How is women’s oppression connected to capitalism? Is Marxism too focused on economics at the expense of wider struggles? These questions have been at the heart of debates around Marxism and feminism since the 1970s.
New activists are discussing them in the wake of the women’s marches against Donald Trump, the #MeToo campaign and the fantastic vote for abortion rights in Ireland.
Many readers of Socialist Review will be familiar with Mike Davis’s work. His books have always been innovate, whether looking at the massive growth of urban areas in Planet of Slums, or the horrific havoc caused by the imposition of the market on Britain’s colonies in Late Victorian Holocausts.
There are hard facts that have to be appreciated to understand the real lives of too many children in Britain today. Our children are the unhappiest children in Europe, mental distress among the young is a pandemic, foodbanks and child poverty are rampant and child on child violence and deaths blight cities like London.
Nobody knows the reality behind these facts better than Camilla Batmanghelidjh the founder of Kids Company. From its inception in 1996 its aim was to provide support to deprived inner city children.
Among the many books published in the 50th anniversary of the May ’68 revolt, this one stands out for its ability to hear from those directly involved. Through dozens of interviews with participants, Mitchell Abidor lets us feel the transformative power of mass struggle on individuals and society.
Students fighting the police on the barricades and 10 million workers on general strike made what had seemed impossible capable of being realised. And people found courage and new strengths.
Lip began as a watchmaking workshop in 1867 in Besançon in eastern France. By the 1960s it was a well-known and successful watch manufacturer. Lip was shaken by the political eruptions of May 1968 when the factory was occupied. Although Donald Reid’s magisterial book centres on events at Lip that started in 1973 it does acknowledge the impact of the preceding period; “the movement at Lip in 1973 developed directly out of May ‘68”.
They’ve trained me to become docile/ Don’t know how to shout or rebel/ How to complain or demand/ Only how to silently suffer exhaustion
In his monumental work, Weimar in Exile, Jean-Michel Palmier powerfully evokes the huge sense of loss, displacement and trauma that artists, writers and intellectuals faced when they were forced into exile from Nazi Germany as the fascist regime tightened its grip and control of the German state during the 1930s and then across Europe with the onset of war and occupation.
French media and politicians are lining up to attack Maryam Pougetoux, president of the student union at the Sorbonne in Paris after she appeared in a documentary about student protests. Maryam is Muslim, and wears the headscarf. It is a dark tale and one that truly highlights the extent of Islamophobia across the Channel.
The 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth has produced plenty of articles and books discussing his legacy. Few of these have had any real clarity on Marx’s actual ideas. So it is refreshing to read Michael Roberts’ short, but detailed, discussion on the relevance of Marx’s economic ideas.
