will be the union bureaucracy
Economics
Britain’s nasty government
Richard Seymour — June 28, 2010 0 Comments
At the moment, polls show that the government’s strategy is working, and that most people acquiesce in the cuts agenda. I would say ‘support’, rather than acquiesce, but this would imply that the agenda was being approved rather than met with terrorised compliance
Economics
Chinese workers kick back
Richard Seymour — June 16, 2010 0 Comments
The Chinese working class is on the move: there is a wave of strikes taking place across China, and they’re winning. Workers at Honda have won a 30% pay increase in the latest strike affecting that company, while workers at FoxConn have reportedly been offered a 100% increase in ‘basic pay’ (with strings attached) after strikes and a string of employee suicides
Economics, Politics
George Osborne and UK cuts to public services
Richard Seymour — June 9, 2010 2 Comments
However, financial capitalists are fighting hard to limit this, and the signs are that Osborne is prepared to fight their corner. To that extent, the cuts policy points to the continued ability of the financial fraction of capital to assert its hegemony. Especially since manufacturing and services capital is heavily financialised and depends for a considerable portion of its profitability on the City, which redistributes global surplus values to the benefit of UK capital
Politics
Chutzpah and hasbara
Richard Seymour — June 7, 2010 0 Comments
You know how it is. For days, it’s been impossible to log on to Twitter without some frantic Israeli apologists urgently messaging you to say – no, look, it’s really clear, these so-called ‘humanitarians’ attacked Israeli soldiers who merely responded, yadda yadda yadda. They lynched those servicemen… Or, better still – peace activists don’t carry [...]
Politics
Israel’s twisted torturing of Gaza
Richard Seymour — May 31, 2010 1 Comment
In other words, by the twisted logic of Zionism: Israel can impose a blockade on Gaza that systematically starves civilians, leaves them to die without medicine, destroys their sewage and power systems, leaves them utterly dependent on international aid delivery which it imposes the most grotesque restrictions on; then it can demonise and assault an aid flotilla intended to break the blockade, fire on the residents, murder people in their sleep, the better to deter anyone from attempting to violate its supremacy in Palestine again; then it can manufacture whatever story it requires to force a hostile world to accept its actions, muddy the waters, juggle narratives, befuddle and confuse people, following up one bit of legerdemain with yet another and another, etc; and it can do all this while remaining the perpetual victim (remember Sderot!)
Politics
Willie Walsh is trying to bust the union
Richard Seymour — May 24, 2010 0 Comments
The cabin crew staff, for their part, have been patient and tolerant. They have accepted voluntary redundancies and wages cuts. BA workers have even worked for free when asked to do so. That is a staggering act of generosity toward their employers, an investment in the future of the company, which has been rewarded with outright malice and contempt. It is all the more astonishing when you consider that cabin crew salaries start at £12k a year, which is just on the poverty threshold. They have sought agreement at every stage and have been consistently rebuffed, and their good faith betrayed. They are at the end of their tether, forced to strike action by an aggressive management intent on smashing the union
Economics
Labourism and the working class
Richard Seymour — May 11, 2010 0 Comments
So don’t believe the hype – New Labour is not so much dead as undead. Like the zombie banks, it will roll ahead on life support for the foreseeable future, even as it further hacks away at its base, the very support system that keeps it animated. It is not about to emerge from a period of chrysalis as a beautiful, vibrant new life form. The secular trend remains for Labour to increasingly erode its position in the working class, for party identifications to decrease, for exclusively parliamentary politics to become less and less relevant
Politics
Immigration and the BNP
Richard Seymour — April 20, 2010 0 Comments
Strategically, then, one obvious response is to mobilise the anti-fascist vote in the short-term, and combat the broader climate of racism in the medium-term. Long-term, we have to be about rebuilding the Left in those areas, getting workers in the new industries organised, and (re)constructing a radical left-wing electoral challenge to New Labour
Editor's Pick, Politics
Revolution in Kyrgyzstan: nothing to do with tulips
Richard Seymour — April 13, 2010 0 Comments
If the ‘Tulip revolution’ wasn’t a precise replica of its Georgian and Ukrainian cousins, this revolt is as different as can be. Despite an extraordinarily violent crackdown by Bakiyev, the grassroots insurgency prevailed. Protesters succeeded in taking over police stations, weapons, even winning police over to their side. They have demonstrated that the state does not possess a tight control over the means of violence, and that therefore popular demands cannot be ignored or suppressed. The Social Democrats, despite attempting to take the reins of power, still don’t really control the country. If they attempt to control it with violence, they may face the same end as Bakiyev and Akayev
